Clinton's Biggest Gains Not on Conservative Critics' Radar

Likewise, the poverty rate under Clinton fell 25%, the biggest eight-year decline since the 1960s. It fell even faster for particularly vulnerable groups like blacks, Hispanics and children. Again the contrast with Reagan is striking. During Reagan's two terms, the number of Americans in poverty fell by just 77,000. During Clinton's two terms, the number of Americans in poverty plummeted by 8.1 million. The number of children in poverty fell by 50,000 under Reagan. Under Clinton the number was 4.1 million. That's a ratio of 80 to 1.

Leave aside the question of how much Clinton's drive to eliminate the federal deficit contributed to the economic boom that powered most of these gains. He also developed a comprehensive set of initiatives to spread the benefits of prosperity to more families by demanding and honoring work.

Welfare reform pushed more low-income families into the job market, where they could benefit from the rising tide. Then Clinton made work more rewarding with increases in the minimum wage and the earned-income tax credit, the creation of the Children's Health Insurance Program (to cover the children of working-poor families), and expanded funding for day care. He eliminated the deficit while cutting taxes for average families.

And while delivering all these benefits for traditionally Democratic constituencies, Clinton extended the party's appeal up the income ladder. By marrying government activism to fiscal discipline and demanding personal responsibility in social policy, he triggered a realignment of socially moderate Northern suburbs toward the Democrats, a change that remains central to his party's hopes in 2004.

Clinton is more vulnerable to second-guessing on foreign policy. Reports by the staff of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks suggest the panel is likely to conclude that Clinton (as well as Bush in early 2001) didn't do enough to meet the emerging threat of Al Qaeda.

In particular, the reports show that Clinton blinked at some of the riskiest military options during the late 1990s, such as arming the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

But the commission reports and the memoir of Richard A. Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief for Clinton and Bush, also make it clear that on almost every front, from diplomacy to homeland security, Washington was doing much more to combat terrorism when Clinton left than it was when he arrived. And at the same time, Clinton was exhaustively pursuing an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement that might have reshaped America's image in the Arab world.