Pro & Con Quotes: Was Bill Clinton a Good President?

“[T]he booming prosperity over which Clinton presided, combined with his progressive tax and distribution policies, meant that for the first time since the 1960s, the lowest quintile of earners saw their lot improve during his presidency…

Bill Clinton oversaw the most successful foreign policy since John F. Kennedy… By the end of his second [term], he had achieved major diplomatic achievements – sometimes with the aid of military force – in Bosnia and Kosovo, Northern Ireland, and Israel and the Palestinian territories…

Clinton did much more than survive. He made the Democratic Party viable again in presidential elections. He reoriented liberalism, retaining its core commitments to a mixed economy, a welfare state, civil rights, civil liberties, and an internationalist foreign policy – while also acknowledging where its past policies on welfare, crime, and other issues had lost the confidence of the American people. He recognized the coming of globalization and sought new policies to deal with its challenges. His programs contributed… to peace and shared prosperity, declines in violent crime and out-of-wedlock births, and a liberalizing national temper on culture war issues. Race relations improved steadily, according to both whites and blacks.”

“[Bill Clinton was] a president who really did provide strong leadership for the county in both foreign affairs and domestic affairs. I always think that the centerpiece … is what he did on the economy and on the [1993] economic plan, because that really did take leadership to do that and he was willing to do it, knowing all the risks involved… But in addition to that, obviously, his achievements in terms of trade, of domestic policy, on education, establishing AmeriCorps, and beginning the process of the healthcare debate … that was important for this county. His environmental record is probably comparable to Teddy Roosevelt’s in terms of the steps he took to try to protect our environment. On foreign affairs … he preserved the peace and he did it in a way that established the United States as a world leader. And he certainly had the ability to deal with our allies and to get them to support what he was trying to do. He certainly made every effort to try and promote peace in the Middle East, which is essential.”

“I think he will be seen as a stunningly successful president…

When I traveled around with him in the country, these are the promises he made: he said, ‘I’ll revive the economy.’ 22 million jobs later, this is the best economy in the history of the world, in the history of capitalism, the finest economic situation any people have ever had. He said, ‘I’ll reduce the deficit by half.’ I thought that was a little optimistic over-promising in the campaign. He’s more than reduced it. He’s now going to pay down the national debt if the Republicans don’t squander it away in a tax cut.

‘I’ll end welfare as we know it.’ Mission accomplished. He said, ‘I’ll put 100,000 cops on the street and cut crime.’ The lowest crime rate in 30 years. He said, ‘I’ll expand trade and be a new kind of Democrat, passing a free trade deal with Mexico and then later with China.’

Mission accomplished on every critical juncture, except health care, where he promised national health insurance… I tell you, it’s the most successful presidency since FDR, maybe LBJ if he hadn’t had Vietnam, but if you look at what the man set out to do and what he accomplished, stack him up against anybody.”

“In all the work I have done as president, every decision I have made, every executive action I have taken, every bill I have proposed and signed, I’ve tried to give all Americans the tools and conditions to build the future of our dreams, in a good society, with a strong economy, a cleaner environment, and a freer, safer, more prosperous world.

I have steered my course by our enduring values. Opportunity for all. Responsibility from all. A community of all Americans. I have sought to give America a new kind of government, smaller, more modern, more effective, full of ideas and policies appropriate to this new time, always putting people first, always focusing on the future…

I’m very grateful to be able to turn over the reins of leadership to a new president, with America in such a strong position to meet the challenges of the future.”

“Bill Clinton was the greatest American president in the second half of the twentieth century and may, through the lens of a longer history, go down as one of our greatest presidents, ever. We had unheralded prosperity, as evidenced by the rising tide of jobs, the stock market, and real estate values, and falling unemployment. He forged a peace agreement in Northern Ireland after decades of turmoil, achieved the Dayton Accords to calm the Balkans.”

“Bill [Clinton] is an extraordinary mixture of easygoing charm and ferocious intellectual capacity. Probably, in terms of political intuition and certainly in terms of turning such intuition into analysis, he is the most formidable politician I ever met. My theory is that, in a curious way, the blessing of his times is the disadvantage of his legacy. As with any period, the years 1993-2000 were full of events, many of them significant. But the world-changing events – 9/11 and the financial crisis – happened in the next presidency.

Bill was actually a brilliant president. He made it at times look easy. He ran a good economy; made big reforms; handled… Kosovo with real leadership.”

“I think that this president will be seen as one of the most highly qualified, most talented, most skilled political leaders that this country has ever seen. In that measuring stick, he is up there, in my view, with the Ronald Reagan capacity to communicate with the nation, with the John Kennedy capacity to inspire a generation. I think he probably had more sense of politics and policy than we’ll ever see again in a president, and more intelligence about dealing with it.

I think people will be talking about William Jefferson Clinton as a president and as a person forever because of the combination of incredible forces that are wrapped up in this man. And we know about the flaws. And we know about the lost promise. And we know about the squandered opportunities. But they also shouldn’t conceal the reality that this was a time of enormous achievement and transformation of the nation…: the diversity, the commitment to diversity, to recognizing and celebrating diversity in our country, to dealing with the post Cold War era in a way that made sense. Where the country was not afraid of exercising leadership, of projecting power and influence at the same time that it developed a very powerful economy at home.”

“However heedless he could sometimes be in his personal life, Clinton brought a dutiful sensibility to his public life… One can argue over how much credit any president deserves, but the larger picture of American life at the end of the Clinton years was unmistakable. Twenty-two million jobs had been created over eight years. The budget was in surplus. Crime was down; so were welfare rolls and teen pregnancies. Home ownership was on the upswing, as were median incomes for African-Americans and Hispanics…

Clinton’s presidency was anchored to an authentically populist spirit and animated by a genuine connection between a politician and common folk whose support he needed.”

“Amid the dashed hopes and the scandals and the bitterness, a great deal of real work was done. Bill Clinton conducted a serious, substantive presidency; his domestic policy achievements were not inconsiderable and were accomplished against great odds. He had rescued the Democratic party from irrelevance and pursued a new philosophy of governance that made public-sector activism plausible once more…

Moreover, he performed the most important service that a leader can provide: He saw the world clearly and reacted prudently to the challenges he faced; he explained a complicated economic transformation to the American people and brought them to the edge of a new era.”

“I’m sorry about the one mistake, everybody knows about it, no point in discussing it, but I think [Bill Clinton’s] a very good person who tried very hard to help produce an America that is sensitive, that is fair, that tries to create hope instead of this bitterness. He tried to do the same thing internationally. I think he’s got to go down as a very successful president.”