FYI: I'm not economy expert but I try my best to remember Clinton's economy history. I found some links to support my claim.
Before he was elected to be President of USA. He was a successful Governor of Arkansas and boost Economy and did his job great.
He had an experience what and how he did when he was a Governor and work to boost Economy and create million jobs and take care of people and their welfare, better education... decrease spendings.
see statistic in this link and judge yourself...
BBC News | BUSINESS | Bill Clinton's economic legacy
The Lowest Unemployment Rate in 30 Years
Bill Clinton vs. George W. Bush - Issuepedia
During Clinton's presidency time, there was less terrorist attacks, less problems.
I assume that you would fresh my memory about Clinton's affair scandal with Monica... His scandal doesn't count me but mainly important is his lies don't kill thousands but Bush's lies does.
Bill Clinton has nothing do with 9/11 attack because he was not president at that time. He did not send soliders to Iraq but Bush. Clinton did nothing to hurt economy but Bush did. He did nothing when unemployment rates goes up but Bush did.
I only see that Clinton improve America's economy with decrease spendings but Bush hurt it through his senseless spendings.
I can see that Republicans use as an excuse to blame Clinton when they noticed that economy goes bad during Bush's presidency time. Clinton did economy good and then left... Bush choose to ignore Clinton's system but his own or follow his father's system ... He wants Iraq war at the start soon AFTER he won at his 1st election... Why? Because his father failed to arrest Saddam during Gulf War... He had Saddam at last because he hate Saddam and want to have him... He did it successful... but why continue Iraq war after Saddam's execution for? We found out the truth later that the oil is the reason, he go after... He lead us beleive that Saddam is the responsible for 9/11.... Nelson Mandela tried to stop Bush but we are too blind to ignore Mandela and beleive Bush because we were upset over 9/11 and innocent victims... Mandela was being accused as a terrorist because he against Iraq War soon after 9/11... During Saddam's arrest, we found out that he has nothing do with 9/11. Clinton is right for not want to go war... and Maneda is also right to know that Saddam has nothing do with it and stop Bush to go Iraq war in first place... Bush is the responsible to hurt economy... job loss... spend on war issues... high spendings...
Please correct if I'm mistake or not or fresh my memory...
You cover a lot of issues there. I don't have the time to get sucked into a debate on all that stuff, so I'll just focus on the economy part.
So a liberal president cuts spending and it works. Then a conservative president increases spending and problems arise. At least that backs up my conservative view on government spending.
When Clinton took office, the economy was pretty rosy at that time, as mentioned by the BBC article you linked: "Mr Clinton's most enduring legacy is likely to be the economic boom which began shortly before he took office in 1992." I gotta give him props for not spending us into oblivion, although some of the credit for that goes to the largely conservative congress. Then, there was the internet, (which he had no control over) and the economic downturn at the end was due to the burst of that bubble (which I don't think can be blamed on him either). In other words, much of it was dumb luck aligning with the business cycle and technological advancement.
The one factual error you made (related to the economy) is that the economy was good through the end of Clinton's term. It was not. It was a bad economy before the end of his term, although it wasn't in an official recession until March of 2001 (Keep in mind that we're not officially in a recession yet, and we may not be until after the next president takes office). Two months is hardly enough time to turn a bad economy around, and if it is, then Clinton should have been able to turn it around before he left office. So Bush came into office with a bad economy, then 9/11, then a string of corporate scandals. Then around 2003, things started picking up. But he and the Republican congress abandoned conservative spending principles and things started going south last year. The Republicans got spanked in the 2006 election, partly for that reason, and Democrats haven't done any better since.
It's simplistic to think all the credit or blame for a good or bad economy can go to the president. He's just one part of the puzzle. There's also the congress, technology, scandals in the private sector, international events, terrorist attacks, etc. which can all have an effect.
As for those links, it's too easy to pick and choose numbers that look good for one president and bad for the other. After all, economics is not an exact science, so it's more vulnerable to bias than harder sciences like physics (which is more vulnerable to bias than one would think). The second link was Clinton's website and the third link is horribly biased. One of these days, I'd like to download statistics from the IRS and various government agencies and do a thorough investigation myself. However, it would be pretty time consuming.
Let me apologize in advance if I don't respond after this. I'd like to, but my wife's been bugging me to "get off that silly forum". Yak yak yak.