Obama attacks Bill Clinton’s economic legacy

n his address Mr Obama associated Mr Clinton’s abolition of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act in 1999 with the financial scandals that rocked the early years of the Bush administration and which led up to the bailout earlier this month of Bear Stearns.

Mr Obama also ascribed the bankruptcy of Enron and WorldCom in 2001 and the subsequent lack of oversight of the US sub-prime mortgage market to the influence of special interests and lobby groups in Washington DC dating from the Clinton era.