Isn't it about time for Democrats to point out the obvious?

Mark Shields: Let's look at the record ... In 2002, Rep.-elect Michael Michaud, D-Maine, was a genuine exception among Democratic House candidates: a blue-collar, dues-paying union member who had worked in the paper mill for 28 years, who is pro-life and who, in a district previously represented by moderate Republicans -- former U.S. Sen. Bill Cohen and current U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe -- defeated Snowe's longtime chief of staff. All this, mind you, after Michaud publicly embraced the Man Republicans Love to Hate, former president Bill Clinton. Here, according to the estimable columnist E.J. Dionne, is what candidate Michaud had to say to Clinton in October before 2,500 Maine citizens in Augusta: "The country's economy was in the ditch, and you made the hard decisions and turned things around. But the Republicans in Washington could never give you any credit. Oh no. They said it was not Bill Clinton who brought prosperity, it was the House Republicans and Alan Greenspan. Guess what? We still have the House Republicans. We still have Alan Greenspan. And where's the economy? Back in the ditch." This Michaud fellow is clearly on to something. For the past decade, it has been a conservative crusade to: a) deny Bill Clinton's policies any credit for the historic prosperity the nation enjoyed during his presidency, or b) deny that those good old Clinton days were really that good at all. ... Let's be blunt. Bill Clinton gave his political opponents a pistol loaded with his own reckless and unacceptable self-indulgence, and then re-loaded it on the way out the door with his pardon of the loathsome Marc Rich. But Mike Michaud was right. Bill Gates is still there. Alan Greenspan is still there. The House Republicans are still there. Ronald Reagan's tax and budget policies are still honored in the White House. The only two things missing are a good economy and Bill Clinton.