Your question so reminds me of the old guy always complaining about "Kids these days!" as if he had nothing to do with having raised them. What happened to the "It takes a village" mentality? You completely discount the part the Democrats played in all of this - like voting to go to war.
Doubter, can I tell you a little something about Clinton's "military reduction?" First Bush 41 had planned the draw down even before Desert Shield/Storm. Trouble was/is, he was voted out immediately after the war and Clinton didn't have a clue as to what he was doing. I had a meeting with one of his (Clinton's) key architects for the draw down (Adm. Nader). His explanation for the draw down was that the economy was "sluggish." I made the statement that if the economy is sluggish, it generally indicates that people are not spending money - either because they are out of work and don't have it, or because their pay checks are not keeping pace with the cost of living. I then asked how taking a bunch of gainfully employed people, suddenly making them all unemployed and then turning them loose on an already "sluggish" economy was supposed to help. I was told to "sit down."
Add to this BRAC (Base Reallignment and Closure Committee). Clinton Closed NAS Moffett Field and then turned it over to NASA and AIMES Research, he did the same with the Army Base Presidio (the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge). That one, he turned over to the National Parks and Forrestry Service. Please note that NASA and NPFS are still government funded programs. There was no savings. It was all just a shell game. In truth, Clinton ran the country out of money and under his watch, the government literally was ordered to send all non-essential personnel home. No one received pay checks that month.
Clinton swore that with the fall of the Soviet Union that we would never again find ourselves in a two front war and so no longer needed that large a military. Isn't it amazing how almost immediately after his departure from office, we find ourselves embroilled in a revisit to Desert Storm (Renamed Iraqi Freedom) and also in Afghanistan? So much for never needing that large a military ever again.
Lastly, having nothing to do with the military, but EVERYTHING to do with Clinton and our currnet economic situation. Do you suppose for just one moment that had Mr. Clinton not signed off on NAFTA and WTO, that so many jobs would not have trickled away to overseas markets? Mr. Clinton was a dunderhead. Think about WW I and all of the treaties that allowed WW I to happen. Now compare it to the globalization that Mr. Clinton has allowed. We're all being sucked into the vortex. Bush 43 is only guilty of having signed off on the change of bankruptcy laws, making it more difficult to file. And who hired the lobbyists behind that maneuver? The finance institutions. Think they didn't see this whole thing coming? And still, Congress does nothing. Nice.
The political landscape is not nearly as monolythic as you are lead to believe. Bill Clinton was so lost that he was continually calling Jerry Ford out in Vale for advice. The thing about being a good leader is that you should have a vision, a plan and people who will follow. Clinton had no plan other than to be President. I suspect that Mr. Obama falls into that same basic category. For Bush 43, it made sense. Being President was the next logical step. That Clinton had to contend with a Republican lead Congress who failed to address back burner issues such as Carter's Revision of EPA standards making us dependent upon foreign oil and that Bush 43 had the same circumstance helped set up the whole deal. It takes two.
*later*
Love all of the thumbs downs. My guess is, they are from the ilk that looks for self-affirmation rather than fact. And people wonder what's wrong with America today.