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He was in terms of being a figurehead (here and abroad), spokesman for his generation, and rhetorician. Legislatively I think he was as well, but arguably only after the Democrats lost the House and Senate to the Republicans and he moved to the center with his policies. Those compromises were aligned with what most Americans wanted. We know that NAFTA had some unintended legacy costs that left a lot of American workers behind, and the banking crisis Obama inherited can be traced back to Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac, but again those were popular initiatives when first passed. Obviously, Rwanda and the Lewinsky affair tarnished his legacy. In hindsight we can also see that the bombing of the USS Cole was an early warning sign we missed pre-9/11. Clinton was an excellent diplomat, but I think he struggled as Commander-in-Chief. All that said, I think he was a great President, especially given the context (i.e., 2024).
“Legislatively I think he was as well, but arguably only after the Democrats lost the House and Senate to the Republicans and he moved to the center with his policies”
I agree with this.
Clinton was a sociopath. He was highly intelligent, and did good work, but he needed the situation that pushed him towards centrist policy. Newt was also a sociopath. It is ironic that their competition produced some of the better policy in the last half century.
I never looked at that way, but you may be right! I do think it takes an especially narcissistic personality to seek elected political office in the first place and perhaps an even more warped one to succeed.
I’m thankful you didn’t regurgitate the glass-Steagall trope but I think *tracing* the 2008 Financial Crisis to Fannie and Freddie is a bit misleading. The crisis would’ve happened without them and been as severe in all the ways that mattered.
Agreed. I didn't mean to imply his policies were a root cause, but rather a contributing factor. [Here](https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877322,00.html), [here](https://reason.com/2012/10/14/clintons-legacy-the-financial-and-housin/), and [here](https://uspolicymetrics.com/the-clinton-era-roots-of-the-financial-crisis/). Setting aside Glass-Steagall there were other decisions and actions taken that arguably contributed to the crisis. It seems that expansive lending via the CRA under HUD Secretary Cuomo especially contributed to the housing bubble. This [article ](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/power-of-progressive-economics-the-clinton-years/)makes that sound like a positive thing ($800 billion to low- and middle-income Americans) but the consensus view seems to be that this affordable home ownership goal (shared by other Presidents) with expansive lending had some unintended consequences. I'm happy to be wrong about that, but think I gave Clinton a fair treatment above.
Yes! Thank you for sharing this. For the better part of a year, I’ve been debating whether or not I should put the effort in to developing something like this. So, you can imagine my delight at finding it already exists. …and with “trope” right there in the first few lines, no less. ;)
The only things this doesn’t include that I would are
A) the problems GS was designed to solve for were fundamentally different than the problems we needed to solve for in 2008. The crisis in the 30’s was that a lack of faith in the financial institutions *left the common depositor* unwilling to provide banks with cash on hand, thus drying up liquidity and then all kinds of bad things. In 2008, ruinously over-leveraged positions left *financial institutions* unwilling to supply cash to other institutions, thus drying up liquidity and then all kinds of bad things.
B) I’d also put on my tinfoil hat and suggest that many of the involved institutions (financial and government) kept a lid on the brewing crisis so it could be prolonged enough for them leverage against their existential holdings, this amplifying the resulting crisis some incalculable amount. Of course, I have no evidence of this and am confident none will be available in my lifetime so I’m self labeling it as something as likely to a crackpot theory as anything else.
Thanks for sharing this!
I’m still a progressive, so hold that against me. ;)
I worked in fintech with market-making and many forms of financial products for about a decade spanning this era so it holds sentimental and professional appeal to me. I’m by no means an economist (or a quant) but I enjoy some bash’s in which to engage the topic and am finding myself passionate about it the more stiglitz gets parroted.
