And its historic effect will be temporary as well. Conventional wisdom has it that sex scandals will play a large part in defining the Clinton legacy. I doubt it. Teapot Dome was the Monica of the '20s, yet not one American in a hundred can tell you what it was about. He tried first to take credit for the current boom.
Politicians always do that, and it is never convincing.
Nonetheless, Clinton did not do nothing. To his credit, he did not get in the way of the most remarkable boom in American history. Where Roosevelt had created a new social norm with Social Security, he would create a new norm with universal health care. That he did screw up, with the indispensable help of his wife. Out of that wreckage came half a decade of minimalism.