Even if you put Ken Starr’s jism hunt aside, Bill Clinton’s legacy is vexing.

Was his centrism constructive pragmatism or a damnable sell-out?

Is compromise the proper way to operate in a checks-and-balances democracy, or does it leave us compromised?

As the leftysphere has well and properly alerted us, the MSM is beating the drum for a fictitious need for bipartisanship in the 110th Congress.

Our country (not to mention a little place I call “Iraq”) is reeling from the scorched-earth, reality-be-damned neo-conservatism of the last several years.

Only a complete asshole would argue that the new Democrat-led Congress should give the slightest deference to the gang that not only couldn’t shoot straight, it couldn’t pick the right target, either.

Still, the Dems’ Senate majority is wafer-thin (and unlikely to match the Repubs for lock-step unity), and they remain outnumbered in the Executive and Judicial branches.

So, how do we make progress?

Is Clintonian accommodationism a good idea or bad?

Perhaps its signature example is the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

John Shalikashvili, Clinton’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now argues that it was a successful stepping-stone that has prepared the military to go the full Monty: rescinding altogether its restrictions on gays.

Once we’re done marveling at the irony of Bush’s Crusade so depleting the military that he may be forced to arm outed Sodomites, one wonders whether Clinton’s triangulated policy was, in fact, a good idea.

Likewise, how should we remember Booker T. Washington?

The Atlanta Compromise Address, delivered before the Cotton States Exposition in 1895, enlarged Washington’s influence into the arena of race relations and black leadership. Washington offered black acquiescence in disfranchisement and social segregation if whites would encourage black progress in economic and educational opportunity.

Did he deliver the most advancement then available to African Americans? Or did his deals with the devil slow the march to true freedom?

If we want to vilify Booker T., should the same go double for Ben Franklin and company, who acquiesced to slavery in post-colonial America?

For me, last year’s torture bill brought a compromise on top of a compromise: I couldn’t possibly condone votes in favor of it, yet I couldn’t condone not voting for those primary-winning Democrats who did, lest the party that Overton Windowed this desecration of the Constitution retain the House and Senate.

I do think, for all its post-modern absurdity, “don’t ask, don’t tell” probably did represent the only progress then available vs. the aggressively homophobic policy it supplanted. But it’s still half a loaf, when a full loaf is the right thing to do.

With the Worst President Ever still in the White House and the media still avidly trying to herd our fellow citizens and representatives rightward, we surely haven’t seen the last unholy compromise.

The question is will we be able to sleep at night… and will it be fitful or the sleep of the just?