because they are smart, successful, concerned, and hardworking. But it started because Bill forcefully took on the racists in Arkansas, beginning when he was a college student and continuing through his time as governor. Floyd Brown, who did the racist Willie Horton ad for Bush senior, went to Arkansas to try to destroy Clinton, egged on by Lee Atwater, Karl Rove's mentor. The Republicans have hated Clinton since he was in college and the press, ever under the sway of the GOP, took their marching orders and set out to do their master's bidding. Sam Donaldson declared 12 DAYS after Clinton's inauguration that his presidency was over. The charge against him then was that he was too liberal--trying to get civil rights for gays and health care for everyone. The bastard.

and he has always been a centrist--if you look at his record and his determined refusal in the primary, until forced by Hillary, to articulate any specifics beyond opposition to the war. It is true that liberals, desperate for a change, imposed their heart's desires on his blank canvas.

(I'm a liberal and desperate, but I actually looked at his record, his history, and the few policy specifics he articulated early in the primary and so am not disillusioned. Paul Krugman, author of "Conscience of a Liberal," NY Times columnist, and Noble Prize winner in Economics, was right when he examined Obama's record, statements on unions, health care, and Reagan and determined that Edwards and Hillary were more liberal than Obama, Moreover, I suspect from her history that Hillary is a Christian do-gooder and thus more idealist than either her husband or Obama.)

Anyway, liberals fooled themselves, but Obama also helped them along, needing to win liberals and blacks away from Hillary in order to win the primary. He was deliberately vague though because he also needed Independents and liberal Republicans to cross over and vote for him in the primaries--remember his call for them to be Democrats for a day--which they did.

Still, things are so dire now that he needs experience, despite his primary claims to the contrary, to work the levers of power and reassure both Wall Street and Main Street. For the most part the Clinton people were competent, and they were honest--witness the efforts of Kenneth Starr and the Republican-controlled Congress to find, manufacture something, anything to get them.

It would be wise and nice, however, if he would put real liberals in Labor, Energy, and Education. I don't mean accommodationist liberals either. No go-along to get-along labor leaders leaders, no education leaders who believe in massive testing to solve all our problems, and no Energy Secretary with ties to Detroit or the Energy Industries. Real leftists with people skills. I'm not holding my breath however.

He's a centrist, but given that he'll do a good job if we give him a chance, support him where we can, and gently push where need be. I have to chuckle though. We had a chance at a third Clinton term and despite the mean complaints of the anti-Clintonites it looks like we're getting it one way or the other.

First, Bill Clinton came from nothing but smarts as much or more than Obama. Obama's mother and father both had graduate degrees and his grandmother was vice-president of a bank. Clinton's grandparents owned a small grocery store where they were famous for extending credit to blacks as well as whites who were down on their luck, and his mother was a nurse.

Second, Hillary Clinton did NOT support the war. Their are lot of interviews and speeches in which she (and Bill) said DON'T INVADE IRAQ, DON'T INVADE IRAQ. She supported giving Bush the right to THREATEN invasion to get the inspectors back in to AVOID war. They went back in because of the threat, but Bush, lying bastard that he is invaded anyway.

Third, both Clinton's actually are liberals. But after his first 2 years of governing as a liberal, Bill faced a hostile Republican Congress and so was forced to compromise to get any of his programs through, including an increase in the minimum wage and the earned income tax credit. As a Southerner he knew that you had to talk like a moderate to get in and pass a liberal agenda. He did. Hillary is more a product of the liberal social gospel movement from the turn of the last century. They were Christians who believed that Jesus cared about "suffer the little children to come unto me," and "I was naked and you did not clothe me..." rather than Evangelicals of recent time who believed Jesus cared most about stoning homosexuals and women who had abortions.

especially the ones who pretend they never puffed Bush up. Chris Matthews and Howard Fineman are also among the worst. I wish we could lock them in a room and force them to watch themselves suck up. Years without relief is too little punishment. They are dispicable. We have to stop Matthews from getting the Democratic nomination for Senate in Pennsylvania.

as the daughter of a military man and the sister of two others (one of whom was in Vietnam), to my mind the biggest sissy is the one one who pretends to be tough but chickens out when times get tough.

They waged war on the Democrats for years, promoting the GOP, especially John McCain. In the 1990's they promoted the Republican line about wonderful Reagan, despite 30 corruption convictions of his minions for offenses while in office, and corrupt Clinton, despite no such convictions. They then moved on to trashing Al Gore and beatifying McCain. When the country turned against Bush, Williams, Matthews, and NBC slowly began pandering for the Democrats, at least Obama, as actively as they had for the GOP. But make no mistake, their embrace of the generals shows they are only concerned with money and power, and they will turn on the Democrats and Obama if their bosses demand it. They are revolting.