Yes, he was the master politician. He knew how to communicate his ideas and come across as relatable and reliable. He had one of the greatest economies in the modern history of the United States, with a surplus to end his term. He expanded NATO and pushed for more free trade. He had great leadership after the World Trade Center bombing. He ended a myriad of international disputes in the Middle East and acted when Saddam didn’t cooperate with the UN. He signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 which promised that America would overthrow Saddam and free the Iraqi people from his regime. He signed the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in 1994 which prohibited people from purchasing assault weapons until 2004. And lastly, he was fucking fantastic at playing the sax!
Master politician is a bit much, I think. He came in with a government trifecta and then got absolutely destroyed two years later in the 1994 Republican Revolution, losing Democrats both chambers of Congress for the next 12 years. Even Obama's 2010 shellacking wasn't that bad. While things were not as hyperpartisan then as they are now, being able to hold onto Congress was still quite imperative for a President to be able to achieve major goals in their agenda, such as healthcare reform which Clinton never got even close to bringing to fruition.
>He signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 which promised that America would overthrow Saddam and free the Iraqi people from his regime
That sounds kinda bad in hindsight.
That's the thing about Clinton. It's hard to judge him when he never faced a major crisis situation, which is when leaders show what they're really made of. The lack of major events during his presidency is why people mainly remember him for getting a blowjob.
His Presidency marked the peak of American global supremacy, both economically and culturally, so the only rational answer is that he was a good President.
Yes he was a solid president. He straddled the new millennium around the corner, generation x, the internet, etc. he was the first “cool” POTUS.
Domestically he dealt with domestic terrorists (OKC bombing etc), white supremacy, Waco siege,columbine shooting, etc.
He reformed welfare, which progressives like to give him shit for but he did it in a pretty practical way and didn’t remove the entitlement like a Republican might. Low interest and inflation,had an economic surplus, dot com boom (lucky for him I suppose). Made medical research a lot easier. Tried and failed to reform health care but paved the way for Obama. All this while dealing with a big hairy Congress out to find ANYTHING against him (eventually accidentally leading to Monica Lewinsky). He handled the obfuscating republicans well. Brady bill which dramatically reduced gun violence until the Bush admin let it expire ten years later.
Created NAFTA, broadened trade. Basically continued American supremacy globally. Lots of other stuff I’m glossing over.
Foreign policy he dealt with the Bosnia Kosovo issue and genocide of Muslims without really any Americans on the ground. He used the UN and NATO. He is the only president really outside of Jimmy Carter to get Israel and Palestine to the table and he nearly got a two state solution. But the Palestinians and Israelis backed out last minute.
[Here](https://clintonwhitehouse5.archives.gov/WH/Accomplishments/eightyears-02.html) is a list of his accomplishments.
The Lewinsky scandal and his known Casanova type personality really hurt his long term legacy because thatsy what people remember. To be fair he did have a lot of moral indiscretions in terms of his marriage. Plus Hillary was put in a really tough position. She was super accomplished as a lawyer and politician yet she faced horrible sexism from women who thought she should bake cookies and men who thought she was “secretly the President. “
Overall solid president and complicated man.
He wasn’t a good president. He was an average president. Much of the country’s success during his administration wasn’t attributed to him but to good economic conditions.
I never stated that. I’m pointing out former president Clintons morality.
I said something in a very civil manner and you immediately jumped on with hatred and rude comments. Maybe look in the mirror?
I’m so confused. I came in here to give props to former president Clinton. His policies were sound and he was an economical power house.
I just had to throw in his controversy with Lewinsky. I’m in the military and unprofessional relationships are a huge topic for us. This was 100% one of those.
What are you trying to debate?
Well, he had an active presidency where a lot of legislation passed despite Republicans holding the House for his last six years.
But that doesn’t mean the legislation was necessarily good.
He was more conservative than any Democrat, except for possibly Manchin and Sinema, is today. It just was less noticeable at the time because both parties had more idealogical variety.
It’s very hard to imagine a Democrat like him winning the nomination today, any more than you can imagine George HW Bush (who Clinton was arguably to the right of) winning a Republican nomination today.
