How good was the Clinton Presidency? History's pending verdict becomes clear when we ignore the hysterics and contrast Bill Clinton's success against two failed Bush presidencies. Bush I and Bush II - gloomy bookends before and after the eight great Clinton years.

Look at the Clinton record. The best economy ever. Real wages up, unemployment down. Housing up, poverty down. Stock market up, crime rates down. Progress toward peace in strife-torn areas like Ireland, the Balkans, and the Middle East which knew bitter conflict dating back decades, even centuries. A true Golden Age. Just wonderful!

Right wingers and some in the media resent President Clinton for his talent, his genuine compassion, and his self-made success. He not only kept the campaign promises he made, he even fulfilled those Reagan and Bush I made and broke. All without breaking a sweat. Grace under pressure.

I'd love to see psychiatric studies explaining why petty people hate such a good and great man so much. It can't be because he taxed them more, because he only raised taxes on the top 1.2% or so richest - and his policies made even those wealthy few much wealthier.

Sexists, racists, gay bashers and other haters hate Clinton because he dared to value people they hate - gays, minorities, and women - as much straight white males. But that can't explain the animosity among the elite media. Perhaps it was envy after all?

When history forgets the right wing hysteria and smug hypocritical media sanctimony, it will mark William Jefferson Clinton among the greatest Americans of our time if not all time.

A true heir to FDR, President Clinton is a leader who accomplished so much against great odds. He overcame ruthless enemies who revile him with lies to this day. Despite the spite of vicious minds, America and the world miss Clinton's smart, sensible leadership more with each passing day.

Why? Because Bush so badly fails to fill Clinton's shoes. Clinton strode confidently. Bush stumbles and falls like a small child trying to walk in his daddy's wing tips. Bush's economy - flaccid and flailing as his father's before him - replaced Clinton's eight years of record expansion.

Just as Clinton's sound fiscal policies and widening opportunity replaced Bush I's stagnant, backward, failed approach, Bush II replaced Clinton's success with unfairness, folly and failure.

Clinton gave us record surpluses. Bush threatens to break his father's record for the worst deficits in history. The smart money on Wall Street has already voted with its investment capital. Their verdict on Bush's Voodoo Enronomics? No confidence.

Don't blame Bush? Can't credit Clinton? Maybe not for everything, but consider this one fact: Clinton's policies helped to create 22 million net jobs in eight years. During six years under two different Bushes the economy failed to create even one net private sector job. Not even one!

The record shows how well the economy did with Clinton's policies, and how badly the same economy did just before and after with a Bush in office. The same holds for the successes President Clinton achieved after Bush I's international failures, and how quickly hard-won progress toward peace crashed and burned under Bush II's notorious neglect.

Bush the elder delayed US recognition of the former Soviet states, and sat on the fence, hapless and impotent as Yeltsin stared down the tanks.

The Balkans burst into open warfare and ethnic cleansing under Bush I who did nothing to help anyone. Even Bush I's triumph, the Gulf War, resulted from his inept attempts to "bring Iraq into the family of nations."

The Bushes - like all Republicans - at best clean up part of their own messes and kick the can down the road leaving others to fix problems they create - Somalia, Iraq, Bosnia, North Korea and more.

Contrasts most stark: Bush I stood back confused and befuddled as crises raged, but Bill Clinton plunged ahead and fostered peace. Clinton partnered with Yeltsin, and helped prevent Russia from backsliding into tyranny. Clinton's leadership, against harsh Republican opposition, quelled the Balkan crisis.

I could go on about Bush I's failures domestic and international forever, but this article is mainly about the current Bush's failures at home and abroad vs. President Clinton's successes. However, noting how bad Bush I failed helps illustrate how well Clinton succeeded by contrast.

Clinton almost solved the Palestinian / Israeli conflict, but failed. He couldn't do it all, after all. Rather than build on this progress, W. Bush's announced a non-policy and let the Middle East languish.

The conflict exploded for lack of a steady hand directing the sole Super Power. Bush's negligence, lack of will and lack of ability presents a stark contrast against Clinton's engaged, informed and impassioned leadership in matters foreign and domestic.

That's what we need in a President. Engagement, knowledge, and passion to help us get where we have to go. That's leadership. When we examine the failure by both Bushes, we see profound lack of leadership.

We look at the endless litany of Bush failures versus our stellar economic and international performance under Clinton's leadership and realize success is no accident. America floundered both before and after the Clinton Presidency. History will give due credit - and blame - to the men who set the domestic and foreign policies.

We don't have to wait for the history books to know neither Bush measures up to the Clinton standard. This is how we know America didn't, doesn't, and never will look to AWOL Bush for leadership.

On 9/11, Bush hid. It took him 2 days to gather himself to go on national TV. We the people were eagerly awaiting leadership, but by then it was too late for Bush to matter.

We'd already gotten the leadership we needed from others like Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton who rushed home from Australia to press flesh and slap backs in NY City.

Think about this: Bill Clinton made it back from the other side of the planet and still beat Bush to Ground Zero by days. By the time Bush got there, rescue workers had sectioned off the area.

Bush still shirked and shunned even firemen and police. He blathered empty platitudes from a distance through a megaphone. Americans know what a President should do, and Bush didn't do it. President Clinton did. He strode into the crowd, comforted those missing loved ones and in every way acted as a President should act. People flocked to President Clinton, as they do where ever he goes around the world. 

In Bill Clinton we see a President - honor, dignity, the whole thing. AWOL Bush in stark contrast was and is a scared little boy. He hides behind security and confines protesters to "First Amendment Zones." To emphasize, Bush refused to approach or shake hands with the NYPD and NYFD at ground zero, much less the public!

Bush is afraid to face the American people in person, and only clumsily, reluctantly faces us on television. We react accordingly. Let's look at the facts. By the time Bush addressed America two days too late, we'd lost all interest in him.

TV ratings show Bush's "leadership" wasn't the most watched in its time slot. That honor went to an episode of "Survivor." Did Bush come in a close second? No. The next most watched was the comedy "Friends."

Well, what about #3? Again, no. On 9/13 two days after the terrorist attacks, more Americans watched a cartoon called "The Family Guy" rather than look for "leadership" from AWOL Bush!

The so-called leader of the free world addressed us in the aftermath of the worst attacks on American soil, and Bush finished fourth in viewer interest behind a hokey "reality" show, a sitcom, and a cartoon.

Leadership? What leadership? Bush went on the air to talk to America in a time of crisis, and most Americans said who cares what you think, Mr. Bush? They watched people eating bugs, Ross and Rachel and a cartoon which was off the air soon thereafter!

That's not just sad, it's pathetic. Pathetic describes Bush pretty well. I watched Bush. He was not a leader. He was befuddled and blinking, and he still hasn't kept his promise to bring the terrorists to justice. I should have watched the other cartoon.

If President Clinton went on the air it would have been on 9/11, not two days too late. He would have explained the situation, captivated our attention, and provided real leadership.

Remember Clinton's speech after the Oklahoma City bombing? He said what needed saying, brought us together, and led. That was a real President. George W. Bush? A leader? A real President? Not even close. And America knows it. The moral of the story: Never send a Bush to do a President's job.