Amidst all the flap over the pardons, which is really ridiculous since a president can pardon anyone he wants, Bill Clinton has lost almost every ally he's ever had. Even Jimmy Carter (a.k.a. Brutus) dissed him. Everyone agrees he's finally tarnished his legacy, and just when we'd forgotten about Monica. The right wing prudes are gloating while the lefties converge on Clinton, daggers in motion.

My only complaint about the pardons is that he didn't go far enough. Don't just pardon your brother Roger for cocaine possession, pardon everyone in the country with a similar conviction on their record. Don't just pardon one California drug dealer, set them all free. I like a lot of Clinton's pardons. He struck a blow against idiotic mandatory sentencing laws for drug crimes. Some one had to.

He could have cut Leonard Peltier loose, or Mumia Abdul Jamal, he could have thrown a few more bones to the counter culture that supported him all the way to the White House but with his wife in the senate he wasn't about to anger law enforcement types (they got lobbies, you know). Sure, it stinks that Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, makes me think he has much more in common with super-wealthy types than his political base (but we knew that, right?) and it does send a bad message (flee the courts if you can afford it, there's good skiing in Zug, Switzerland.)

But all of this doesn't mean he should be saddled with a rotten legacy. Clinton presided over one of the largest economic booms in history (and if you read Bob Woodward's new book about Allan Greenspan, you see that Clinton deserves equal credit to the federal Reserve Chairman). Clinton destroyed Newt Gingrich, and that's a favor for the free world. He supported gay rights, and if he didn't do enough on this score he still did more than any other president, and he put some good justices on the court, especially Ruth Bader Ginsburg. His every accomplishment was achieved in spite of an opposition congress: he might have appointed more good justices to federal benches had the Republicans not tied up his nominations in committee. He might have created at least a safety net for health care recipients. He might have more openly integrated the military.

When he compromised, he sold out the left badly. We can't absolve him for that. Welfare reform? Come on, Bill. It was cruel. But Dole and Gingrich would have left folks starving in the street without Clinton around to temper their designs. He used the military too often for my taste, but less in eight years that George Bush Sr. did in four (in fact, Clinton inherited military situations in Iraq and Somalia from Bush the elder.) He did roll over for campaign donors and corporations. He approved NAFTA over the objections of labor and was a staunch globalist over the objections of labor, environmentalists, human rights groups and most of America's youth. But at least he acknowledged their grievances. What would George Dubya done about protesters in Seattle and DC? He'd have ignored them at best. At worst, well, we all know about Texas justice.

We have to conclude from all this that Bill compromised the ideals of the left on an almost daily basis for eight long years. But he also achieved more for the left than anyone on the left had achieved since Kennedy, maybe since FDR. We were quiet for eight years because we knew Clinton was a smart man, that he had his reasons. We knew he had his passions and they led both to acts of brilliance and embarrassment. We knew that for the first time in a long while, people in Europe, Africa, Latin America, everywhere respected out President, didn't think he was a moron and wondered why we were so fixated on his sex life.

Perhaps the best indication of Clinton's true legacy is in the quality and ferocity of his foes. In congress we have Dan Burton and Arlen Specter, two powerful nutjobs who are beholden to the vastly rich portion of America's right wing. Those are the folks who are clients of large investment banks like Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse First Boston, folks who complained when Clinton spoke at company sponsored events. You see? Specter wants to impeach Clinton so they can take his retirement money and perks away. Specter's leaders want to rob him even of his high-fee speaking engagements (the ultimate presidential perk). They want to take everything, even though he's gone because they were mad he got elected in the first place and had been attacking him for so long that they can't bring themselves to stop.

Now, who's side do you want to be on? I'll take a guy who gets blowjobs and grants questionable pardons over Dan Burton and a cadre of investment bankers any day.

If Michael Maiello were Bill Clinton, he'd have pardoned every prisoner in Texas on my last day in office. See how Dubya deals with that...