No more is Clinton attacked as far-left Sixties radical—he is recognized as the essentially centrist Southern governor he always said he was. His wife—perhaps even more hated by the right in the 1990s—is widely regarded as a stabilizing force in the Obama administration as secretary of state.
One interpretation of this reversal of fortune is that the Clintons look good because the Obamas are so bad. But reflect on the fact that so many of the attacks are the same—including a column originally published on WorldNetDaily calling Clinton a Marxist Manchurian Candidate—and you quickly come to the more obvious conclusion that the problem lies in the reflexive hyper-partisanship that distorts the characters of political figures beyond realistic recognition.
Over time, we start to see these figures more clearly. No one is as good as intense advocates believe or as bad as overheated opponents insist. But I think it is worthwhile to note that the more reasoned criticism of Sarah Palin now seems to be widely accepted. And on the flip side, American consensus about Bill Clinton—for all his well-documented flaws—has erred on the side of his moderate defenders. Objectivity is elusive, but eventually something like balance creeps into our assessments. The result is not always nonpartisan.
The takeaway for this current election is to not fall for the overheated attacks—or overzealous defenses—of either candidate, especially when they echo old fear-mongering scripts. Falling for the fever of hyper-partisanship tends to make fools of us all, in time.