Bill Clinton's old archnemesis Kenneth Starr really likes Bill Clinton now

As Donald Trump ramps up his attacks against his likely general election rival, Hillary Clinton, he is increasingly zeroing in on her husband, former President Bill Clinton, for his alleged sexual transgressions. "Is Hillary Clinton really protecting women?" Trump has blasted.

But now even one of Bill Clinton's biggest critics is backpedaling from that sort of talk. Kenneth W. Starr helped pursue the impeachment of Clinton in the 1990s, but in a startling about-face now praises him for being "the most gifted politician of the baby boomer generation," The New York Times reports.

"[Bill Clinton's] genuine empathy for human beings is absolutely clear. It is powerful, it is palpable and the folks of Arkansas really understood that about him — that he genuinely cared. The 'I feel your pain' is absolutely genuine," Starr said during a panel discussion at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. "There are certain tragic dimensions which we all lament," Starr added.

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Starr also expressed concern about "the transnational emergence of almost radical populism, deep anger, a sense of dislocation" — an apparent reference to Trump, although none of the current presidential candidates were mentioned by name.