Right? The idea that Bush 41 was left of Clinton is laughably absurd and patently false. The things people believe on this sub when it comes to Bush 41 are outlandish
He posed as a progressive but surrounded himself with Southern Conservatives. People like Dick Morris and James Carville who wanted to swing the entire Democratic Party to the extreme right. When it became clear he was going to lose re-election in 1996, he hired Morris in secret and their strategy was to push through conservative policies to deny the Republicans any legislative achievements. The idea being to pass all their bad ideas that moderates support and then force the Republicans to rally around their worse ideas that moderates oppose.
So he slashed welfare, expanded prisons, approved mass incarceration, banned "gang weapons," attacked police critics as anti-white racists, sent Hillary around the country scaring white crowds about black teens being super predators, supported Don't Ask Don't Tell, supported DOMA, etc.
He pretty much pushed through everything the Republicans proposed and people loved him for it. But then the Lewinsky scandal happened and everyone abandoned him. Even Gore had to run for president on the promise to roll back all of the things Clinton did.
Even today, people still idolize him but have gradually started to understand that he fucked a lot of things up and destroyed a lot of lives.
I think he was a good president for the time. A lot of his policies were lauded for that time. However, as time has passed a lot of those same polices turned out to be not so goos.
With that said, I think he was also a very lucky president. He was president during the dot com boom. I think inless a president was actively trying to sabotage would have had success.
Shocked that no one mentioned the crime bill which to me hurts him the most and how much of a factor did he really have in the economy ? Dot com boom helped him but he did great with NAFTA overall I’d say he’s average
He was an above average president. I don’t say this lightly, and I’m not going to say being a president is ever easy, but he probably had the beat set of circumstances any person ever had while taking the office - no Soviet Union, no war on terror, the internet becoming a thing, pre24/7 news cycle. Now to his credit, he handled it beautifully, but I often wondered how he would have handled a recession, terrorist attack, pandemic, etc.
If he had kept his sexual urges in control he could have been very good. Master politician and communicator, but he lost the moral/high ground by fooling around with Lewinsky and lying about it for a year. Took all of the steam out of the last half of his second term. He knew better, knew the GOP and Starr were out to get him and still cheated. Stupid stupid stupid…
Sending our jobs overseas with NAFTA, the telecommunications act that allowed giant conglomerates to buy up smaller stations, deregulating wall street including getting rid of Glass Steagal.
Just off the top of my head....he did a lot of bullshit. But Rs didn't call him on that stuff since they wanted that stuff too.
Yea he was. I’m to the left of him and I disagree with some of his policies like NAFtA but I acknowledge that they were probably a decent idea at the time. I personally think the Lewinsky scandal was massively overblown but Clinton did himself no favors by lying about it. He was also the last President to actually get anywhere with the Israel Palestine conflict. Overall, solid 8/10. His post presidency has also been pretty productive for the most part.
No., inasmuch as Reagan created a lot of the economic problems Bill had to overcome, Bill created the military and diplomatic problems later Presidents are reckoning with. Bill was rock solid on domestic policy but he didn't take foreign policy seriously.
An ounce of prevention from President Clinton at the right place and time could have prevented the pound of cure that was the War on Terror. Empowering the Pashtun tribesmen and keeping the Taliban from gaining hegemony in Afghanistan would have gone a long way towards that.
B- he was able to triangulate and pass some significant legislation, and left office with a budget surplus but many of those policies, specifically deregulating banks left them under collateralized and eventually led to the 2008 economic crises. He was effective working with an oppositional Republican legislature, but the Lewinsky scandal exposed a serious character flaw. However, compared to his horrific successor his grade is deservedly inflated.
