The Clinton myth!

[Connielog]

Let me start of by stating that i dont have much of a political inclination, i sometimes lean towards left and sometimes towards right, but lately,some Clinton fans are getting on my nerves when they blame every single thing wrong in this world on Dubya. The worst was last saturday at a local pub when this girl went on a rant about how she thinks Bill Clinton is/was 'the GREATEST american president EVER'!

Now, i know George W Bush did a lot of questionable things, but Bill Clinton the greatest ever? I mean, where does this put the founding fathers? Lincoln? Ted Roosevelt? FDR? Truman/Eisenhower/Raegan? This was her argument :

1) Bill Clinton created 22 million jobs (??).

2) There were no wars.

3)People kept their jobs,homes,cars.

4)There was no economic crisis/recession.

And that somehow makes him the greatest ever. Now i dont know a whole lot about politics, but that somehow seemed absurd to me,a lot of folks on this forum are well versed in politics and economic policies,i just want to hear their opinions. Thanks.

[Coleporb]

I think you need the perspective of history to judge the Greatness of a President, and that perspective does not exist yet for Clinton. My inclination is that he will be middle of the road and not a candidate for Mt. Rushmore.
On the other hand a failure does not need the historical perspective, it is evident pretty much immediately. Dubya and the Cheney admin was a failure in my view as an abject liberal, and since they laid the ground for a huge opposition victory in terms of the executive and legislative branches must be so viewed by the conservatives.

[CNOJoel497]

I agree. I think Bush-Cheney failure was so mammoth that they probably make Clinton look better than what he was. But i don't think i'll ever call him the greatest ever,probably in the top 18 but definitely not in my top 10. In my quest to search for some facts about Bill, i did come across some critics who say that he kept the interest rates too low,which was the prelude to the .com/real estate bursts.

Also, the fact that CRA act was passed during his era in a democrats majority congress unleashed the beasts out of Freddie/Fannie..and his oversight on the Gramm-Leach-Bililey Act which wiped out the dividing line between retail and investment banks. There are some who argue that there was a surplus, there was indeed a budget surplus,but there was still a trade deficit and a growing national debt.

[CliftonOl]

i'm not a big fan of liars. both dubya and clinton stood in front of the american people and flat out lied. clinton to save his hide and dubya to promote a war.

[admin]

The Graham-Leach-Bililey Act passed with super-majority in the house/senate, meaning the president could not have effectively veto'ed the bill, even if he wanted to, which I don't think he wanted to.

I just wish he banged some hotties like JFK, then I would have completely understood his actions. Couldn't he have got a hot secretary? Jeez...Other than that, I don't really care. If the worse thing he did was bang some chicks on the side, I would have been ok with that. Selling missle technology to the Chinese trumps any sexual devience he did.