I hate to wade back into the culture wars forced upon us by Bill Clinton’s unjustified impeachment, but since many right-wingers have leapt to pummel the former president on his book tour, those of us not blinded by hate, ideology and a lust for power should at least pitch in with a rebuttal. To that end, here’s a short list of better ways to think about Clinton’s tenure. Post it on the fridge for handy reference.

Start with his record. Twenty-two million jobs, longest postwar boom, a shift from record deficits to record surpluses, welfare reform, a big boost in wage subsidies for poor workers. What’s more, since Clinton had only two years on “offense” followed by six years on “defense” (after the GOP took the Congress in 1994), Clinton had limited scope to aim higher. But at least Clinton lost in 1994 while trying valiantly to extend health coverage to every American, and because he led his party to cast tough votes on deficit reduction that cured the problem, sparked a record expansion, yet cost some Democrats in Congress their careers.

Now, to Monica. The proper reason for Clinton supporters to be angry with him over Monica was always simple. The presidency is a trusteeship; tens of millions people had a stake in Clinton’s agenda. Clinton had it right long ago. Someone in a position to lift the minimum wage for millions, or extend health coverage, or boost education has a duty to maintain his “political viability.” Knowing how the Washington game is played, Clinton had a duty not to squander his power for something so trivial. Period.

But! But the rest was always a matter for Hillary and should never have been public. Clinton’s behavior on its own could never have caused a political and cultural meltdown without (1) an out-of-control prosecutor and (2) a shameful and confused media.

In an earlier age, a bipartisan group of wise men would have gone to Ken Starr and told him that it would be a horrific abuse of prosecutorial discretion to pursue a president for lying about sex. The prosecutor would have agreed. What we witnessed in the late 1990s was not the Death of Virtue, as some pompous critics claimed, but the Death of Discretion, something equally important for functioning societies.

If there were any justice in this world, Clinton would have been able to sue for a third term.

The press. The role of the press was equally lamentable. Reporters apparently coached Linda Tripp on the need to have a legal angle to the Monica story, because mainstream media outlets couldn’t run with a story on presidential sex alone. So Tripp cooked up the Paula Jones legal angle with some right-wing operatives, and the press ran with it. Parents, don’t let your babies grow up to be “investigative reporters” in such an era!

The hypocrisy. Then the press lost its bearings entirely to justify wall-to-wall coverage. It’s not the sex, they said; it’s that the president lied about it! (Earth to media: Adultery is a lie; lying is what adulterers do). The press went after Clinton because he didn’t tell Hillary and Chelsea and the rest of us? Please.

The hypocrisy of Clinton’s critics was breathtaking. Phalanxes of Republicans left political life when awkward truths came out about their own extramarital antics. I was attacked on “Hardball” for suggesting that others in our history – from Dwight Eisenhower to Martin Luther King – might have been disqualified from leadership under the standards being applied to Clinton, and that this was no good thing. I was lambasted by Chris Matthews in response, while other guests harrumphed that such relationships with subordinates could “never happen” and would “never be tolerated” in corporate America. (Read on once the laughter has died down).

The last word. Oh, but he lied under oath, conservatives say – that was always why this really mattered. I know conservatives got Newsweek to agree, so I guess when it mattered, they won.

But consider: When Clinton gave his deposition in the Jones case, Monica had already filed her affidavit saying there had been no hanky-panky between them. If Clinton had come clean in the deposition, he would have immediately exposed Lewinsky to charges of perjury. It’s a delicious fact that conservatives will just have to live with. But in the end, isn’t it clear that in sticking to his story, Clinton was done in by his own chivalry?

Matthew Miller is a syndicated columnist and author. Reach him on the Web at: www.mattmilleronline.com.