But before we get into that...

"And it seems that as Obama mania sweeps the educated classes, the party's struggling lower-income base still prefers Hillary. One reason is that they're less prone than their better-off party mates to vote out of an enthusiasm for stirring rhetoric or viral videos or a wish to play their part in a grand narrative of racial reconciliation."

The Clinton campaign is poised to release a coffee table book: 'Why People With Less Money And Less Education Are So Much Smarter'.

Anyhow - that aside, let's grab history's pendulum before it takes another wild swing, shall we? As far as Bill-Jeff's legacy goes, it's what any two-term President's legacy is going to be: mixed. There are things he did well. There are things he did not do well. He was, by and large, a good steward of domestic affairs (barring the odd burning compound). Abroad he was less successful - let's not forget that Bill Clinton's lack of foresight and poor judgment were directly responsible for the creation of the Balkan rape-camps.

Is WJC history's greatest monster? Don't worry Jimmy, your title is safe. Was he a good, or even a 'great' President? Depends on how you're grading (and whether or not you give him credit for creating the political atmosphere that resulted in two terms of Bush the Younger). But really, when you get right down to it, the reason why Hillary isn't trumpeting the glory-days of her husband's administration has nothing to do with any of that, does it?

Dems love Bill Clinton. But Bill Clinton isn't walking through that door. Whatever his faults and frailties, Bill was a dynamic, charismatic, forceful and statesman like executive - and Hillary needs to show that she possesses those same qualities. So far, she hasn't done that. Is it any surprise, therefore, that she's downplaying her husband's achievements? Don't they just make her look inferior by comparison?

lattelibertarian:

Abroad he was less successful - let's not forget that Bill Clinton's lack of foresight and poor judgment were directly responsible for the creation of the Balkan rape-camps.

Actually Clinton had more success than failures in the field of foriegn affairs than any Republican cares to admit. He had achieved far more than the current administration could ever dream of achieving.

Clinton was the one who engineered the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995, which ended the fighting in Bosnia. Thanks to the Dayton Peace Accords, Bosnia is a country that has improved greatly, and there is even hope of joining the EU one day. Clinton was the one who shut down the rape camps. Despite the flaws in the bombing campaigns in the former Yugoslavia in 1999, Clinton brought on a REAL military coalition, one with legitamacy. Not some sort of ad hoc "Coalition of the Willing".

Clinton had the forsight to realize that despite how horrible of a dictator Saddam Hussein is, overthrowing him and creating anarchy is worse. The best thing was to defang him, contain him, and prevent him from being an international pariah. He enforced the Northern-no-fly-zone, which protected the Kurds and gave them autonomy. We had no WMD's and free Kurds.

Isn't ironic that despite the pseudo-brovado of the Bush adminitration, in his refusal to negotiate with the North Koreans, because it "failed" under Clinton, Bush ended up negotiating with the North Koreans. When Clinton sent Jimmy Carter over there in 1994, the North Koreans did shut down their facilities and allowed international monitors in the country. They only restarted their program after Bush called them "evil". The fact of the matter is when it comes to nuclear weapons, you're in a constant state of negotiating. Trying to get the other side to hold off their production until the government collapses. That's what we did with the Soviets.

Under Bush, we saw the start of the Second Intifada, where Palestineans and Israelis exchanged fire every night, killing innocents on both sides. Bush allowed the Israeli hawks bomb Lebanon and bring that country to its knees. This only made residents of Haifa and northern Israel susceptible to rocket attacks from Hezbollah. Despite not getting any real success, Clinton did get both sides to talk. In the 1990's we saw a real reduction in terrorist attacks against Israelis and had more freedoms for Palestineans. Clinton was able to shut down the influence of the radicals on both sides.

Republicans like to claim that the Clinton administration did nothing in foreign affairs, in order to avoid the topic of their own imcompentancies in this field.