As the clock unwinds on the nation’s first black presidency, much of the black political class is scrambling to rewrite the history of their own behavior over the past six or seven years. Suddenly, all of them claim to have been “constructive critics” of the Obama administration, despite the absence of any public record of such criticism when it might have made a difference.

In twenty-one months, the first black president will leave office having overseen a federal retrenchment more brutal than under Ronald Reagan, a “bipartisan” austerity regime forged in 2010 as Obama pursued his long-sought “grand bargain” with the GOP.

Before even taking office, back in early January 2009, Obama had loudly proclaimed his intentions to plunge directly into austerity mode, once the banks had been rescued from insolvency, by putting all entitlement programs “on the table” for chopping, including Social Security. He spent his first two years in office, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, creating a model for austerity through his hand-picked deficit reduction commission, which recommended $4 trillion in cuts — virtually the same as demanded by the Republicans.