2006: A pretty good year for America...

[MaC]

Well, I say we're doing alright this year.  The economy's not bad.  Gas prices dropped from the 2.80 range to the 2.25 range.  There were no terrorist attacks.  There were no major natural disasters.  Not too much horrible happened in our country.  True, the Democrats did win, but them winning creates deadlock, and they were generally more conservative than their predecessors.
I take it as we've had a pretty good year (though I shouldn't speak now and possibly jinx it )
Your thoughts?

[Reaganfan]

No, it was not a good year. Iran and North Korea have emerged as significant threats, Iraq is still a mess, and we just barely stopped a "bigger than 9/11" terror attack. Also, the Democrats gained power.

[opebo]

Horrible year for most people, of course.

[TheresNoMoney]

2006 was a pretty horrible year for our country all around.

[Speed of Sound]

I gotta agree with the last three. This year was pretty sucky for us overall.

[Alcon]

No, it was not a good year. Iran and North Korea have emerged as significant threats, Iraq is still a mess, and we just barely stopped a "bigger than 9/11" terror attack. Also, the Democrats gained power.

I agree with this post in general, although I will change the last sentence to be, "the Democrats are widely considered to be relatively competent."  That means it must be a bad year.

[7,052,770]

It was horrible until the events of November 7 delivered us from doom.

[Gustaf]

Given that people voted for Democrats because the Republicans were THAT bad is an indication of how bad a year 2006 was. Given how things are going in the Middle East, yeah, this was not a good year for anyone.

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

No, I disagree.

I don't see how being in the middle of losing the War on Terror could make 2006 "good".  Temporary economic gain aside, it was a very bad year for the US.

And regardless if you're a Dem or a GOP, it is hard to find anything positive.

[Joe Republic]

I guess you could say I've had a pretty damn awful year, but I'm speaking selfishly.

As for the rest of the country, to be honest, it hasn't really seemed like 2006 has been particularly better or worse than most of the years preceding it.  In fact, I'd say that 2001 and 2005 were both far worse than 2006; simply due to the massive disasters that took place on American soil in both of those years.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Me--moderate bad.
Country--bad--especially after the election.  But hey, Saddam will be dead

[Nym90]

Overall quite bad, but I think 2007 will be a lot better given the new Congressional leadership.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

2006 was tolerable, but not good and not by any stretch of the imagination pretty good.  However, it easily could have been worse.

[CPT MikeyMike]

Depends how you look at it...

Economiclly - Pretty good. DJIA crossed the 12000 mark. Unemplyoment rate dropped.

Internationally - Iraq plauged the entire year and it's not getting better.  We haven't stopped Iran and I don't think the sanctions are going to do jack on them.

Politically - Too early to tell.  The election "might" give some hope for a better poltical year in '07 but we won't know until this time next year.

For me - It was a year of Iraq - What do you think I'm going to say about that?

[Soaring Eagle]

It was great until the 26th. I finally got the satisfaction of seeing America make the right choice.

[Sam Spade]

2006 was a pretty normal year all told.  Could've been worse, could've been better.

Certain things were worse than normal, certain things were better than normal, but that's the way things go. 

Was a pretty interesting year politically, however.

[MaC]

For all of you who said it was 'horrible', please tell me why.  I'm curious because the top posts were from Democrats and they won congress.

I'll say about Democrats getting elected-it's mostly on account of Bush not being able to work with a Republican congress.  People want to think "something" is getting done, even if it's not necessarily beneficial to them.  Since Bush's approval dropped to the 30s, it got harder for him to work with congress or really do much of anything.