Conservative Confusion

When a conservative admits that the country has gone downhill over the last eight years under Bush and the NeoCons, but claims that, if the Democrats had been in charge, things would be a lot worse, is s/he saying that all the misdeeds and mistakes that the Bush administration committed would have occurred anyway regardless of which party was in power? Is this claim an admission of malfeasance and misfeasance or merely a dodge to deny that the errant policies of the Far Right have brought us to the brink of economic ruin? I don't want to imagine conditions being a lot worse that they are now. Let's hope the Democrats do better over the next four years at least, if only in digging out of the hole left by the Bushites.