THE EIGHT YEAR ONE-TERMER: Earlier today (scroll down), I quoted Dick Morris, who said Bill Clinton "was a one-term president who lived in the White House for eight years". Clinton's inaction on terrorism during the second term will likely cost the Democrats the election in 2004, Donald Lambro writes:

The Democrats' biggest challenge in 2004: Convince independent and swing voters that their party can protect the United States.
That's going to be a hard, if not impossible, sell.

Polls show that Americans, by margins of 40 percent or more, trust President Bush and Republicans more than the Democrats to keep our nation safe from terrorism and other security threats. Yet the message coming from Democrats (including most of the party's presidential candidates) is one of weakness, timidity and ambivalence on the most politically pivotal issue of our times.

Intense criticism is being heard lately from Democratic strategists and a few leaders — all of whom complain that the party's opposition to the war in Iraq and continuous attacks on Mr. Bush's handling of the war on terrorism is hurting Democrats. The gist of their ominous warning: If Democrats can't show that they're tougher than Mr. Bush on national security, the party faces the impossible in 2004.

Clinton could have eliminated this issue, but as Byron York wrote shortly after 9/11, the polling data just didn't support his doing the right thing:

So Clinton talked tough. But he did not act tough. Indeed, a review of his years in office shows that each time the president was confronted with a major terrorist attack — the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers attack, the August 7, 1998, bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole — Clinton was preoccupied with his own political fortunes to an extent that precluded his giving serious and sustained attention to fighting terrorism.

In the short term, he survived. But Clinton's indecision--or rather, his decision to do nothing--has caught up with his would-be successors, as the buck did not stop on his desk.