Clinton fatigue, my butt

If there's one political cliche that drives me nuts more than any other, it's the description of Ronald Reagan as "the most popular president" since Ike or Roosevelt or whatever.

Funny, most of my friends and I thought Reagan was the antichrist. And for most of his second term, less than half the U.S. population thought he was doing a good job. After all, the guy almost single-handedly tripled the deficit, conducted secret wars, lied reflexively -- Nixon had nothing on him.

Contrast that with my man Bill Clinton (also a world-class fibber), whom the same pundits are claiming has given us a national case of the ickies. We're just dying to end the Clinton years, according to them.

TNR's Sean Wilentz notes that Clinton's second-term job-approval numbers kick Reagan's off the chart. Sure, most people wouldn't want him to babysit their daughters, but fortunately that's not in the presidential job description.