At the start of Clinton's memoir book tour, his retrospective job approval rating, 62 percent, tops its average during his presidency. And personal assessments of Clinton, while still hardly robust, have improved significantly since he called Washington home, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Sampling, data collection and tabulation for this poll were done by TNS.

Americans now split evenly on Clinton "as a person." Half say they've got a favorable impression of him, 49 percent unfavorable. Opinions of him were much more unfavorable — as high as 67 percent negative — during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and its aftermath.

It was assessments of Clinton's job performance — his professional rating, rather than his personal one — that sustained him during the scandal and his impeachment trial. Across his presidency, an average of 57 percent of Americans approved of his work in office, a mid-tier rating for postwar presidents that matches Ronald Reagan's.

Clinton's current 62 percent approval, 37 percent disapproval retrospective job rating is similar to his valedictory rating (65 percent approval, 32 percent disapproval at the end of his presidency) — one that tends to serve more as a farewell than as a true job evaluation. During his career, Clinton's approval hit bottom during the long hangover from the 1990-91 recession (43 percent in June 1993) and topped out shortly after the Lewinsky scandal broke (69 percent in January 1998).

It's a common phenomenon for Americans to look back on past presidents with less critical eyes. Four years after George H.W. Bush left office, his retrospective approval rating was 63 percent, up considerably from the end of his term. Jimmy Carter, who had the lowest average job approval of all postwar presidents, did 20 points better in a 1999 poll, 18 years after he left office. And Reagan received a retrospective approval rating of 73 percent in 2002.

Clinton Job Approval
Now	62 percent
Career Average	57 percent
Career High	69 percent (1/98)
Career Low	43 percent (6/93)

Groups

There is still a wide partisan and ideological divide around Clinton. Large majorities of Republicans, conservatives and George W. Bush supporters view him unfavorably, and by somewhat smaller but still wide margins, they disapprove of Clinton's work in office as well.

Democrats and liberals have maintained their deep attachment to the 42nd president, holding favorable views of him by almost 3-1 and approving of his job performance by more than 5-1. And John Kerry supporters are enamored of Clinton. They give him an 87 percent job approval rating, and 69 percent view him favorably on a personal level.

Methodology

This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone June 17-20 among a random national sample of 1,201 adults. The results have a three-point error margin. Sampling, data collection and tabulation were done by TNS of Horsham, Pa.

Previous ABC News polls can be found in our Poll Vault.