Do you consider Clinton an effective president or more of a caretaker?

[fujiyama]

I remember hearing the term "caretaker" president a while back. We know who those were or rather, don't. There were several of them from reconstruction to the time of Theodore Roosevelt...Many did little. They got involved in petty scandals and most have been forgotten to a majority of Americans.

Bill Clinton obviously won't be forgotten, if anything, for his political skills, and his being the target of a RW witch-hunt over a consensual affair ending with his impeachment.

All said and done, do you think Clinton's impact as the first post Cold War president had a greater impact than Reagan though? Personally I can't figure out why Reagan is rated so highly be many. It's been shown that his supposed greatest accomplishment in bringing down the SU is bunk.. But it looks like myths are hard to break. I supposed he was effective in establishing conservatism as the norm in the American psyche.

[aquart]

1. Peace and prosperity a problem for you?

Think a balanced budget is a bad idea? He enhanced our standing in the world, which Bush has destroyed. He worked hard at whittling down the outrageous Reagan debt. (Well, we thought it was bad at the time. Now, it would seem piffling.)

The rightwing spent a fortune of our money to destroy him because he was NOT their best friend. So go figure what the demonizing is about now.

He signed NAFTA and banking deregulation, two very bad ideas. He failed to get us health care. He failed to stop gay harassment in the military.

In some ways, I would consider him a very weak president, because he kept trying to make nice to people who wanted him dead.

[dkf]

2. Under Bill we had peace and prosperity, but under Hillary we have the IWR.

Bill says he was against the Iraq war from the start and Hillary votes to authorize war. They are two different people and it looks like Bill makes better decisions than Hillary.

[StevieM]

3. I think he'll go down in history as the 2nd best president since WW2--Hillary will be #1 (eom)

x

[sandnsea]

4. Privatization, deregulation, welfare reform, trade

Reagan ushered all of that in. I don't know how anybody cannot understand the influence of Reagan. People who hate government and love business, love Reagan. I don't understand why that's hard to figure out either.

[Seeker30]

7. You mean people that love greedy business

since Reagan was all about busting unions.

[lapfog_1]

5. To fairly rate Bill Clinton

I think you first have to eliminate all of the Monica/Whitewater/Paula Jones crap. It was all trumped up.

Bill tried to steer a path of social and economic centrism, approving (or even cheer leading) free trade while holding some of the excesses of the Reagan years for social change (the Meese commission and the like) at bay. And yet, he still allowed to some very anti-gay political fights to make it into law.

The one big accomplishment of his administration was to keep the budget in line, and he ended his term with one of the few federal budget surpluses in my lifetime. And while the right may have railed at him for not approving every military weapons request, the US played a mostly effective role as leader of the world's police force. But even while he had some success there (Kosovo, the Baltic states) he also had some failures as well (Somalia, Rwanda).

I certainly would not characterize his administration as being one of a "caretaker", that label would be more fairly applied to GHW Bush's four years.

As to why Reagan gets credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union, he just happened to be President when the Soviets finally went broke (perhaps as WE are about to do here, and for the same reasons). It had been the policy of the US since the early fifties to engage the Soviets in an economic war by competing with them in a wasteful arms race... each country trying to outdo the other with military spending. The strain on the less efficient centralized planning economy of the Soviets finally led to their downfall... in no small part the straw that broke the camels back being a war in Afghanistan (how does this sound familiar???). Reagan was the anti-communist ideologue who happened to be in office when the Soviets finally realized they were broke. However, even though the Soviet government is gone, I think it's too early to claim the end of the Soviet/Russian empire. It is rebuilding even as we have recklessly spend our resources trying to establish an American global empire.

The major failing of the Clinton years was one of legacy... he failed at getting his chosen successor installed for another 8 years (Al Gore). And mostly because of his private failings that became public.

[Radical Activist]

6. Clinton did good things but he has very little lasting legacy.

Most of what he accomplished was erased within two years of the Bush administration. That doesn't compare to Presidents like FDR, LBJ and Lincoln who had accomplishments that changed America for decades.

[JI7]

8. he was as good as almost any Democrat could have been

but he wasn't great. he seemed too willing to compromise in order to secure his own personal victory. but not when it came to congress and other areas where republicans took over.

he won both times with less than half the votes.

Reagan's high ratings is more for leaving a stronger Republican Party. but he was a disaster in terms of policy and what he did for the country.

[izquierdista]

9. Clinton's biggest accomplishment

The thing that Clinton will be remembered for is balancing the budget and starting to pay down the national debt. Now, before Reagan, that would not be considered much of an accomplishment, just something that you naturally do, like walking with your head facing forward. But since Evil St. Ronnie made walking around with your head up your ass look so natural, balancing a budget seems like working miracles.

Clinton in actuality, was NOT a liberal. National health care stalled out within months of his taking office; "don't ask, don't tell" was as progressive as telling more people to try to pass as "high-yellow" would have been in the days of segregation; "ending welfare as we know it" was another capitulation, not progress. The worst, though, was NAFTA, the program to export jobs and import low-wage foreign workers. Remember, Clinton ran in '92 as a conservative Southern governor who was pro capital punishment and a fiscal conservative (when that meant balancing a budget).

If you compare Clinton with Eisenhower, I think you can reasonably say that Eisenhower was the more liberal of the two. Eisenhower actually built up the country with his advocacy of the interstate highway system and warned against the military industrial complex, something that Clinton never tried to go up against.

Clinton was only a respite that allowed the country to recover after 12 years of Reagan and Bush I. Can you imagine how bad the country would be if it had gone according to Herbert Wanker's plan, two terms for George H.W. and then two for Dubya?