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Furrowing his brow at the protesters rudely demonstrating their ingratitude to benevolent old Uncle Sam, Bill Clinton decided to take a trip down memory lane. While others indulge their 1990s nostalgia by watching Seinfeld reruns and listening to Hootie and the Blowfish CDs, Clinton prefers to repeat his favorite smears of anyone uncouth enough to criticize the government from the right.

Then as now, our leaders had to deal with a fearsome tide of antigovernment extremism. Today we have Michelle Bachmann, the Republican congresswoman from Minnesota. Back then, it was Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, and a Democratic president who stood up and announced the end of the "era of big government."