History Will Judge Him.... Poorly

Sorry to break it to President Clinton, but history will judge your record more negative than positive. Behind a veneer of economic growth and prosperity, you oversaw a complete and utter disregard for national security threats, reduced the size of the military, and failed to respond to terrorist threats on numerous occasions that emboldened terrorists to strike with increasing fury and fearful death tolls.

It starts with the 1993 WTC bombing, where you chose not only to avoid visiting NYC in the days and weeks following the attacks, but chose to go after the terrorists with legal actions, not military action despite the fact that there were signs that this was an international terrorist organization that sought to inflict mass casualties on US citizens.

It continues with the failure to intercede in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, for which you later apologized (and to your credit, you noted the slow US response in your comments). You can't bring back the 800,000+ people who were slaughtered - mostly by machetes and knives - but you can be held accountable for not using the powers at your disposal to stop the violence before it spiraled out of control. Your actions in Kosovo are more admirable, but even there, there are failures in diplomacy and effective use of military force to protect people from being ethnically cleansed.

Then, there's the failure to provide sufficient military support to the Somolia operation, which led to the Black Hawk Down incident. That incident emboldened the terrorists - particularly Osama bin Laden - to become even more brazen in attacking US targets because they saw the US as weak despite all its military technology at its disposal.

Sure, the questions over whether the impeachment hearings were valid or warranted under the circumstances will continue for decades, but this much is clear - your record is mixed and there's no way you can say otherwise.

President Clinton touted his Middle East peace initiatives, but here's the thing - anyone can have an initiative. Heck, every President for 50 years had initiatives. Your efforts at forcing the Israelis and Palestinians into a peace deal failed because you chose to overlook terrorist actions by the Palestinians and forced Israel to stay its hand when struck by terrorists. In other words, your initiatives failed just like every other President who tried to deal with the Palestinian issue.

You permitted the transfer of technologies to the Chinese government that was prohibited under federal law - and those technologies undermine our technological superiority over the Chinese military.

National security and homeland security were overlooked during your tenure, but we did have a growing economy so that some folks will forgive your egregious errors. For me, and for serious historians, your record will be far from positive.