The next week is going to drive the wingnuts crazy. Next week's publication of Bill Clinton's memoirs, concurrent with the release of two much-hyped movies on recent times ("The Hunting of the President" and "Fahrenheit 9/11"), is going to create a Perfect Storm of Republican Circlef--kery. If there has been one thing that has motivated the Far Right the last three years, it has been its desire to undo everything that the American People loved about the Big Dog, to pretend the eight brutal years of peace and prosperity never happened. Al Gore "lost" the 2000 election, in large part because he believed that spin, and perceived an hostility to Clinton that the public didn't share. It is safe to say that the public has become rather resistant to those efforts, or at least that percentage of the public that isn't waiting for the Assumption to occur the day after the election. The best thing for Kerry to do the next week (come to think of it, this is always good advice) is to lay back, let the wind take his sails, and ride on Bubba's coattails.

The one mark on Clinton's record, of course, was his impeachment by the House Republicans. His lies under oath may not have technically met the legal standard for perjury, but they reflected a character flaw in the man, a belief that he could talk his way out of (and into) anything. His subsequent fine in the Paula Jones case, together with his disbarment in Arkansas, were appropriate punishments for his civil transgressions. Yet the public still backed him, creating a firewall that prevented the Senate from taking the charges seriously, and he easily beat back the coup attempt. That victory was the high mark of his Administration, as much a defining moment for the country as September 11: after that, we would judge public figures by what they could do, not what kind of person they were.

In the end, given a choice between Clinton and his critics on the right and left, they chose Clinton, not because he was a saint, but because they knew he was better than his adversaries. Clinton liked people, didn't pretend to possess any divine authority, and the people, at first grudgingly, but by the end enthusiastically (when he left office, he, not Reagan, had the highest approval ratings of any President), liked him back.