1. Clinton lost both houses of congress in his second year and was known for working with the other party. He was already right of Obama and moved to the center to make the most out of his presidency. He's chiefly remembered for pissing off the progressive/liberal base which is part of the reason why they came out so strongly against Hillary in favor of other candidates.
2. That's what libs like to say, and that meme has paid off to the base. The truth is that the Dems control both Congress and could get around Republican manuevering...progs blame the Republicans because it's easier than admitting that their own party doesn't take them seriously or that parochial wrangling stalled other legislation.
Libs lie to themselves again and again.
3. I think you'll find plenty of folks on this thread (myself included) who say the opposite. Even to his enemies Clinton comes off as intelligent and he can actually identify and articulate policy points and issues.
4. Obama also comes across as a weak man who doesn't even know his own country, and he's been targeted as such by the leaders of other countries. Putin, Lula and Wen JiaoBao, Netanyahu have him pegged.
I don't dispute that Obama blew any democrat majority he had. Part of that was due his weakness also. Instead of pushing the issues and forcing things when that needed to be done he let other people set the agenda.
You are wrong about the Democrats being able to get things through congress with Obama uncontested if they wanted to. That was only true in the most literal strictest most absolute technical sense. To think they could just get around Republican maneuvering is totally false in any kind of realistic sense. Their majority wasn't that big. In the last few years Republicans seem willing to filibuster or screw around with procedural measures just about any and almost every issue. They pretty much oppose things just to oppose them now.
All it took was a few of Democrats wavering and things had the ability to fall apart for them, and that's exactly what happened with health care reform for example among many other things. Instead of something good that they had in mind we got a watered down measures that aren't going to fix the underlying problems with our health system or getting everybody insured at a reasonable rate or coincide with what most of the Western World views as a human right. But...Yes, you are right the Democrats did waver and did lack political will, and that really hurt them, especially when they could have went for the jugular, and probably should have.
When Clinton worked with the other party it usually ended up being something that was stupid. NAFTA really comes to mind right off the bat, or was something that was compromised so it was equally bad to everybody. That's part of what made a lot of his bad decisions bad. He also did it more out of necessity and not because he wanted to make nice which Obama was slanted more towards the latter. However if it came down to it I still think Clinton could have been more unwavering than Obama. Clinton also didn't have the disgruntledness against the Republicans when he came into office like Obama had. If Clinton came into the situation Obama did when they entered the presidency Clinton would have been more likely to try and crush the opponents under his heal. Obama has less excuse for squandering the opportunities he had.
Clinton wasn't intelligent, he was charismatic. There's a enormous difference between those two things. Sweet talking stupid people doesn't make one intelligent and doesn't mean he knew what he was doing. Most aspects where Clinton might look good are because of fortunate timing of when he was president more than any other factor. He was president in pretty much the only time since the 60s where our economy had a mild illusion of being not that bad.
I think Obama does know his country, at least more than a lot of his modern predecessors. (Which still is probably not that much.) By “country” I mean the people in it. I might even go so far as to think he knows what the normal average and poor people think even more so. His problem is that people just expected him to be able to magically fix problems that would be virtually impossible for him to do so (Only partly because of his fault because things I have already listed on this thread.) in an environment where it's more important to his opponents that he fail than the welfare of the people is, and in an economic situation that‘s a near disaster and doesn‘t look like it will get much better, and I mean truly much better, maybe ever.
He also receives a lot of the blame for things people are short sighted and selfish about. When to fix problems will cause most people to have to sacrifice in some way and most people just think about themselves then there is now way to actually fix the problems with people being pissed because something might not benefit them as much. It’s either that or don’t fix any problems. The publics general fickleness came back to hurt him. Having Republicans complaining and constantly able to convince people though fear mongering or some blind ideological loyalty to actually be against things that are in their best interest hurts him a great deal, and as an Objective observer who is with neither party I have to say the Republicans do that MUCH better than the Democrats. However, I don’t equate somebody manipulating the flaws of the public and using them to their advantage as something that is really “knowing their own country“.
I think if one could take Obamas ideas minus a handful of the political issues he's stupid about, and combined them with a stronger will and iron clad resolve to MAKE things happen or go to the ends of the Earth trying he would be an alright, not great, but alright president. Unfortunately the time to do that has passed for him.
The Democrats and Obama's biggest disadvantage, believe it or not, was actually winning the last presidential election. If Republicans would have inherited the situation with the amount of people that were already sour on the Bush years back then they would be crippled by now that the Dems could have came in and cleaned up like a political party hasn't done in modern US politics.
