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I'm stunned that a President has a big ego... I never knew
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...147816104.html
Comparisons between the Obama White House and the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter are increasingly being made—and by Democrats.
Walter Mondale, Mr. Carter's vice president, told The New Yorker this week that anxious and angry voters in the late 1970s "just turned against us—same as with Obama." As the polls turned against his administration, Mr. Mondale recalled that Mr. Carter "began to lose confidence in his ability to move the public." Democrats on Capitol Hill are now saying this is happening to Mr. Obama.
Mr. Mondale says it's time for the president "to get rid of those teleprompters and connect" with voters. Another of Mr. Obama's clear errors has been to turn over the drafting of key legislation to the Democratic Congress: "That doesn't work even when you own Congress," he said. "You have to ride 'em."
Mr. Carter himself is heightening comparisons with his own presidency by publishing his White House diaries this week. "I overburdened Congress with an array of controversial and politically costly requests," he said on Monday. The parallels to Mr. Obama's experience are clear.
Comparisons between the two men were made frequently during the 2008 campaign, but in a favorable way. Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz, for instance, told Fox News in August 2008 that Mr. Obama's "rhetoric is more like Jimmy Carter's than any other Democratic president in recent memory." Syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg noted more recently that Mr. Obama, like Mr. Carter in his 1976 campaign, "promised a transformational presidency, a new accommodation with religion, a new centrism, a changed tone."
But within a few months, liberals were already finding fault with his rhetoric. "He's the great earnest bore at the dinner party," wrote Michael Wolff, a contributor to Vanity Fair. "He's cold; he's prickly; he's uncomfortable; he's not funny; and he's getting awfully tedious. He thinks it's all about him." That sounds like a critique of Mr. Carter.
Foreign policy experts are also picking up on similarities. Walter Russell Mead, then a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Economist magazine earlier this year that Mr. Obama is "avoiding the worst mistakes that plagued Carter." But he warns that presidents like Mr. Obama who emphasize "human rights" can fall prey to the temptation of picking on weak countries while ignoring more dire human rights issues in powerful countries (Russia, China, Iran). Over time that can "hollow out an administration's credibility and make a president look weak." Mr. Mead warned that Mr. Obama's foreign policy "to some degree makes him dependent on people who wish neither him nor America well. This doesn't have to end badly and I hope that it doesn't—but it's not an ideal position after one's first year in power."
Liberals increasingly can't avoid making connections between Mr. Carter's political troubles and those of Mr. Obama. In July, MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked his guests if Democrats up for re-election will "run away from President O'Carter." After much laughter, John Heileman of New York Magazine quipped "Calling Dr. Freud." To which Mr. Matthews, a former Carter speechwriter, sighed "I know."
Pat Caddell, who was Mr. Carter's pollster while he was in the White House, thinks some comparisons between the two men are overblown. But he notes that any White House that is sinking in the polls takes on a "bunker mentality" that leads the president to become isolated and consult with fewer and fewer people from the outside. Mr. Caddell told me that his Democratic friends think that's happening to Mr. Obama—and that the president's ability to pull himself out of a political tailspin is hampered by his resistance to seek out fresh thinking.
The Obama White House is clearly cognizant of the comparisons being made between the two presidents. This month, environmental activist Bill McKibben met with White House aides to convince them to reinstall a set of solar panels that Mr. Carter had placed on the White House roof. They were taken down in 1986 following roof repairs. Mr. McKibben said it was time to bring them back to demonstrate Mr. Obama's support for alternative energy.
But Mr. McKibben told reporters that the White House "refused to take the Carter-era panel that we brought with us" and only said that they would continue to ponder "what is appropriate" for the White House's energy needs. Britain's Guardian newspaper reported that the Obama aides were "twitchy perhaps about inviting any comparison (to Mr. Carter) in the run-up to the very difficult mid-term elections." Democrats need no reminding that Mr. Carter wound up costing them dearly in 1978 and 1980 as Republicans made major gains in Congress.
I'm stunned that a President has a big ego... I never knew
There are some apparent similarities between Carter and President Obama. That's not much of a surprise. There were a fair amount of similiarities between Bush and Carter as well.
One thing Obama seems to grok better than Carted did, as a sitting President, is foreign relations.
Have y'all noticed how vocal Carter has been lately?...I know he's got his new book out, but he's been on TV everywhere trying desperately to be relevant...It's quite pathetic, actually...he's still trying to rewrite history...
can you be more specific?
