Is it too late to ask if we can't just bring back Bill?

 Is there a Third Term Caucus I can join?

 Because any guy who can act as ringmaster for the unveiling of the human genone miracle, see in the
 near-distance the elimination of the federal debt, take his presidential sledgehammer to rocketing
 prescription costs for the elderly, and make peace furiously in the Mideast, Ireland, and between the
 two Koreas, then that fella has a knack for the job.

 I am aware that whole pine forests have been slain, whole networks dedicated (I'm talking Fox TV
 and the Boss Fox, Rupert Murdoch), and whole industries focused (is talk radio an industry or just
 audio wrestling?) on the proposition that Clinton is a vile fellow who deserves to be impeached, jailed,
 flogged, exiled, and forced to pay off $20 million in legal fees by working as a counterman at
 McDonald's.

 But even his enemies in Congress and The Wall Street Journal's executive suite are befuddled by the
 ease with which Battlin' Bill flits from triumph to triumph, surfing along on the great economic tidal
 wave that characterized his two terms. I have said before that I don't want a father figure in my
 president. Don't need a dad. I don't want a buddy, a blusterer, a scolder, a nag. I don't need a prez to
 tell me to eat my broccoli and swallow my spinach. I want a fair-minded, president, a tough-minded
 president, and above all I want a well-minded president, as in smart. The job is a crusher. Pressures
 are volcanic. Any chink in a personal or moral armor, the lava comes rushing in, and they're cooked.
 They all fail. They're all flawed. What's vital is how they come back. Can they take a shot right on
 the snoot and get up for the next round? Or do they have the china chin that busts on the first serious
 contact and renders them hors de combat for the duration?

 His envious enemies call Clinton ''Slick Willie.'' ''He's the best liar I've ever seen,'' confided a
 Republican presidential candidate - in a tone that conveyed a certain ego-envy. I still think of Bill as
 the rube who rode into town on the back of the turnip truck, and found he was just as smart as the
 rich kids in the city. He reads more books in a week, I'll wager, than George W. reads in a year.
 Clinton has total recall, a photographic memory, for faces, books, intellectual arguments, and festering
 political saddle sores. Or a babe. Or a well-heeled contributor aching to be asked for an opinion on
 some weighty issue other than moolah.

 William Jefferson Clinton learned a lot of lessons on the way up. But learning how to schmooze the
 rich and powerful was not the least of them. The boy can charm the birds out of the oleander
 bush.  Talk a dog off a meat-wagon. Once he locks on to the retinas of a rich man or a
 comely woman,  something clicks on. His prey hears the opening strains of
 ''I only have eyes, for yoooo, dearrrr.''  Then it's curtains. Where do I sign?

 If you are satisfied with George Dubbaya's fumbling rationale for his execution of 130-odd fellow
 humans, then get ready for more. I'm not talking about whether you're for or against the death penalty
 - Clinton executed Ricky Lee Rector, Gore says he's pro-capital punishment, and Governor George
 Ryan is the gutsiest pol in the land for halting executions in Illinois till the innocent are weeded out of
 the queue. But when it comes to explaining complicated issues with lots of ramifications to people in
 language they can understand, I fear for the Bush boy.

 He has raised $90 million in cash with not-inconsiderable energy and a certain winsome cowboy charm.
 I don't know if I'm ready for four years of fractured syntax and mangled script-reading.

 Everybody knows Al Gore is no Clinton. But he's had eight years of watching the master up close.
 Which makes him a president with a lot lower learning curve. But nobody looks at Gore and sees
 Clinton, unless you're a Republican campaign contributor. Or your name is Trent Lott.

 I have covered every president since LBJ, put questions to every one since Nixon (the worst by a
 landslide) and I think most Americans are a little too dewey-eyed about their presidential candidates.
 Get real, voters; Santa Claus is not coming down the chimney at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

 My notion is that the presidency is a job, and we hire someone to do that job, and their human frailities
 and mistakes must be counter-balanced by substantial strengths, virtues, talent. The pervasive and
 invasive news/infotainment biz strips our leaders of distance, majesty, and the remoteness that
 conveys power. TV puts them right in our face, and over-exposure turns them into objects of ridicule.

 I heard a woman groan Monday, after listening to Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair
 emote about the human genome triumph, that Blair came across as ''a syrupy Cyril, and Clinton
 reminds me of W.C. Fields with his big bulbous nose.'' Fair enough. Or, unfair enough.

 I just have this feeling that one year from now, Clinton's approval ratings will be higher out of office
 than they are now. And that many Americans will be singing, perhaps under their breath, ''Come back
 to the White House, Billy Cee, Billy Cee.''

 David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.