Norm Ornstein turns upside-down the notion that Clinton knew how to do it better than Obama does. I'm convinced -- in part because I remember the real Clinton years, not the fantasy some seem to cling to. Clinton was detested, blocked, denegrated and, in the end, gave us an unleashed corporate culture, NAFTA, and no health bill.
On balance, Clinton was a good and strong president. But — and here is the second reality — it was Obama, in an even more intransigent and tribal era, who got a major health-reform package through a bitterly divided Congress. As Michael Grunwald details in “The New, New Deal,” Obama also managed to enact a major set of substantive policies — including financing the introduction of information technology into the health-care system, expanding broadband and revamping the electrical grid — that had eluded his predecessors. The accomplishments of the 111th Congress rivaled those of the Great Society Congress of Lyndon Johnson’s era. And they were achieved without the midnight phone calls or warm interactions with allies and adversaries that characterized Clinton. To a large extent, they were achieved because Obama gave his leaders in Congress a lot of slack to find majorities (or supermajorities) and intervened only when a push was needed. ...Norm Ornstein, WaPo