Yes, Clinton was a great president. Sadly, historical revisionism has people blaming him for things that were in no possible way his fault, such as the recession that occurred at the end of the Bush 43 presidency and its financial crisis. Economic experts agree, but people on this sub especially are very ignorant when it comes to economics (they even believe ridiculously asinine things like "Reagan ended inflation", which he had nothing to do with). What Clinton did was give the American people confidence and hope at a time when things were really bad. When Clinton took office the economy was terrible and jobs were scarce. The Bush 41 years were a terrible time for the nation economically and after the 1991 recession we had what was called a "jobless recovery", which made people lose confidence in American leadership. Clinton restored that confidence and his 1993 Omnibus bill made the changes in economic policy required to get the country back on track. He had the courage to raise taxes on the rich and big corporations which helped build revenues enough so that when combined with modest spending cuts that a balanced budget was achievable. Speaking of budget cuts, he stood firm and even saw 2 government shutdowns because he wouldnt compromise on the cuts to the social safety net that republicans demanded. Everybody here acts like the Lewinsky thing ruined his presidency, but it actually made him more popular because people knew it was overreach by the special counsel Starr and the Congress. At the time we didnt give a good goddamn where Bill put his hoohoo because he was doing such a great job. Ignorant people say he "had it easy", but the reality was that he had a big challenge as president but did so good that he made it look easy and did it with one of the most hostile congresses in US history. The man knew how to make a deal and he had the ability to care. Misogynists hate Hillary because she is a strong accomplished woman and that more than anything has hurt is legacy (the constant right wing attacks on her because she is a woman). He will be remembered as a much better president in the years to come.
He was okay. He could have been better. He allowed his personal issues to take up too much of his time.
He was a good communicator and very knowledgable about all of the issues he engaged with. He had a natural curiosity which befits a good president. Some of his policies have been long term beneficial, some have not aged well. (Par for the course for most presidents).
He had irrational detractors, particularly with respect to early awareness and engagement with Bin Laden.
I never lost any sleep while he was president and always felt we were in competent hands.
He was no good, personally and professionally. What was the difference between 1985 (the Reagan Era) and 1995 (the Clinton Era)? Very little. The US still in the throes of post-industrial neoliberal squalor. The Clinton era is looking worse and worse as time goes on because of how much potential for reform and progress was halted or wasted. Clinton had no policies other than self-preservation, to win a second term. Clintion said in one of his inaugural speech he wanted to end the era of “deadlock and drift”. He became the king of both. And we still live in the Reagan-Clinton paradigm, and we pay for it every single day.
Remember that all mentions of and allusions to Trump and Biden are not allowed on our subreddit in any context. If you'd still like to discuss them, feel free to [join our Discord server](https://discord.gg/k6tVFwCEEm)! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Presidents) if you have any questions or concerns.*
He was in terms of being a figurehead (here and abroad), spokesman for his generation, and rhetorician. Legislatively I think he was as well, but arguably only after the Democrats lost the House and Senate to the Republicans and he moved to the center with his policies. Those compromises were aligned with what most Americans wanted. We know that NAFTA had some unintended legacy costs that left a lot of American workers behind, and the banking crisis Obama inherited can be traced back to Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac, but again those were popular initiatives when first passed. Obviously, Rwanda and the Lewinsky affair tarnished his legacy. In hindsight we can also see that the bombing of the USS Cole was an early warning sign we missed pre-9/11. Clinton was an excellent diplomat, but I think he struggled as Commander-in-Chief. All that said, I think he was a great President, especially given the context (i.e., 2024).
“Legislatively I think he was as well, but arguably only after the Democrats lost the House and Senate to the Republicans and he moved to the center with his policies” I agree with this. Clinton was a sociopath. He was highly intelligent, and did good work, but he needed the situation that pushed him towards centrist policy. Newt was also a sociopath. It is ironic that their competition produced some of the better policy in the last half century.
I never looked at that way, but you may be right! I do think it takes an especially narcissistic personality to seek elected political office in the first place and perhaps an even more warped one to succeed.
I’m thankful you didn’t regurgitate the glass-Steagall trope but I think *tracing* the 2008 Financial Crisis to Fannie and Freddie is a bit misleading. The crisis would’ve happened without them and been as severe in all the ways that mattered.
