I have a pretty good sense when I'm in over my head and have no problem soliciting opinions from othersIn the interests of fairness, the French offered some 100% accurate advice at the very start and got hammered all across the US... I was there and couldn't believe it. They were called "retreat monkies", french fries were relabelled "freedom fries", senior diplomats were routinely libelled and slandered, champagne was boycotted, on and on it goes... if you check the archives you'll see that even posters on UT were taunted and abused for being French...
You can't pin all that on GWB.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1