Me too, but there’s a pretty large excluded middle there. Bill didn’t do enough to fight Al Qaeda. Bush did too much (and then decided to fight some other people more or less at random.)
The issue with lobbing cruise missiles and bombing campaigns is that they work great until they don’t. At that point, you either retreat with your tail between your legs or you commit ground troops.
From the perspective of our enemies and innocent bystanders as well, it probably creates more hatred than any other tactic. Because it makes us look like cowards. So we don’t even get the fear and respect to temper the hatred.
In the ISIS fight, the new President will have to make a decision. Obama seems to just be running out the clock, accepting that air power won’t beat Isis, might not even really stop them, but it might slow them down enough for it to be someone else’s problem. By the time Jan. 2017 comes around, it will be clear that we have to either get down there and fight, or just let them have the Middle East.