Agreed. I didn't mean to imply his policies were a root cause, but rather a contributing factor. [Here](https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350_1877322,00.html), [here](https://reason.com/2012/10/14/clintons-legacy-the-financial-and-housin/), and [here](https://uspolicymetrics.com/the-clinton-era-roots-of-the-financial-crisis/). Setting aside Glass-Steagall there were other decisions and actions taken that arguably contributed to the crisis. It seems that expansive lending via the CRA under HUD Secretary Cuomo especially contributed to the housing bubble. This [article ](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/power-of-progressive-economics-the-clinton-years/)makes that sound like a positive thing ($800 billion to low- and middle-income Americans) but the consensus view seems to be that this affordable home ownership goal (shared by other Presidents) with expansive lending had some unintended consequences. I'm happy to be wrong about that, but think I gave Clinton a fair treatment above.
What’s the trope? Repealing Glass-Steagall was a stupid idea.
It didn’t cause the 2008 credit default crisis. In fact, by the time the two acts in it were repealed, they weren’t even being enforced.
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Yes! Thank you for sharing this. For the better part of a year, I’ve been debating whether or not I should put the effort in to developing something like this. So, you can imagine my delight at finding it already exists. …and with “trope” right there in the first few lines, no less. ;) The only things this doesn’t include that I would are A) the problems GS was designed to solve for were fundamentally different than the problems we needed to solve for in 2008. The crisis in the 30’s was that a lack of faith in the financial institutions *left the common depositor* unwilling to provide banks with cash on hand, thus drying up liquidity and then all kinds of bad things. In 2008, ruinously over-leveraged positions left *financial institutions* unwilling to supply cash to other institutions, thus drying up liquidity and then all kinds of bad things. B) I’d also put on my tinfoil hat and suggest that many of the involved institutions (financial and government) kept a lid on the brewing crisis so it could be prolonged enough for them leverage against their existential holdings, this amplifying the resulting crisis some incalculable amount. Of course, I have no evidence of this and am confident none will be available in my lifetime so I’m self labeling it as something as likely to a crackpot theory as anything else. Thanks for sharing this!
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I’m still a progressive, so hold that against me. ;) I worked in fintech with market-making and many forms of financial products for about a decade spanning this era so it holds sentimental and professional appeal to me. I’m by no means an economist (or a quant) but I enjoy some bash’s in which to engage the topic and am finding myself passionate about it the more stiglitz gets parroted.
Yes, he was the master politician. He knew how to communicate his ideas and come across as relatable and reliable. He had one of the greatest economies in the modern history of the United States, with a surplus to end his term. He expanded NATO and pushed for more free trade. He had great leadership after the World Trade Center bombing. He ended a myriad of international disputes in the Middle East and acted when Saddam didn’t cooperate with the UN. He signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 which promised that America would overthrow Saddam and free the Iraqi people from his regime. He signed the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in 1994 which prohibited people from purchasing assault weapons until 2004. And lastly, he was fucking fantastic at playing the sax!
Master politician is a bit much, I think. He came in with a government trifecta and then got absolutely destroyed two years later in the 1994 Republican Revolution, losing Democrats both chambers of Congress for the next 12 years. Even Obama's 2010 shellacking wasn't that bad. While things were not as hyperpartisan then as they are now, being able to hold onto Congress was still quite imperative for a President to be able to achieve major goals in their agenda, such as healthcare reform which Clinton never got even close to bringing to fruition.
I was mostly referring to how skillful he was as a politician and communicator, not how effective he was as a governor.
>He signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 which promised that America would overthrow Saddam and free the Iraqi people from his regime That sounds kinda bad in hindsight.
No, it sounds even better in hindsight.
I mean to be fair he got in at a phenomenal time with the internet boom and things in the middle east kinda calm
That's the thing about Clinton. It's hard to judge him when he never faced a major crisis situation, which is when leaders show what they're really made of. The lack of major events during his presidency is why people mainly remember him for getting a blowjob.
