re: #2 ming
People seem to forget very quickly how dire the crisis was. Mr Obama’s administration made some mistakes (especially in hindsight), but things could have been much, much worse.

A picture is worth a thousand words. (From an article about the ECB on Angry Bear.)

Considering that the US was the epicentre of the crisis, and considering the political constraints, I think that the administration’s response to the crisis was quite as effective in protecting GDP; not so effective with regard to jobs, though.