As is easily seen, FAR more jobs were lost in the recession Obama was dealing with. 4% more of the populace lost jobs. That meant there were far more jobs available to regain in 'rebound'. For Bush to regain the same total number of jobs that Obama did, he would have not been 'recovering', but actually pushing into greater than full employment territory.

If I have a company of 100 people, and I lay off 50 at one point, but only 25 at another, if things pick up again, it's going to be a lot easier for me to rehire 40 of the 50 I laid off than to rehire 40 of the 25 I laid off the other time. I'd actually have to grow the business 15% to rehire 40 after only laying off 25, while in the other, deeper cut, I could re-employ those 40 even though the business had shrunk 10%.

I like Krugman, but there's context missing from that chart.