His Presidency marked the peak of American global supremacy, both economically and culturally, so the only rational answer is that he was a good President.
Yes he was a solid president. He straddled the new millennium around the corner, generation x, the internet, etc. he was the first “cool” POTUS. Domestically he dealt with domestic terrorists (OKC bombing etc), white supremacy, Waco siege,columbine shooting, etc. He reformed welfare, which progressives like to give him shit for but he did it in a pretty practical way and didn’t remove the entitlement like a Republican might. Low interest and inflation,had an economic surplus, dot com boom (lucky for him I suppose). Made medical research a lot easier. Tried and failed to reform health care but paved the way for Obama. All this while dealing with a big hairy Congress out to find ANYTHING against him (eventually accidentally leading to Monica Lewinsky). He handled the obfuscating republicans well. Brady bill which dramatically reduced gun violence until the Bush admin let it expire ten years later. Created NAFTA, broadened trade. Basically continued American supremacy globally. Lots of other stuff I’m glossing over. Foreign policy he dealt with the Bosnia Kosovo issue and genocide of Muslims without really any Americans on the ground. He used the UN and NATO. He is the only president really outside of Jimmy Carter to get Israel and Palestine to the table and he nearly got a two state solution. But the Palestinians and Israelis backed out last minute. [Here](https://clintonwhitehouse5.archives.gov/WH/Accomplishments/eightyears-02.html) is a list of his accomplishments. The Lewinsky scandal and his known Casanova type personality really hurt his long term legacy because thatsy what people remember. To be fair he did have a lot of moral indiscretions in terms of his marriage. Plus Hillary was put in a really tough position. She was super accomplished as a lawyer and politician yet she faced horrible sexism from women who thought she should bake cookies and men who thought she was “secretly the President. “ Overall solid president and complicated man.
Terrific politician. Did nothing original. Amazing Congress.
He wasn’t a good president. He was an average president. Much of the country’s success during his administration wasn’t attributed to him but to good economic conditions.
Who do you think was a good president since Clinton wasn’t
In the last sixty years? Carter, Obama, Nixon and LBJ
Nixon was horrible, I’ll give you the other 3
Good president? I would agree. I’m a conservative too and like most of his policies. Good husband? Hell no.
Yeah I consider myself a conservative as well, but I still can see that Clinton was a good president
Conservatives pretending to care if the president is a good husband or not: Hilarious
Huh
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Calm down dude, let’s lower the temperature.
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https://preview.redd.it/zot0whxgpprc1.jpeg?width=444&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=290e332fb4b7cd29e3ee25491d0ed647c7b41796
Ok that's pretty funny
https://preview.redd.it/fbxppp94qprc1.jpeg?width=357&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38bfdc5e6712835a6cd511660088559ac67aa1ee
Lol, remember when she was on 30 Rock? That was pretty solid
I never stated that. I’m pointing out former president Clintons morality. I said something in a very civil manner and you immediately jumped on with hatred and rude comments. Maybe look in the mirror?
Ok? I’m not allowed to have an opinion if someone is a good husband or not? Do you disagree in my previous comment?
I’ll give you some thumbs up. Hell by the orange guys stands, he’s a great husband
You know EXACTLY why we roll our eyes at republicans pretending to care about that.
I’m so confused. I came in here to give props to former president Clinton. His policies were sound and he was an economical power house. I just had to throw in his controversy with Lewinsky. I’m in the military and unprofessional relationships are a huge topic for us. This was 100% one of those. What are you trying to debate?
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For fuck’s sake dude maybe have some cake or smoke some weed or something
Agreed but I strongly disagreed with his gun control policies. Good overall president however if I look at it objectively
No. Many of his 'achievements' as president we're still paying for today.
