There’s an old joke that defines a liberal  as “someone who is generous with other people’s money.” By that definition, Barack Obama is a remarkably liberal man.

During the aborted attempt to save Chrysler from bankruptcy, Obama oversaw billions of dollars loaned out to the struggling automaker — and then saw those “loans” forgiven and converted into outright gifts.

Obama’s plan was thwarted  when some of Chrysler’s debtors — those not shackled by federal bailout money — realized they would do better with a bankruptcy judge than with Obama, who offered them 20 cents on the  dollar. That led to Obama angrily denouncing them for their greed.

It seems to escape Obama that these people who shot down his grand scheme are not protecting their own money. They are managers of other people’s money, and have a legal and moral obligation to protect those funds to the best of their ability.

Simply put, the money Obama wanted them to write off wasn’t theirs to give away. They had no more right to tell Chrysler to keep it than they had to insist that President Obama repay the debts out of his own checkbook.

Not that that would have been likely to happen. Back during the presidential campaign, President Obama released his tax returns for the years 2000-2006. He seemed to have had a pretty good grasp of the value of his own money — his charitable giving never broke 1.5% of his income until he started planning for his run for president.

It’s remarkably easy to be generous when other people ultimately pick up the tab. The tricky part is arranging things so that those other people will agree to cover your promises.

One good way to do this is to get elected president.