Bill Clinton: Wait, I’ve got more.

Bill Clinton gave a pretty masterful if overlong speech. It’s funny how every great Bill Clinton speech is on the verge of being a terrible Bill Clinton speech because he goes on and on. But he showed you can actually work policy into a convention address, put aside his ego (somewhat) in acknowledging that he couldn’t have done any better with the collapsed economy than Obama, and refuted every GOP charge against the President (save criticism of the stimulus).

It’s amazing someone as bright as Clinton wasn’t a better President. He was above average in a few ways, but far below in others. Certainly not a disaster like his successor but sort of underwhelming considering his gifts. He was undisciplined and unfocused in foreign policy, and made plenty of bad cabinet appointments. To his credit, he was able to work with some of the very same creeps who tried to railroad him out of office, but he truly was the recent Democratic President who led from behind, at least domestically. And you can triangulate your way into a second term but not greatness.

The Obama charge that rankled Clinton so much–that he was a transitional President instead of a transformative one–still rings true. But no one has ever questioned Clinton’s party loyalty and last night he put aside his chilly relationship with the President the way a senior statesman will. The GOP has no analogue to him and its poorer for that.•