I'm not here to defend GW Bush. He did many stupid things. But I don't recall a lot of criticism around his "pre-9/11 mismanagement". Can you offer some specifics? The hunt for Osama Bin Laden started (at least) with Clinton and continued with GW Bush. Unfortunately, neither was able to stop him before the 9/11 attacks.
It's well-known that the FBI and CIA had information that, if they'd been more amenable to collaboration, probably would have led them to the conclusion that an attack was imminent. The entire reason why the DHS was created was because the jealous compartmentalization of each agency's intelligence is why we didn't catch it.
There was a cottage industry in elaborating the theory that Bush and his administration were unnecessarily caught flat-footed or even knew the attacks were imminent.
He seemed more interested in publicity and exaggerating his own bureaucratic importance than being objective—tendencies the political opposition and media were in no mood to criticize.
