The 1990s were great in retrospect. The problem is that the good bits only lasted about six years, which is really nothing while it's happening. The decade started with the worst crime rate that anyone had ever experienced, a recession, and the lingering belief that we would all die of a nuclear war any second.

Clinton got elected in 1992 and things started to get better, but not fast or dramatically enough that many people noticed. Meanwhile, the media ("Y2K!" "Violent Video Games!") and the Republicans ("Lewinsky!" "Travelgate!" "Whitewater!") managed to convince half the country that everything absolutely sucked and was things were going to get worse. By the end of the decade, Clinton had been impeached, the tech bubble had burst, and 9/11 was right around the corner. If you blinked, you missed the good parts or never really felt them anyway.