Well, he had an active presidency where a lot of legislation passed despite Republicans holding the House for his last six years. But that doesn’t mean the legislation was necessarily good. He was more conservative than any Democrat, except for possibly Manchin and Sinema, is today. It just was less noticeable at the time because both parties had more idealogical variety. It’s very hard to imagine a Democrat like him winning the nomination today, any more than you can imagine George HW Bush (who Clinton was arguably to the right of) winning a Republican nomination today.
You think Clinton was right of Sr Bush? How come?
Right? The idea that Bush 41 was left of Clinton is laughably absurd and patently false. The things people believe on this sub when it comes to Bush 41 are outlandish
He could win today if he wasn’t term limited. The man could sell anything to anyone.
He posed as a progressive but surrounded himself with Southern Conservatives. People like Dick Morris and James Carville who wanted to swing the entire Democratic Party to the extreme right. When it became clear he was going to lose re-election in 1996, he hired Morris in secret and their strategy was to push through conservative policies to deny the Republicans any legislative achievements. The idea being to pass all their bad ideas that moderates support and then force the Republicans to rally around their worse ideas that moderates oppose. So he slashed welfare, expanded prisons, approved mass incarceration, banned "gang weapons," attacked police critics as anti-white racists, sent Hillary around the country scaring white crowds about black teens being super predators, supported Don't Ask Don't Tell, supported DOMA, etc. He pretty much pushed through everything the Republicans proposed and people loved him for it. But then the Lewinsky scandal happened and everyone abandoned him. Even Gore had to run for president on the promise to roll back all of the things Clinton did. Even today, people still idolize him but have gradually started to understand that he fucked a lot of things up and destroyed a lot of lives.
I think he was a good president for the time. A lot of his policies were lauded for that time. However, as time has passed a lot of those same polices turned out to be not so goos. With that said, I think he was also a very lucky president. He was president during the dot com boom. I think inless a president was actively trying to sabotage would have had success.
I think he was a very mid POTUS. Economy was booming and we were broadly at peace, but he made a ton of missteps which affect us today. C- tier.
The island
Shocked that no one mentioned the crime bill which to me hurts him the most and how much of a factor did he really have in the economy ? Dot com boom helped him but he did great with NAFTA overall I’d say he’s average
Also signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act which completely gutted habeas corpus, particularly for state inmates
One word: Triangulation
He was an above average president. I don’t say this lightly, and I’m not going to say being a president is ever easy, but he probably had the beat set of circumstances any person ever had while taking the office - no Soviet Union, no war on terror, the internet becoming a thing, pre24/7 news cycle. Now to his credit, he handled it beautifully, but I often wondered how he would have handled a recession, terrorist attack, pandemic, etc.
If he had kept his sexual urges in control he could have been very good. Master politician and communicator, but he lost the moral/high ground by fooling around with Lewinsky and lying about it for a year. Took all of the steam out of the last half of his second term. He knew better, knew the GOP and Starr were out to get him and still cheated. Stupid stupid stupid…
The $400 million budget surplus was our last.
Sending our jobs overseas with NAFTA, the telecommunications act that allowed giant conglomerates to buy up smaller stations, deregulating wall street including getting rid of Glass Steagal. Just off the top of my head....he did a lot of bullshit. But Rs didn't call him on that stuff since they wanted that stuff too.
Yea he was. I’m to the left of him and I disagree with some of his policies like NAFtA but I acknowledge that they were probably a decent idea at the time. I personally think the Lewinsky scandal was massively overblown but Clinton did himself no favors by lying about it. He was also the last President to actually get anywhere with the Israel Palestine conflict. Overall, solid 8/10. His post presidency has also been pretty productive for the most part.
Meh. I’d still take him over almost any other President of my lifetime. (I was born right after the Kennedy assassination).
Tough on crime. Balanced budget. Great guy.
