THE CLINTON/DEBLASIO THING: Irony and Oafishness on Inauguration Day: The de Blasio era kicks off with bitter denunciations and fantastical ramblings.

New Yorkers got a glimpse of how leaders of the de Blasio coalition really think. By and large, they are new to the big tent; before de Blasio’s ascension, nobody cared what they thought about anything, and so it never occurred to them to hold their tongues. Certainly they didn’t Wednesday, and the new mayor’s implicit acceptance of the ugliness was sad and ominous. The speakers represent a large part of the de Blasio base, and his refusal to admonish them sent an unhappy message of its own: stand by for more.

Not to be caught up in the amateur-hour antics, however, was former president Bill Clinton. He cheerfully administered the oath of office to de Blasio—and that’s where the irony comes in. For wasn’t Clinton the architect of welfare reform as we know it, a largely successful effort to crack the cycle of dependence that owned the souls of so many Americans? And isn’t de Blasio more or less dedicated to dragging New York back to the days of no-questions-asked, no-stigmas-attached, multi-generational addiction to government dollars?

Today’s liberals have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.