“Equally riveting and astonishing, Mr. Clinton’s blast-from-the-past performance in the White House briefing room on Friday afternoon reinforced the impression of political déjà vu, the sense that once again a Democratic president humbled by midterm elections was pivoting to the center at the expense of his own supporters.

“But as no less an authority than Mr. Clinton reminded us, the comparison is incomplete and imperfect…

“It’s worth remembering that Mr. Clinton and Mr. Obama are strikingly different figures. Mr. Clinton was a Southern governor who had defined his political identity in part as an apostle of moving his party to the political middle, while Mr. Obama is from the urban north and came to office presenting himself as a pragmatist, but not necessarily a centrist, and has ushered in the most sweeping liberal policy initiatives in years…

“Still, it’s a measure of Mr. Obama’s uncertainty in this moment of peril that he would summon not only the spirit but also the person of Mr. Clinton, whom he disparaged during the 2008 campaign for small-ball politics that made him less of a transformational president than Ronald Reagan. Lately, Mr. Obama has been reading accounts of Mr. Clinton’s presidency.”

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“If not a transfer of power, the whole show seemed at least a temporary handoff. An embattled president, fresh off an electoral shellacking and struggling to sell a controversial tax deal to members of his own party, turned to a former president who, exactly 16 years ago, was struggling to right his own presidency after a defeat of almost similar magnitude…

“Obama’s willingness Friday to hand the stage to Clinton to save the deal he struck with Republicans was a measure of the state in which he finds himself. It was also a sign of confidence that Clinton can help deliver the votes he now needs to get his package through a lame-duck session of Congress.

“Obama is a gifted communicator, but Clinton is still Democrats’ best synthesizer of policy and political strategy, still the explainer in chief. It is a role he has enjoyed playing for as long as he has been in public life. On Friday he played it with customary gusto, to his and, Obama hopes, the president’s benefit.”

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“In the short time it took Clinton to wrest back control of the White House yesterday from his skinny successor, he had people swooning and panting for his return.

“One viewer said he was tempted to mute the TV and pretend it was 1997 and Clinton was still president and the economy was still wonderful.

“As Obama looked on and fidgeted, the master schooled the pupil on being presidential.

“He was open, easy, funny, confident. Never teachy, preachy, defensive or arrogant. Clinton had total command of the small details but never wandered from the high perch of the big picture…

“As one observer noted, ‘Instead of leaving, Obama should have stuck around to see how it’s done.'”

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“Bill Clinton seems the perfect validator for Barack Obama — which is why the President is utilizing the former president for selling his tax deal. After all, the economy boomed when Clinton was president and 22 million net new jobs were created. From a more narrow political perspective — and this is important to Democrats in Washington — Bill Clinton was reelected, even though he lost both houses of Congress in the 1994 midterms.

“But the analogy falls apart as soon as you realize Clinton’s economy was vastly different from Obama’s…

“I admire Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. I advised the former and worked for the latter. They are good men. But they have either been outwitted by the privileged and powerful of America, or seduced by those on Wall Street and the executive suites of America into believing that the Republican nostrums are necessary, or succumbed Democratic advisors who think in terms of small-bore tactics rather than large and principled strategies.”

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