Yo, Fred! I checked the archives for any sort of memorial to Ronald Reagan last June, but I couldn't find anything!

Yeesh. Wasn't eight years of Slick enough? Funny how he chose the hospital bed as the place from which to offer advice to the Kerry campaign. This guy still can't get enough attention from the press.

And it's not like I dislike his politics-- he didn't really have any relative to the partisan political landscape we know and love *cough*. And I don't give a crap about bimbos et al. But when you get up in front of a Grand Jury and say, "That depends on what your definition of 'is' is.", well, sorry, that makes you a creep. Sure, the nature of the legal inquiry was at times questionable, but when you're under oath, you don't get to pick and choose which questions you answer truthfully and which you don't.

So, OK, get well. But then please, please go away and don't come back, louse.

Toosh! Yah okay, that "is is" bit was pretty unbelievably slippery, I will agree; semantics taken to new heights of ridiculousness. And I now understand that in America we like our liars to lie directly to Congress and the people, not to a mere grand jury. But I remain unrepentant in thinking Clinton was the best American president to have served in my lifetime, despite his well publicized flaws. Guess that makes me a running dog liberal card-carrying member or something, eh? Or maybe the bar was just set pretty low by the competition...

Nah, can't agree that you're a liberal card-carryer. Can't agree on your choice of best presidents in our lifetimes either. I'd have to give the nod to Reagan in that department. I give him credit for successfully leading the effort to bump-off state sponsored Communism on a global scale in exchange for a larger Federal debt: a worthy trade and a bloodless one to boot. If only the mess in Iraq could play itself out along the same lines. Sure, we still live in a dangerous world, but remember that where today we speak of Weapons of Mass Destruction, we once spoke of Mutually Assured Destruction.

I see Clinton as kind of a late 20th century two-term version of Warren G. Harding, with no real defining accomplishments to speak of. He began his administration with aborted attempts at expanding government influence and oversight of the private sector (e.g. "Stimulus Package", National Health Care). In the realm of foreign policy, only the nominally successful Kosovo operation comes to mind (or was that a UN operation? What would John Kerry say?). Beyond Kosovo, the main instrument of Clinton foreign policy seemed to be a few cruise missiles here and there when the flames of his domestic scandals burned too brightly.

On the domestice front, folks may give him credit for running a few budget surpluses, but I see those years now from a post-Bubble perspective. It was all the run up to that big giant popping noise of some 4 and a half years ago. Mr. "Is is" and his endless stream of transparent lies set an example that was followed by the Ken Lays, Dennis Kozlowskis et. al. of business, and in so doing, set the table for one of the most gigantic transfers of wealth from the middle and lower classes through Wall Street to the well-connected and well-heeled Friends and Family [tm] types.

But don't get me started...