Sadly it's not only Bushy boy. Clinton helped a lot, and it really start a long while before him. We went from the most protectionist country in the world, to pushing the 'Free Trade' mantra really hard. Either economy can be made to work, transitioning between the two takes a long time and tends to cause a LOT of problems for decades and decades along the way.
Basically our old protectionist policies had over inflated the dollar and US wealth. Free trade is like opening the drain pipe on the tank. We get screwed until the wealth levels even out across the globe or set of trading partners.
The sad part is, if we try to go back to protectionist policies to stop the wealth hemorrhage, it will end up stalling our economy hard. Since we don't have our manufacturing base any more, it would have to be rebuilt. Requiring a LOT of investment, that will be hard to do with tighter lending standards and a smaller pool of investors.
We're pretty much screwed either way. Either the US economy withers until we're matched with our trading partners, or we come to a grinding halt and have to rebuild nearly from scratch. Slow continuous pain, or re-break the leg to set the bone right pain. Somehow I'm not liking these options...