Thoughtful post. Can't justify Clinton as a person, and didn't trust him much as a politician. I'm hoping those people can just go away.

And, I do and did trust Clinton's political stances to be more consistent than Bushs'. Read a book recently by Bob Woodward about Clintons first budget, "The Agenda". There may have been a bit more to Clinton than I thought.

In line with his "It's the economy, stupid" campaign, he had decided what gave the US a competitive edge in the world was the infrastructure, roads, education, viable towns, and so on, and low long-term interest rates.

According to him, low long-term interest rates would allow capital investment in whatever needed the infrastructure, and the economy could grow.

He saw as the major block to lower long-term interest rates the federal deficit. It not only sucked up capital, but a higher deficit destroyed confidence in the people who de facto set long-term interest rates, the bond market. Greenspan helped him, in subtle, indirect ways, to see that.

So, whatever else one might say about him, he tried very, very hard to get the budget under control, even shutting down the government when the Rs wouldn't go for it. That became a political plus for him, but started out going for the Rs. It took guts to ride it out.

He had some success with it, and the idea took hold. In fact, his efforts to invest in the infrastructure suffered as people got more and more into cutting the deficit.

And, he was as sleazy as we could stand as a President. I think he should have been impeached, and convicted. I wrote the Senators who voted that he HADN'T lied that I was curious to know what IS a lie, or have they been in office too long?

That was a bit separate from his program. I thing GWBs sleaziness IS his political program. GWB may be a straight arrow, though I don't believe the potato chip or pretzel story, I suspect he was wasted. Politically his actions are consistent not with what he says, though.

Arf