Here is a relatively favorable article on Clinton, from the Britannica:
Clinton, William J.
Presidency
The new Clinton administration got off to a shaky start, the victim of what some critics called ineptitude and bad judgment. One of Clinton's first acts was to attempt to fulfill a campaign promise to end discrimination against gay men and lesbians in the military. After encountering criticism from conservatives and some military leaders—including General Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—Clinton proposed a compromise policy—summed up by the phrase “don't ask, don't tell”—that was viewed as being at once ambiguous, unsatisfactory to either side of the issue, and possibly unconstitutional. Clinton's first nominee for attorney general withdrew after it was revealed that she had not paid proper payroll taxes for a child-care worker, and a second nominee withdrew for having hired an undocumented foreigner for her household, though the practice was legal at the time. Clinton's promise to sign a campaign finance reform bill was quashed by a Republican filibuster in the Senate, as was his economic stimulus package. In the hope that he could avoid a major confrontation with Congress, he set aside any further attempts at campaign finance reform. Clinton had also promised during the campaign to institute a system of universal health insurance. His appointment of his wife to chair the Task Force on National Health Care Reform, a novel role for the nation's first lady, drew stark criticism from conservative Republicans, who objected both to the propriety of the arrangement and to what they considered Hillary Clinton's outspoken feminism. They campaigned vehemently against the task force's eventual proposal, the Health Security Act, parts of which were also opposed by the insurance industry, small-business organizations, and the American Medical Association. Protracted negotiations with Congress led to several substantial amendments and a plethora of competing schemes, but all efforts to pass compromise legislation failed.
Despite these early missteps, Clinton's first term had numerous policy and personnel successes. Even though Perot had spoken vividly of the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he said would produce a “giant sucking sound” as U.S. jobs were lost to Mexico, Congress passed the measure and Clinton signed it into law, thereby creating a free-trade zone between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Clinton also changed the face of the federal government, appointing women and minorities to significant posts throughout his administration, including Janet Reno as attorney general, Donna Shalala as secretary of Health and Human Services, Joycelyn Elders as surgeon general, Madeleine Albright as the first woman secretary of state, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second woman justice on the United States Supreme Court. During Clinton's first term, Congress enacted a deficit reduction package—which passed the Senate with a tiebreaking vote from Gore—and some 30 major bills related to women and family issues, including the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.
For several reasons, the opposition Republican Party for the first time in 40 years gained the majority in both houses of Congress in the 1994 elections. This victory was viewed by many, especially the freshman Republicans led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, as the voters' repudiation of the Clinton presidency. A chastened Clinton subsequently accommodated some of the Republican program—offering a more aggressive deficit reduction plan and a massive overhaul of the nation's welfare system—while opposing Republican efforts to slow the growth of government spending on many social programs. Ultimately the uncompromising and confrontational behaviour of the new Republicans in Congress produced the opposite of what they intended, and Clinton won considerable public sympathy for his more moderate approach.
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