Clinton Was Good For The Economy?

I want to spend a moment to debunk that whole "Bill Clinton was good for the economy" myth. While I'm at it, I think I'll connect him with the mess in Iraq. I'll do this quickly, with common sense as the guide.

1. BILL WAS GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY.
If he was good for the economy, why did the economy begin to falter at the end of his term. That's right, Bill Clinton was still President in 2000, when Wall Street began to decline steeply in the first quarter of the year. Wall Street usually follows economic numbers. In that case, the economic numbers would have had to started a decline sometime in 1999. There was even a sharp decline for the major Wall Street indexes on one day in April 2000. In 1998, worldwide stock selloffs rippled over here to the U.S. One of the centers of that selloff was Red China, a country that Bill Clinton tied us to even more strongly than past administrations. His drive for more economic ties to Red China has actually hurt the economy more than helped. Most of the American jobs that fled to Red China have done so after Bill's policies with Red China were put into action. We all know that loss of American jobs, especially of the magnitude we have seen in the last 15 years, is disastrous for our economy. Now, I want to make it clear that I am not a George Bush fan. In his own right, he has hurt the American economy by not working to solve the problems with Red China and with illegal immigrants who have taken jobs. He has actually accelerated these two disasters. However, the economic slump through the first few years of the 21st century are not Bush's fault, but the fault of his predecessor, William Jefferson Clinton.

2. BILL AND TERRORISM AND THE WAR.
September 11th and the ongoing war in Afghanistan and Iraq did not happen under the Clinton administration. However, a lot of the blame should fall under his administration if the account of the official story is correct. First thing, Osama bin Laden (What's with the Usama thing) is generally believed to be the "mastermind" behind the 9-11 attacks. Bill Clinton could have made it a priority to have him caught (his administration did know where he was at least once during his Presidency). Clinton was supposedly concerned about Osama, and a USA Today front page in the late 1990s showed that Osama was planning to assassinate Bill Clinton. If everything would have progressed as generally believed, and if Osama was caught, 9-11 would not have happened.
Secondly, the war in Iraq. I do not agree with the war there. I never could see its connection with September 11th. If you are going to charge Saddam with connection to terrorists, than you have to charge Russia, Saudi Arabia (where bin Laden is originally from), China and a number of other countries with ties to terrorism and we would have about as much right to go fight them. The U.S. is not the police force of the world, and I don't believe we should be about the business of getting involved in other countries' affairs to dispose of dictators. If we should do that, then we should go down to Cuba and do just that. Cuba has more of an effect on U.S. affairs than Iraq, other than oil. However, the fact is that we are in Iraq, and progress in being made, according to soldiers that I have talked to. What would have helped us to get this over quickly, though. A stronger national defense, one which Bill Clinton weakened during his administration.

It looks to me like the argument that Bill Clinton was good for the economy is full of fluff. I didn't even add the other reasons why he could have been worse for the economy, including universal health care. Imagine what would happen if his other half would be elected next year. Ouch!