Jimmy Carter

It was good to see Jimmy Carter on “60 Minutes” last night. Perhaps it will
remind voters why they dislike Barack Obama so much.

Carter went on the venerable newsmagazine show to promote his new book, a
compilation of diaries from his days in the White House. Lesley Stahl and the
producers obviously thought that Carter’s hatred of Ted Kennedy was the most
newsworthy thing in the book, as Carter blamed Kennedy for the fact that major healthcare
was not passed during his administration.

It could have been Kennedy’s fault. But in his defense, it was only because Carter
was such a terrible president that Kennedy even thought about running in the
primary against him. Had Carter been effective, perhaps Kennedy would have
thought twice about crossing him.

America had a bad run from the mid-’70s until Ronald Reagan stormed into office
in 1981. The hangover from Watergate continued to haunt the Republican Party,
and it was able to win only 15 House seats in 1978, Carter’s first and only
midterm election. Democrats still had an overwhelming majority in the House
(277 seats) and in the Senate (58 votes), so theoretically, Carter should have
had the ability to ram things through the Congress.

That explains why Carter had, as he said, a high batting average when it came
to getting his agenda passed. He passed trucking regulation, Superfund, airline
deregulation; he bailed out Chrysler, he gave amnesty to Vietnam draft-dodgers,
he returned the Panama Canal to the Panamanians, and he accomplished many other
of his goals.

But he also diminished the presidency, looking like Mr. Rogers with his
cardigan sweater, swearing off the playing of “Hail to the Chief,” selling the
presidential yacht, talking about malaise and sitting idly by as the Russians
invaded Afghanistan and the Iranians seized our hostages.

Worse, Carter had no plan to deal with the devastating stagflation that hit the
American economy. He was helpless as the misery index (high inflation, high
interest rates, high unemployment) climbed ever higher.

And he implicitly blamed the American people for their wastefulness, became a
micro-manager of the government — getting lost in the details without providing
any strategic vision — and worse, he alienated his allies in Congress to such
an extent that a liberal lion like Ted Kennedy ran a vigorous and forceful
campaign against him, knowing that his candidacy would likely sink Mr. Carter’s
second term.

Sound familiar?

President Obama likes to think of himself as a liberal version of Ronald
Reagan, a transformational political figure. But Reagan was in sync with the times.
He understood that the American people wanted a return to the American
greatness narrative, that the people perceived the government to be the problem
and not the solution, and that they wanted a plan to deal with the faltering
economy. Reagan provided the people with all of that and more.

Carter, like Obama, focused on a legislative agenda that perhaps achieved some
of his personal goals, but didn’t fix the problems ailing the people. He
belittled the office of the president, and he obviously didn’t believe in
America’s special place in history, again, just like Obama.

Jimmy Carter was a one-term president, and roundly seen as a disaster as president
for a generation. History might try to rehabilitate him, as he tries to
rehabilitate his place in history himself. But he was a failure, and Mr. Obama
seems to be following in his footsteps all too quickly.

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