I think he was probably average in crisis situations. He basically had no crises except what he faced because of personal activity.

In crisis situations he was ATROCIOUS,HORRIBLE AND PUTRID!!!!The worst.Had no character.If he were around during,say the depression,WWII,the civil war or the hostage crisis,we would up you-know-where creek without a paddle.A decent peacetime president who THANK GOD was never put in charge of a crisis situation.

Clinton ruled !

What crisis did he have to face?

His life story is a sad one, despite the fact that he is quite pleased with himself. Until very recently, I lived in Arkansas, and had been there for nearly 14 years. He was our Governor, before he was President. I sincerely wish Clinton would have been an honorable man, so we could be proud of him - not only because he came from our state, but because he had risen from an unhealthy home life to the highest office in the nation. If his character had been as impressive as his intelligence, he would have been one of our great presidents, a role model for children everywhere. Instead, he CREATED one crisis after another through his narcissistic behavior. Even though he is not alcoholic himself, he demonstrates alcoholic traits, by being alternately winsome & untrustworthy, and by repeatedly creating a crisis, then managing it. He and Hillary are concerned with one thing only: their own inextricable political advance. Even now, Clinton is beginning to promote a book about himself, right when John Kerry is about to receive the nomination. The Clintons just can't resist the spotlight. True leadership involves thinking of others and not just yourself.

The mere fact that this guy was able to keep his Presidency afloat while the political right spent endless man hours, countless $$$$ and immeasurable effort in fabricating artificial and inconsequential crises is a testimony to his resourcefulness in the face of adversity. His impeachment crisis was the result of a cadre of hostile, cowardly and ill-advised Republican headhunters who were out to get this guy from the very beginning, insisting on investigating every aspect of Bubba's public and private life going back 30 years. Considerable effort was also made in investigating the backgrounds of his wife, his family members, his Cabinet officials and the families of his Cabinet officials, although there was absolutely no probable cause to do so. And after all this time and money and effort, and all this sullying of the public discourse, and all the diverting of the public's attention from more important matters, what did the Clinton-haters finally come up with? Answer: Bubba not being particularly truthful while giving a deposition that was ruled inadmissable in a civil suit that was thrown out. All this tempest in a teapot about the man's private life, which is nobody else's business, by the way. As a sitting President, he should have been shielded from such foundless and frivolous malarky until after he left office, but rightwingers in the judiciary were under orders from their bosses to trash the man's civil rights and weaken his Presidency. Clinton's transgressions had no bearing on his administration of office, or the domestic and foreign policies he set. No inherently criminal activity relating to govermental business was afoot in this, no money changed hands, no influence trading was involved. These crises were all sound and fury signifying nothing, yet managed to shortcircuit the man's administration and kept him from attending to more important issues. And the real losers in this were the American people as the GOP felt it was more crucial to find dirty underpants under Bubba's bed than to address the problems facing the nation (which is a laugh since many of the central Impeachment Managers were whoremasters of the first order). In this, the entire Republican Congress should have been impeached for dereliction of duty, or better yet, lined up and shot for being so wasteful and neglectful of our country's true needs. Keep in mind that our present idiot in the Oval Office has not been truthful about his military service, nor forthcoming about his alcohol and drug use, and his well-established history as a skirt-chaser has been given the complete go-by. He also lied on a jury duty response form about his criminal record (why he was never charged in this regard is anybody's guess) and he was totally misleading to the public about the motivations for his ill-advised holy oil war in Iraq. If anything, Bushie's the one who's of more suspect credibility and morals, not Mud Bubba, who is a lower-yield sleazeball in comparison. Maybe if Clinton was granted support and cooperation by the loyal opposition, we might have accomplished more in this country during his term of office. Maybe if the GOP didn't make Bubba and his wife Public Enemy No. 1 and No.2, and focused on the real threats to our nation, and placed more emphasis on intelligence regarding our bona fide foes as well as homeland security, there wouldn't have been a 9/11. Maybe the real enemy wouldn't have been able to sneak under the radar if the rightwingers hadn't devoted such investigative resources to the Clintons' private lives and paid more attention to the terrorist entities that have been antithetical toward America for decades.

How many U.S. embassies were attacked and how may casualties were there on Clinton's watch? What about the U.S.S. Cole? What about the first Trade Center bombing? How many chances at Bin Laden? What did Billy do to answer these attacks? To me an attack on our embassy is the same as attacking American soil. Clinton did nothing!!!

