for the role he played in the Good Friday Agreement, he will forever be respected in my country. (but not as much as Senator George Mitchell).
He pushed and encouraged all sides when the negotiations were on the rocks, He stood up and took an interest when he didnt have to. He came over and rallied support. he was a true ally.
plus, he did a load of stuff in America, or something 
He did what every President does. He sat in that top seat, taking credit when things were going good and taking heat when they weren’t.
Suit yourself. “Persevering” is a verb of action, in my dictionary.
Keeping it from becoming a worse place, at the very minimum, counts, doesn’t it?
The tone of your OP, and your above response, clearly suggests you already think Clinton shouldn’t get credit for anything significant. If the OP is simply an attempt to smoke out the “Clinton lovers”, that’s too bad. Here, we (should) deal with facts and reason and context, and draw our views from those, not vice versa.
There has been a long enough list of Clinton’s accomplishments, active or not, cited here already that even redefining your question more narrowly still cannot get you the reply you want. Perhaps some reconsideration of your implicit premise is in order.
Now, if you have a cogent refutation of the impeachment argument I made, please feel free to make it, in this thread or elsewhere, as you wish.
[I don’t think that’s at all true, zwaldd. Please read Sofa King’s and ElvisL1ves’ posts above. There’s not a lot I can add. Clinton did stick his political neck out on occasion.
Remember, “Don’t ask, don’t tell”? While weak IMO, it was quite unpopular with the military and the right, among others.
And he took a lot of heat (and continues to lose a lot of credit) for his handling of the economy. Conservative apologists try to redirect responsibility, but things were good during Clintons time in office, and they’re not so good right now. Ask some of those who have lost their jobs or have had to settle for less. Coincidence? Possible, but I doubt it.
Peace,
mangeorge
Interesting OP. The evidence indicates that Clinton may have been asking himself the same question. He seemed to have been very concerned about his “legacy” near the end of his term. For some reason being known as “The President Who Clarified The Concept That Impeachment Is a Strictly Political Process With Legal Window-Dressing” didn’t do it for him.
For example, consider his strong push for a final mid-east peace deal toward the end of his term. Both Barak and Arafat opposed the Camp David summit as neither believed the timing was correct. However, as Arafat said, “You can’t turn down and invitation of the President of the United States.” Clinton very much wanted a final peace in the mid-east to be associated with his name. Of course he did, who wouldn’t? It is, however, evidence that even Clinton had questions about his place in history.
One of Clinton’s major initiatives was to reinvent / reform federal agencies and reduce the size of the government. He was largely sucessful in this but for some reason is given little credit for it. After hitting an all-time low in 1994, the public’s trust and satisfaction with the federal goverment nearly doubled by the late 1990’s.
Clinton DID NOT reduce the size of government. The Fed. Gov. is much larger now than it was in 1992. About the only portion of the gov. that he did cut was Defence. And then he turned around and used the money from that and gave it to welfare.
Education in this country has been on a downward spiral for the last 40 years. Clinton did nothing to stop this but throw more money down the Dept. of Education rathole. Oh, but while private school was good enough for Chelsea, Clinton campaigned against school vouchers for the rest of us.
I also read someone here claim that Clinton cut taxes. He did? When? Now, I know in 92 he promised the country that if he was elected he would sign a middle class tax cut into law. But of course he reneged on that promise, claiming that “he had worked harder than he had ever worked before, looking for something to trim in the budget, to pay for the tax cut, but alas, he could’nt find anything to cut.”
Clinton did however, give us the largest tax increase in history. Even after this went into effect, the Clinton administration was forecasting 200 billion dollar yearly deficits for as far as the eye could see. Clinton had basicly given up on balancing the budget at this point.
Then the Repubs were voted into Congress. Part of Newt Gingrichs Contract with America was a balanced budget. Congress wanted to balance the budget in 5 years, Clinton first said 11 years, then 9, then 7. Of course because of the economy, the budget was balanced a lot sooner. Of course the media gave credit to Clinton even though he was fighting for more government welfare spending the whole time. He did’nt have to make any unpopular choices. He could just let Congress propose cuts in the rates of growth of certain programs, and then demogague against them. Remember the phrase “draconian cuts”, “slash and burn budget cuts.”
Um, Barking Spider, do you have any sites for this?
If not, take your rants to the Pit.
There aren’t cites in any post on this thread. Should only Clinton opponents be required to have cites?
BTW although Barking Spider’s style was harsh and rant-like, the specific items s/he listed were all reported in the newspapers.
