Obama Makes GOP Miss Clinton

Back in the '90s you wouldn’t hear many Republicans waxing poetic about Bill Clinton, but these days, that’s exactly what Steve Chapman of the Chicago Tribune is doing. “Clinton, for all his appetites and excesses, was a cautious, centrist sort of Democrat” who “proclaimed—or conceded—that the ‘era of big government is over.’” How nice that sounds to Chapman in the age of Obama.

Barack Obama seems to believe that the era of big government has just begun. The pragmatic, moderate Obama of the campaign “vanished sometime after Election Day,” replaced with an LBJ-like big-government type, expanding the “profligate habits established under George W. Bush.” At least Clinton balanced the budget, contained the role of government, learned from liberal failings. “Right now, I miss him,” says Chapman. “Before long, Democrats may as well.” (More Bill Clinton stories.)