Bill Clinton: “I think to some--I think I underestimated a couple of things. First of all, the difficulty of having to manage both a…”

“I think to some--I think I underestimated a couple of things. First of all, the difficulty of having to manage both a domestic and a foreign policy at the same time when both needed so much change, because we need to be strong at home and strong abroad and fighting for good jobs and strong families and safe streets at home and fighting for greater security and freedom and democracy abroad, that's something I underestimated. The other thing I underestimated was the extreme partisanship of the Republican congressional leadership which we now know from studies is the worst it's been since World War II. No President ever had to deal with that. Now, notwithstanding that, after the Congress went home, we learned that this was only the third time since World War II when the Congress supported the President more than 80 percent of the time. And so we were able to have a historic reduction in the deficit and to provide a dramatic increase in college loans for middle class people and pass the family leave law and the Brady bill and a dramatic crime bill and immunize the kids in the country who are under 2 by 1996. We did a lot of profoundly important things, but it was an extremely partisan and negative environment. I also underestimated the extent to which the communications in the country would continue to be so combative and negative. And I think that somehow unduly sours the American people when the truth is that, for all of our difficulties, this country's in better shape than it was 21 months ago. We're growing jobs at 5 times the rate of the previous 4 years. We've got over 5 million new jobs in 21 months. I mean, we're moving in the right direction. President's Popularity”