Setting the bar a bit high

Bush remarked regarding the money he's thrown at the credit crisis that he didn't want to be known as the next Herbert Hoover. Given that he is likely to end up at the very bottom of the presidential rankings along with Buchanan, Harding and Pierce, I'd say he'd have to work his way up to Hoover before that became an issue.

Hoover had failed to arrest the progress of the Depression and he made the mistake of signing the Smoot-Hawley tariff into law, but he had a solid list of accomplishments both before being in office that is far superior to Dubya's history of failure followed by bailouts from his father's friends. Hoover was a SUCESSFUL businessman. During WWI, his relief efforts for Belgian civilians made him a hero in that country and, after the war, expanded those efforts to combat famine in much of the rest of Europe. As Commerce Secretary, he handled relief efforts for the Great Mississippi Flood much better than the Bush administration handled Katrina.

Hoover as President was a competent technocrat who couldn't think outside the box in a situation that required it. Bush probably can't even pronounce "competent technocrat".