I find it very highly surprising that Clinton would be such a polarizing figure either way. Yes, he was ethically challenged in many respects, but in terms of policy, Clinton never did anything particularly bold or even brave. In fact, he was rarely privy to expend any political capital on anything particularly worthwhile. In the 1990's, we had a chance to shore up our social security system, Medicare, and the tax system among other things. Yes, we did balance the budget and had a surplus during the 1990's, but it was primarily because of more revenue flows from the capital gains tax. A few accounting tricks helped inflate those numbers somewhat as well. On the foreign policy front, we had the chance to truly change the direction of American foreign policy, especially after the end of the Cold War. Any President faced with such paradigm-changing circumstances has to strike while the iron is hot. Instead we got caught up in the minutiae of things. The main failure of the neo-liberal model promulgated by Clinton is the notion that foreign policy can be reduced to a simple economic cost-benefit analysis. There are other norms and interests here at stake. The terrorism issue alone is proof positive of this. Economic globalization clearly has its promises, but also many perils as well. Different behaviors motivate different actors, and not all of them are economically based. Yes, at the end of the day, its NOT just the economy, stupid! Who knows, maybe if we had been more pro-active then, terrorism might not be such a problem today. I think that the past 3 Presidents, Bush included, have failed to meet the challenges of our times.