Intelligence counts for Something.

i agree with the bosnia/serbia crisis, he could ahve done better. but he had other successes such as the economical hole we were in and the job cuts and high taxes that bush sr. left him with.he created millions of jobs for the working man and brought the economy out of trillions of dollars in debt. he can handle crises.

There were really no major crisis that Pres. Clinton had to deal with during his two terms. I agree he should have been more proactive in his dealings with terrorism, he had Osama in the palm of his hands but let him slip away due to the distractions (Monica) he was fighting off.

When we think of the Clinton presidency, we think of a period of peace and prosperity. However, the problems that we face now can be directly attributed to him and his policies. Clinton failed to deal with the growing threat of terrorism. We have learned that planning for the September 11th terrorist attacks began in 1996, a full five years before Clinton left office. Clinton was naive to think that firing a cruise missile into an empty tent would deter Bin Laden and his al-Quada operatives. He failed to act boldly. He failed to convince the world that terrorism was the new threat of this era, and that strong action needed to be taken. Instead, we shot a cruise missile into a camal's ass, and called it a day. Furthermore, Clinton's actions with regards to North Korea has led us to where we are now. His 1994 Framework Agreement gave North Korea the oppurtunity to further pursue its nuclear weapons program, and now their nuclear capability threatens the rest of the world. Clinton's insistance on a peaceful settlement each and every time was naive. When you are dealing with terrorists, you can't just fire a cruise missile into an empty tent, you can't just trust a nation when they promise to stop developing nuclear weapons. Clinton's legacy is a series of humanitarian missions. Of those missions, Bosnia/Serbia and Haiti can be considered a success. However, as abichara1882 wrote- not only did Clinton fail to provide a clear mission for our forces there, but he also failed to show consistancy with his policies. He insisted on stopping genocide in Bosnia, but refused to commit troops to Rwanda, where mass genocide had been occuring for years. Somalia was a disaster, and another example of why peace-keeping missions never result in a lasting peace. As far as Clinton's acitivies elsewhere around the world: India and Pakistan are still at each other's throat. The Middle East is still a region of constant chaos. In the final analysis, Clinton really failed to respond to the major crisis of his time, which I consider to be terrorism. His successor his having to carry the burden of dealing with something that should've been dealt with during Clinton's term.

The only crises he effectively handled were the political scandles he created. Even those he 'handled' by smearing people, etc., in embarrassingly unethical ways. He chose to walk away from the seeds of crises (terror on U.S. soil) that could have defined his Presidency in an admirable way. Of the crises listed in the right column, only Bosnia/Serbia could be considered a success and even there, he waged war in a ridiculous fashion -- promising not to use ground troops! Even if he only intended to bomb from unreachable heights, he could have at least kept the enemy guessing for God's sake! I'm no big fan of seeking UN approval for things the commander in chief finds necessary, but I wonder if it troubles any of those who give Clinton 5's on this measure that he bombed the hell out of Serbia without bothing to ask Kofi and the rest their opinions??

What crisis leadership? Better yet, what leadership at all? He didn't face any major problems while he was in office like Bush has. He MADE the problems, he didn't deal with them.

Clinton really benefited from not having to deal with any major problems throughout his administration. In fact, he ducked major foreign policy questions that we have to deal with now. He did not take care of Saddam Hussein when he throw out the weapons inspectors in 1998. It would have certainly been simpler to have made the case for regime change during that period than in 2003. He didn't aggressively take out various terrorist networks and their infrastructures. Clinton had a chance in 1998 to take out bin Laden and he flinched. Mr. bin Laden had already been implicated for terrorist actions in Saudi Arabia, Kenya, and Tanzania. Intelligence suggested that bin Laden's had been located and the former President had 45 minutes to get him. It was naive for him to have thought that the so-called peace dividend would reap benefits indefinitely after the Cold War. It was apparent during the 1990's that there were trouble spots throughout the world and he refused to deal with them. In addition, he constantly got us into military committments in places like Haiti where the mission was not clearly defined. If we are going to commit troops to any trouble spot, we have to know who we are defending and what are the political objectives. Instead, Clinton gave broad reasons involving human rights, which is fine, but definite goals needed to be laid out. Clinton chose not to do it and our military was left there with no clear reason to be there but to direct traffic on the streets and be police officers. He wasn't very responsible and indeed, he had the wrong priorities for the country, which revolved around aggrandizing himself. Clinton really benefitted from having an excellent economy throughout his term though. I gave him an extra star because he was the master at spin. This isn't necessarily a good quality, but it signifies the fact that he could talk his way out of anything and his Administration managed to survive eight years of constant crises revolving around the President's personal life and dealings.