I reject the notion that either one can reliably be called “conservative.” Buchanan’s opposition to free trade, a benchmark of conservatism, renders him suspect. True, he’s a rather extreme social conservative, but listening him speak on economic issues isn’t much different from hearing a Democrat stumping in an AFL union hall.
And Perot is just plain crazy. What part of his platform would cause you to label him a conservative?
**
I’ll give you that, but let’s face it: Moynihan was the favorite Democrat of the conservative establishment. National Review fawned over him. When he announced his retirement from the Senate, columnist George Will suggested that his seat not be filled, but rather draped in black in honor of his memory. His essay “Defining Deviancy Down” is beloved by “hell in a handbasket” conservatives. And his ideas continue to have traction among conservatives: Moynihan was one of the leading advocates of Social Security privatization. It wasn’t Al Gore who was suggesting that idea during last year’s campaign.
And one more thing: Buchanan notwithstanding, NAFTA got a lot more support from conservatives than from their ideological opposites. Compare opinions about NAFTA in the pages of publications like National Review, The Weekly Standard, and The American Spectator to the opinions in publications like The Nation, Mother Jones, and The New Republic.
Oh no, what happened to David B and Gaudere? :eek:
I mean, someone must have died and made Guin a Mod, right? :rolleyes:
Barking Spider and december, here is a cite for you.
Would you be kind enough to provide one to support your position?
That’s a real neutral cite/sight/site? 
[sub]I thought NPR stood for National Public Radio?
Almost everything on that page is a “fact”. Either it’s true or it’s a lie. If it’s a lie, cite away.
Just in case you’re confused, “cite” is short for “citation”.
Sofa King: If you’ll bother to check the statistics, which have been printed in several major newspapers, you’ll find the economic boom actually began in George H. Bush’s term of office. I think Clinton deserves some of the credit for the economy, but only because he had the brains to keep Alan Greenspan at the Fed and because Robert Reich was, IMO, the best of a mediocre cabinet. Furthermore, if memory serves me, the Clinton administration was perfectly happy with deficit spending until the GOP gained control of both houses of Congress.
I also think you & Elvis1 view Clinton through extremely rosy-colored glasses. I doubt very much he will be remembered as a great president 100 years from now. In fact, I think he will barely be remembered at all.
In re NAFTA: If you’ll check old campaign literature, you’ll find Reagan was touting this concept in the 1980 election. It is an idea that is clearly favored by more Republicans than Democrats, and Clinton would not have won passage had not most of the GOP supported it.
Clinton presided over peace and prosperity. What further measure do you need? The truly great Presidents, Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt led us through grave crises (Roosevelt through two, the depression and WWII and Washington through the Revolutionary War and setting an example).
Does this make Clinton a “great” president? Not if great trials are the standard. But the worst thing that happened during his administration were some blow jobs. And even if we didn’t like those, he probably did. The Republicans seemed to like it too.
We had eight years of competent, quiet and successful government during which time rich people got a whole lot richer and poor people didn’t get poorer.
How 'bout them pardon’s???
Was real cool if you a fren of ol’ Billy Bob an’ in jail!
I was wondering how long it would take to get the usual patient explanation from the right-wing contingent here about how the great economy of the Reagan years was due to a Republican President despite a Democratic Congress, while the great economy of the Clinton years was due to a Republican Congress despite a Democratic President. For some reason there are groups, on both ends, that fail to understand that both institutions play a roughly-equal role in establishing the budget, and in economic policy in general. Simply saying, as has been said time and time again here, that Reagan was an inspired genius of a leader while Clinton was simply lucky, is unconvincing to the point of backfiring.
BTW, Coyote and riserius and whoever else, I’m still waiting for a good counterargument, one that goes beyond simply saying “You’re wrong”, about the place in history of Clinton’s impeachment. Got anything yet?
Philo, do some quick research on GHW Bush’s pardons of the Iran-Contra group, speaking of comparative historical context.
Oh, referring back to the OP:
Credit for accomplishments goes to the accomplishers, not the talkers. If these are good things, the reason you’re denying Clinton credit is, well, what?
DPWhite, you’re certainly right that leadership is defined by circumstances. Momentous times evoke greatness, or else reveal its lack, in the leaders of the day, while leaders in ordinary times seem ordinary almost automatically. Simply look at the list of the leaders of any country, and the ones given credit for greatness are associated with wartime. Some of the ones judged to be the worst are, as well. Peacetime leaders tend to be judged as mediocre or anonymous. It isn’t fair, of course, but it’s real.