Bill Clinton's Legacy

(By Eric Schultz -- Associated Press)

Along the way, Clinton warred with House Speaker Newt Gingrich's Republicans and independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr's investigators, fending off scandal -- the Travel Office, FBI files, Whitewater, the Lincoln Bedroom and so on. His false testimony under oath about his affair with White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky plunged his administration into a 13-month battle for survival that resulted in a party-line impeachment in the House and acquittal in the Senate. Ultimately, he acknowledged testifying falsely and became the first president held in contempt of court and disbarred.

By the time he left office amid a furor over his last-minute pardons of financier Marc Rich and a host of others, Clinton had tried the nation's patience. He left with high approval ratings, but 68 percent of Americans thought he would be remembered largely for scandal, compared with 28 percent who said policy achievements.

To judge by the people who came out to see him last week in Oklahoma, Colorado and elsewhere, Clinton's stature has grown since he left office. Many in the audiences were too young to remember all the details but recall his presidency as a simpler time.

"I remember there was very little conflict," said Elizabeth Lewis, 22, a graduate student at the University of Oklahoma. "He wasn't very confrontational, like Bush is now. People were pretty happy with him as president."

Added her friend Jami Thacker, 21, a pre-nursing student: "It just seemed like people felt more safe."

Still, his roguish reputation has not completely faded. "I feel like he was a good president and did a good job," said Jeff James, 20, a sophomore. "But if I had a kid -- he's known to have smoked pot and had affairs. He's not exactly a good role model for kids."

Historians have begun to teach the younger generation that Clinton was a transitional figure who led during a pause between the Cold War and the struggle with terrorism. "People remember this was an optimistic time," said Ann-Marie Szymanski, a political science professor at Oklahoma. "People had it pretty good. The more partisan remember it as a period of conflict, remember the more lurid parts."

Some Clinton associates suggested that Obama particularly angered the former president by comparing his role in history unfavorably with Reagan's. Lanny J. Davis, a Clinton White House special counsel, challenged Obama with an open letter titled, "What Exactly in the Clinton-Era Nineties Did You Not Like?"

Others have picked up the debate from the opposite end. "Obama's assessment is so obviously true: Reagan was consequential. Clinton was not," columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote last week.

The Clinton team recognizes that this debate is pocked with danger. While his strategists are happy to tout and defend his record, they understand that campaigns are about the future, not the past, and that Hillary Clinton needs to maintain her own identity. At the same time, they anticipate that Republicans will take on the former president with full force should she win the nomination.

That could be risky for the other side, too. Many leaders of the anti-Clinton camp from the 1990s have moved on, scarred by defeats at the hands of a formidable political gladiator.

Former congressman Asa Hutchinson (R-Ark.), one of the House managers who prosecuted Clinton in the Senate trial, said he still believes the impeachment was a noble attempt to enforce the rule of law. But he said it should not be relitigated this year. "There were some who were so personally engaged in it that they had a hard time cutting loose of it," he said. "They may try to resurrect it this year. But that would be a mistake. History has passed them by. You'll be on the losing side of history if you let this dominate your life."