The horrors of Kosovo persuaded Clinton, who turns 53 on August 19, that the world needs an elder statesman to fight racist and ethnic hate. No more will the world snigger ``Lewinsky'' when it hears the name `Clinton'. The President has settled on his proper legacy.

During his visit to Europe over the last few days, Clinton has for the first time been outlining in greater detail what he proposes to do after January 2001, when the most powerful Clinton in the land is likely to be spouse to Hillary, who plans to run for the US Senate.

There'll be no loafing on the verandah for this youthful retiree, nor will the old charmer be starring in TV soap operas or hosting his own tell-it-like-it-is talk show, as some malicious tongues suggest.

Americans have acclaimed another Democrat, Jimmy Carter, as the country's ``best ex-president ever''. After a disappointing presidency,the morally upright Carter has proved a distinguished hands-on campaigner for democracy worldwide, and that is an example Clinton would sooner follow than earning big fees from public speaking.

Carter ``is a good model for every former president who gets out who still has good health and a few years left'', Clinton told the US Cable News Network (CNN). Reconciling archenemies seems the right sort of job for a president with no higher office left to run for.

Without the Yugoslav leader's campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, Clinton might have had a harder time going down in history for great deeds, or getting a second chance in retirement to burnish his image.

``Consider first the lessons we would be leaving this century for the next if we had come to Cologne without having taken a stand in Kosovo,'' he said in the German city during the G8 summit. ``Innocent men, women and children in the world's troublespots would lose hope.''

In Kosovo, he said, 19 democracies stood up to evil and demonstratedthat cruel tyrants would be resisted.

Clinton gives himself most of the credit for this. Aides have even begun speaking of a Clinton Doctrine: the policy of decisively snuffing out ethnic and religious conflicts before they flare up into massacres.

There is no mistaking Clinton's relief that world affairs seem to be going his way when another sort of affairs nearly brought his ruin.

``It is too early to quit work, and I am not good enough to go on the senior golf tour,'' he joked. ``So I expect I will have to just keep on doing what I am doing.''