Clinton is credited with making the Democrats a winning party again. But the latest crop of presidential candidates looks pretty hapless as the Democrats gear up against Bush. What can Democrats learn from presidents who knew how to play to win -- like a Kennedy or a Clinton?

Don't lose the plot. Don't go talking as if history began with George W. Bush. Don't forget the progress we made under Clinton: 22 million new jobs, full employment, the greatest rise in family income and real wages in a generation, a 25 percent reduction in poverty, the greatest rise in living standards among African-Americans since the end of Jim Crow. Use the markers to draw the comparison: Bush losing 3 million jobs so far, opposing women's rights, increasing wage disparities.

Presidents matter, they matter in the lives of ordinary people. By law, they're responsible for the economy and its instruments. The economy is not the weather. Clinton took the tough decision of fighting for passage of the 1993 budget -- not one Republican voted with him -- and by doing that, he reduced the deficit by three-quarters and helped to ignite the economy. So it matters what the president does.

Let's look at compassionate conservatism -- the reality vs. the rhetoric. In fact, Bush has undermined and attacked the very programs that were supposedly at the heart of his philosophy. All the programs he listed in his speeches, he hasn't done a damn thing about them -- tax credits for low-income people for health insurance and rental housing; funding for homeless shelters. He's even cut Meals on Wheels for seniors and cut the children's health insurance program. Where's the compassion? It's all hot air.

On the international side, we see similar reversals. Bush is seen as a strong leader now because of the military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq, and yet the U.S. somehow still seems more in danger. In today's world, it's diplomacy backed by force that makes the U.S. stronger. We understand that collective security and our allies are crucial to attaining our goals -- not only in winning wars, but in fighting global diseases, and promoting education, women's rights, environmental protection, and labor standards. All of which have not just been neglected by Bush, but opposed.

But the Democrats' current leaders don't just fail at underlining their policy differences with Bush, they also fail in the trenches of political combat.

I believe that no attack should go unanswered. You have to correct the record. There are two reasons for that: If you don't, people won't understand you, and two, if you don't fight for yourself, why should people believe that you'll fight for them?

The rebellious Democratic legislators in Texas showed terrific courage against the anti-democratic authoritarianism of Tom DeLay. That's an example of politicians standing up for themselves and getting respect for it. I'm looking forward to the Democratic presidential candidates getting out there and doing the same. You know, 2004 is not a lost cause at all. There's plenty of time for people to see the myriad failures of the Bush administration.

Now that so many self-righteous, conservative windbags have been exposed as hypocrites, from Newt Gingrich to William Bennett, do you think that the era of the politics of personal destruction is finally coming to an end?

I would hope the American people are onto this GOP game by now. But no, I don't think it's over. Because it has worked so well for the Republicans. What is good is that the institution of the independent counsel -- an unaccountable perversity -- has been abolished.

It's in the history and nature of the Bush family and Karl Rove, when they're hard-pressed, to use harsh and divisive tactics in order to win -- just ask John McCain who was subjected to them in South Carolina. And they know how to do it in underhanded, untraceable ways. They did the same thing to Dukakis. They tried it on Bill Clinton, but he beat them -- by his stamina and his unwavering focus on great public goals. He made the American people see how his programs helped them in their daily lives, how it was in their self-interest to support him. That's why Democrats can't lose the plot. That's why remembering the history in my book is important, what the Clinton administration was all about.

Many of your political enemies would say you play just as down and dirty as the Bush family.

I show in my book that these accusations were phony. The day that the New York Post ran a front-page photo of me as "Bill's Dirt Devil," I simply shrugged it off. I came in to a White House meeting that day, singing the Stones' song "Sympathy for the Devil" -- "Please allow me to introduce myself ..." You have to remind yourself it's just politics.

Were you insufficiently critical of President Clinton for his behavior in the White House?

I don't think so -- I think I was tougher on him than anyone else. I told him to his face that his behavior had given ammunition to our enemies. If you know Bill Clinton, that's about the toughest thing you can say to him. Look, I'm not married to him -- I believe that marriages belong to the people who are in them. And even then, husbands and wives don't always have a complete understanding.

The point is this: It was an easy choice for me to stand up and fight for this presidency and this man against the virulent, unconstitutional attack on it. Against the efforts to use private, consensual behavior to reverse the will of the people. It was easy for me to stand by him - all great presidents are flawed. President Kennedy certainly had more flaws than we knew at the time; DNA tests on Jefferson showed he was a very flawed man; FDR died in the arms of his mistress.

Let me say one more thing about Bill Clinton the man. I tell a story in the book about the time when a group of senior advisors, including me, met to brief the president in the Oval Office. We thought we did a great job, covered all the bases. But after we finished, he looked at us and said, "You are the dumbest bunch of white boys I have ever seen." He roasted us for coming into the Oval Office as an all-white, all-male group. "Don't let it happen again," he said. It wasn't for public consumption, he wasn't trying to look good, he was simply a person committed from the very fiber of his being to social equality. And ultimately that was partly why they were trying to remove him. And now of course they're trying to reverse all his public policies. They're trying to create the biggest federal deficit in history to crush all those social gains, from Clinton to as far back as the New Deal.

So no, I had no problem standing up for Bill Clinton and his administration -- and I still don't.

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