Obama was indeed transformational, unfortunately

Any summation of Barack Obama’s impact on domestic policy and politics should begin with this: In 2008, he assured supporters, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” Soon he will be replaced by someone who says, “I alone can fix it.” So, Americans have paid Obama the compliment of choosing continuity, if only in presidential narcissism.

The nation has now had, for only the second time, three consecutive two-term presidencies. (The other was “the Virginia dynasty” of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe.) The first trio culminated in an “era of good feelings.” (Monroe was reelected unopposed.) The second not so much.

Obama, who called health insurance reform the “defining struggle of this generation,” was semi-right, in two senses. Because Obamacare demonstrates the perils of trying to micromanage 18 percent of the economy (America’s health-care sector is larger than all but four national economies), it might be the last gasp of New Deal/Great Society-style government hubris.