The Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Web Today has a great analysis of the difference between the current and previous Democratic presidents:

Amid President Obama’s recent political difficulties, one recurring theme from unhappy lefties is that the president is either too willing to compromise his progressive principles or else never adhered to such principles in the first place. …

Left-wing progressives have abundant reason to be unhappy with the Obama presidency. If it continues on its current trajectory, it could be the greatest setback to progressive ideology since the Vietnam War. …

But the notion that Obama is not a progressive or has not been “fighting for progressive principles”–a very different activity from negotiating, we should note–is bunk. …

In short, Obama is a fighter for the progressive cause. Progressives are upset with him because he is a loser.

Bill Clinton, by contrast, was a winner. By all accounts he emerged victorious from the 1995-96 budget battles with Republicans, and he was easily re-elected. There are, of course, many differences between Clinton and Obama, and between those times and these. But one salient difference is that Clinton was ideologically flexible whereas Obama is rigid.

Unlike Obama, Clinton abandoned “health care reform” when it was clear it was politically untenable. Clinton drove a hard bargain with Republicans in the budget fights, but he never demanded that they raise taxes. And his signature legislation turned out to be welfare reform, a centrist initiative that drew bipartisan support but bitter opposition from the progressive left.

Yet the left not only stood by him but rallied behind him when he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice in a sex scandal. If Barack Obama were caught in flagrante delicto with a White House intern, does anyone doubt the left would demand his resignation–and would be relieved at having a good reason to do so?

Progs loved Bill Clinton because he was a winner. They loathe Barack Obama because he is a loser. But Obama is a loser in large part because he is unwilling to do what Clinton did to make himself a winner: cast aside progressive ideology when it is expedient to do so.

Obama isn’t betraying the left, the left is betraying Obama–and they are doing so precisely because he has done what they say they want him to do.

It was obvious from before his 1992 election that Bill Clinton was principally about Bill Clinton. Clinton’s tax increase occurred in 1993 with a Democratic Congress. But Hillarycare was dropped just before the 1994 elections, which didn’t go well for Clinton’s party. Clinton’s investor-friendly tax cut in 1997 occurred with a Republican Congress. Clinton (correctly) touted the North American Free Trade Agreement, which his union supporters opposed.

Obama’s presidency so far has made people wax nostalgic for Clinton’s presidency.