Presidents influence the economy, they do not "give it" to us. Indeed, the economy did not take off until Republicans took over in Congress. Maybe Newt Gingrich "gave us" the best economy we may ever have. And it was not until Newt took over that there was substantial debt reduction, Clinton ran debts similar to Bush's during his first few years. Hmmmm.....maybe we ought to make Newt president?!
As for foreign affairs, we had several attacks by Al Qaida on his watch, genocide in the Balkans (which he thankfully helped to stop by bombing Serbia), genocide in Rwanda (which he did little about), the beginning of Intifada Two, the refusal of Saddam to give the inspectors requisite access to sites (leading to the withdrawal of inspectors and punitive bombing), challenges by Beijing over Taiwan (with the need to send a naval task force to stare them down), and other conflicts and glitches. Clinton has a mixed scorecard in his reactions to events, and one can argue in his favor, but it is ludicrous to pretend that "everything was going smoothly", or that Clinton accomplished it all diplomatically........ |