Carter's work with Habitat for Humanity has established his relevancy beyond question. This same work earns him a huge IDGAF from me concerning the rest of your unfounded rant.
It's not a rant. I'm not saying he's a bad guy, he was just an awful President and now he's trying to rewrite history. Example: "I would have passed universal health care 30 years ago but Teddy Kennedy undermined me out of spite."
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42289.html
Former President Jimmy Carter says the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) is to blame for delaying the implementation of health care reform for 30 years.
In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Carter says that health care reform during his presidency fell through because Kennedy killed the bill.
“The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy's deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed,” Carter said of the senator who died last year.
“It was his fault. Ted Kennedy killed the bill,” Carter added, blaming a political feud between the then- ans of Democratic politics. “He did not want to see me have a major success in that realm of life.”
CBS posted part of the interview on Thursday, the full story will air Sunday.
Carter gave the interview ahead of the release of his new book “White House Diary,” a printing of selected passages from a diary he kept during his time as president.
Carter also knocks Kennedy over his actions on health care in the book, according to CBS, writing: “Kennedy continuing his irresponsible and abusive at ude, immediately condemning our health plan. He couldn't get five votes for his plan.”
So VRWC Murdoch's WSJ, now that the VRWC conspiracy has trashed and buried Carter, is now trashing Magic Negro by likening him to Carter? How surprising.
does the history say "teddy and i were the only crusaders for my healthcare plan"?
Oh PLEASE guys...
Do you have to just automatically take the opposite side of anything I say? If I criticized Reagan or Bush (and there is enough criticism to go around) would you automatically defend them?
Do you REALLY think Carter was a great President?
you could have said "carter is a ".
you didn't. you claim to have extensive knowledge of late 70's DC history regarding the truth about jimmy and teddy.
Carter wasn't great, but was he the garbage disaster as the VRWC has painted him? no.
VRWC darlings dubya and St Ronnie were much larger, much longer-lasting disasters than Carter, and is the entire Conservative Movement.
All presidents have after their terms are their legacy. Seeing as the type of person who runs for office tends to be one with a giant ego this can't possibly surprise you.
I never saw the interviews themselves, but if Frost Nixon is accurate at all then Nixon was fairly the same. Clinton was lucky to have Bush follow him because that pretty much instantly improved his legacy.
Bush may be the one guy who doesn't give too much about a legacy from what I can tell, but its still early. Give him a few decades to recover and he likely will be the same.
I think this type of behavior is a personality trait of the type of person that runs.
In any event, there are likely a ton of progressives who ed healthcare over in the 70s. the plan Richard Nixon proposed back then makes Obama look like a right wing . They all had a hand in screwing the pooch.
I don't think so. The Bush family seems pretty unique in that when they leave public life they really leave public life.
"they really leave public life."
while leaving tons of for the next administration to clean up.
Somewhat off topic.
But why is Carter's presidency considered a failure?
I'm asking about the top three reasons in the mind of the American people why it is considered so, without going into if these are correct or not.
"the mind of the American people"
There is no such thing.
Carter was the first Dem president after the VRWC/Movement Conservatives got their destructive ball rolling.
VRWC is a hateful, eliminationist, bad-faith, dishonest movement that doesn't consider anybody but themselves as legitimate holders of power.
The VRWC buried and destroyed Carter's reputation, they witch-hunted the Clintons and knee-capped his presidency (VRWC paid Paula's legal fees), and now, even more extreme, are obstructing and to trying to make fail every move by Magic Negro, whose reputation they will treat like Carter's and Clinton's.
i'll give a couple of reasons.
gas rationing.
american hostages.
Slomo- I will try....
1- American esteem was at an all time low…Carter gave the impression that Americans were too fearful to respond to ANY American threat….Carter may talk tough now but he was a spineless, groveling fool of a president…
2- The Economy was terrible, people were out of work & Carter had no plan to move the country forward….
3- 21.1% was the prime rate….
4- Building was at a complete standstill…
5- Billy Carter was becoming the face of America…A crude hick that would drink beer in taxpayers paid secret service limos….Occasional Billy would pull the limo over & urinate in the street…
6- Gas Lines blocks long…
7- 30 plus years later he is trying to re write history...
Then this Cowboy from Cali came along & proposed less government, lower taxes & personal responsibility…It kind of worked….
I agree, but as bad as Bush was, I think Obama's failed presidency (thus far) has gone a long way to at least partially legitimize Bush's legacy.
like what?
wage and price controls.
he's still more like reagan to me.
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