I’ve had the extreme good fortune to shift careers to one that allows me time to create and stare at charts. (Sadly, yes, that’s a literal description of some of my afternoons, as well as my feelings about those afternoons.)  So it’s with an especially strong “What!?” that I watched this video, via Ann Althouse, via Glenn Reynolds:
 

 
To save time for those who don’t want to watch a political ad, the important point is that former President Bill Clinton argues for a second term for President Obama on the grounds that Republicans want to return to an era of deregulation — which, he claims, is “what got us into trouble in the first place.”  This, he contrasts with the Obama’s plan, which “only works if there’s a strong middle class.”  “That’s what happened when I was president.”
Let me first say that deregulation did play a role in our current predicament, but it wasn’t deregulation alone.  It was deregulation with a de facto government backing when risky ventures went wrong.
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