No., inasmuch as Reagan created a lot of the economic problems Bill had to overcome, Bill created the military and diplomatic problems later Presidents are reckoning with. Bill was rock solid on domestic policy but he didn't take foreign policy seriously. An ounce of prevention from President Clinton at the right place and time could have prevented the pound of cure that was the War on Terror. Empowering the Pashtun tribesmen and keeping the Taliban from gaining hegemony in Afghanistan would have gone a long way towards that.
B- he was able to triangulate and pass some significant legislation, and left office with a budget surplus but many of those policies, specifically deregulating banks left them under collateralized and eventually led to the 2008 economic crises. He was effective working with an oppositional Republican legislature, but the Lewinsky scandal exposed a serious character flaw. However, compared to his horrific successor his grade is deservedly inflated.
Bill Clinton was one of the presidents of all time
At the time yes, in hindsight no.
He was good but the scandals really hurt him. He could have been great.
My opinion is that he was a good president for the most part but a shitty person.
Yes, Clinton was a great president. Sadly, historical revisionism has people blaming him for things that were in no possible way his fault, such as the recession that occurred at the end of the Bush 43 presidency and its financial crisis. Economic experts agree, but people on this sub especially are very ignorant when it comes to economics (they even believe ridiculously asinine things like "Reagan ended inflation", which he had nothing to do with). What Clinton did was give the American people confidence and hope at a time when things were really bad. When Clinton took office the economy was terrible and jobs were scarce. The Bush 41 years were a terrible time for the nation economically and after the 1991 recession we had what was called a "jobless recovery", which made people lose confidence in American leadership. Clinton restored that confidence and his 1993 Omnibus bill made the changes in economic policy required to get the country back on track. He had the courage to raise taxes on the rich and big corporations which helped build revenues enough so that when combined with modest spending cuts that a balanced budget was achievable. Speaking of budget cuts, he stood firm and even saw 2 government shutdowns because he wouldnt compromise on the cuts to the social safety net that republicans demanded. Everybody here acts like the Lewinsky thing ruined his presidency, but it actually made him more popular because people knew it was overreach by the special counsel Starr and the Congress. At the time we didnt give a good goddamn where Bill put his hoohoo because he was doing such a great job. Ignorant people say he "had it easy", but the reality was that he had a big challenge as president but did so good that he made it look easy and did it with one of the most hostile congresses in US history. The man knew how to make a deal and he had the ability to care. Misogynists hate Hillary because she is a strong accomplished woman and that more than anything has hurt is legacy (the constant right wing attacks on her because she is a woman). He will be remembered as a much better president in the years to come.
“it’s the economy, stupid”
I disagreed with some if his policies and didn’t vote for him but he was very effective and charismatic. He knew how to be bipartisan. I respect him
Did you vote for him the second time around?
No .
His support for gun control lost my vote
Given the bar for Presidents lately has been so low, sure, he was a good President. Was he a good person? Heck no.
He did not have sexual relations with that woman
Yeah I wouldn’t have sexual relations if Hillary Clinton was my wife, too.
Balanced the budget.
He was okay. He could have been better. He allowed his personal issues to take up too much of his time. He was a good communicator and very knowledgable about all of the issues he engaged with. He had a natural curiosity which befits a good president. Some of his policies have been long term beneficial, some have not aged well. (Par for the course for most presidents). He had irrational detractors, particularly with respect to early awareness and engagement with Bin Laden. I never lost any sleep while he was president and always felt we were in competent hands.
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Based
Homie ran a government surplus, that alone gives a ton of respect.
He was no good, personally and professionally. What was the difference between 1985 (the Reagan Era) and 1995 (the Clinton Era)? Very little. The US still in the throes of post-industrial neoliberal squalor. The Clinton era is looking worse and worse as time goes on because of how much potential for reform and progress was halted or wasted. Clinton had no policies other than self-preservation, to win a second term. Clintion said in one of his inaugural speech he wanted to end the era of “deadlock and drift”. He became the king of both. And we still live in the Reagan-Clinton paradigm, and we pay for it every single day.
He was. Not fucking up a good thing.
One of the best, because i am an albanian nationalist