Bill Clinton - was he any good?

I never had a problem with Clinton. I thought he did a decent job for our country...his intentions were good. Funny thing that the whole thing with him cheating got brought to the forefront of his presidency and made him to look like a liar and ironically, I felt him to be one of the more honest ones despite that discretion. He was human...he did something wrong that would definitely compromise his marriage and his career...who wouldn't lie upon being questioned initially? He was set up obviously and distracted and still managed to run the country. That issue was between him and Hilary and somehow their marriage survived it. It cost the country a lot of money & time and his crime was of a personal nature that should have never have gone to the extremes that he did. He had an affair. Many men do...women too. It's not right but happens. This should have been between him and hillary. It should have been no one elses business and it certainly should not have been the lengthy court trial that it resulted in.

I think Bill Clinton and G.W.Bush were both good presidents.

Hello Lindery, History is written by those who have a horse in the race! Meaning, that a legacy is subject to the marketability of the biographers work. As a resident of Latvia, you deem Bill Clinton a good president because of the information that got throught to your countrymen, and how well the biographers have marketed their respective positions. The same is true here in The States. Bill Clinton's divisiveness among our citizens can pretty much be broken down by media source lines. Those who embraced the early alternative news sources have a low opinion of Bill Clinton, while those who embraced the traditional media of the times have a higher opinion of him. It's really dependent upon the amount of information accessed in the development of the opinion, and how biased or unbiased the information sources were or are. For example: Ask most pro-Clintonites about the the Anderson Accounting Scandal that rocked our nation (and the financial world), and caused the downfall of Dot.com bubble (Enron, Worldcom, Global Crossing) as well as the loss of trillions in real wealth -- and how the disgraced accounting methodology was adopted by the Clinton Administration via the U.S. General Accounting Office -- and few will have any idea what your talking about. Instead, they will insist that Bill Clinton left a huge budget surplus when he left office. The truth is that generally speaking, the more time passes the more positive a light is shone upon most acceptable leaders. The really, really terrible and the truly great leaders are few and far between. The rest are typically adequate, at best. Like every other U.S. President, Bill Clinton made enormous mistakes. The sad fact is that when our presidents make these mistakes we citizens suffer the consequences -- and it's usually a long road to recovery afterward!

A lot of people in this country would agree with you and I am one of them. Clinton was a pretty good president. He kept us out of all out war, balanced the budget and the world didn't hate us as they did under Bush. A lot of Americans now refer to the Clinton years as the good old days. (They're just not on Mylot LOL) He was not perfect but he was a decent president and whatever went on between him and Monica was between them and Hillary and none of our business. I'm hoping the Obama years will wind up being good ones too but it's way too early to judge.

It's much easier to idealize a president well after the fact. Since you're in Latvia (beautiful country), you probably aren't aware of everything that happened under him. We were attacked by terrorists multiple times. He never even tried to catch Osama bin Laden. He sent our troops to an illegal war in Bosnia even after congress almost unanimously voted against it. He lied to the American people and perjured himself under oath. Gas prices in this country doubled exceeding $2/gallon for the first time before settling at $1.80 by the end of his second term. He also left us in a recession in the last months of his presidency which Bush inherited.

I think he was actually a pretty good president. The economy was stronger at the end of his time in office than it has been in many years. I do think he was a coward when it came to dealing with terrorist, for example, when he totally looked the other way when the USS COLE was attacked during his administration. Other than that, though, the only thing he really did wrong was that when he was caught with his pants down (literally) in the Monica Lewinsky case, he lied about it under oath. We all knew he was lying, yet nothing was done about it. All together, though, I think he did a pretty good job.

No matter what the world may say about this man, I still consider him a phenomenal leader. He reigned over the most powerful democracy with a lot of realism. He did not peddle national pride into the realms of thoughtless adventurer like Bush. he didntlet blood wantonly like Bush-He could even be considered to have failed in his foreign policy matters but Bill was a power at home, unemployment was all time low, the economy was robust-in Somalia, he could not stand the idea of terrorists killings in Somalia and so pulled off American troops-Bush played the courage antics and over 4000 Americans got killed so far. Ofcourse the Monica LEWINSKY issues did alot to dent his moral standing, but we all know, only Jesus lived on this planet and is on recod to have overcome temptattions!So Lindery, I agree completely with You. And Dont get m wrong am not an American, am Ugandan, but Bill is and will always remain popular here, not just Bill, but Hillary too!

Seriously from my standpoint, I considered Bill Clinton to be a Good President. What he did for the United States in the 8 yrs. he was President was a definate benefit for the US. He was able to bring jobs, and do a lot. Even with the scandal between him and Monica Lewinsky personally I feel he was a great president and one we can truly learn a lot from.

Clinton made Times Magazines "25 people to blame for the financial crisis" and then he cried about it. G.W. Bush at least accepted his part for the economic crisis. Clinton will never accept his faults and I think that made him a bad leader. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article0,28804,1877351_1877350,00.html

I have to say I respect your opinion but I do not agree. Bill Clinton was the beggining of the modern decline of the USA. He started out with what many company's call outsourcing. He signed the bill making it ok for these companies to take our jobs to other countries where the pay is less. He had advanced warning of september 11th and chose not to listen. Leaving it to fall on to George W Bush. Now dont get me wrong George W Bush was not a good president either but as far as Bill Clinton being better in my honest oppinion they both sucked just in different area's and different ways. The state of the USA is something that has been coming for a long time just no one wanted to see it. They were all riding the coat tails of Ronald Reagan.

i was kinda young so i didn't really care at the time . but i hared that he cheated on his wife so i'm pretty sure he wasn't all that great.

I like Bill Clinton as well. When he was pres, not too many people hated America.

I strongly agree with Lindery. Bill is definitly a pretty good president in USA.