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They Once Loved Jimmy, Too
Wall Street Journal ^ | 8/9/11

Posted on 08/09/2011 5:01:38 AM PDT by markomalley

In a polarized nation, on the eve of another divisive contest for the White House, those seeking a unified America are not without hope. For amid the partisan bickering, there remains one principle on which all Americans are agreed: Any comparison to Jimmy Carter is always and everywhere a put-down.

Given Mr. Carter's Democratic affiliation, it's mostly Republicans and conservatives who traffic in Jimmy Carter allusions. That makes for something of a yawn, as Mitt Romney is finding out with his claim that the community organizer from Chicago is worse than the peanut farmer from Georgia. More in the man-bites-dog category is when one of Mr. Obama's own sticks the Carter tag on him.

So it must have stung when the New York Times's Maureen Dowd recently quoted an unnamed Democratic senator moaning that "we are watching him turn into Jimmy Carter right before our eyes."

She was not alone. Eric Alterman earlier this year weighed in with a column in U.S. News whose headline declares, "Obama's Awful '70s Show Echoes Jimmy Carter." The unkindest cut of all comes from Zbigniew Brzezinski—Jimmy Carter's national security adviser and one of the first to hop aboard the Obama bandwagon—who on MSNBC last month brought up the word most associated with Mr. Carter, though he never actually said it: "malaise."

Many have noticed this trend. Few appear to appreciate that the record shows an even stronger parallel between Messrs. Obama and Carter. For there was a day—especially after he finished ahead in the 1976 Iowa caucuses—that Mr. Carter was hailed as the intelligent outsider who was going to clean up Washington and forever change American politics.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 08/09/2011 5:01:38 AM PDT by markomalley
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To: markomalley

2 posted on 08/09/2011 5:07:15 AM PDT by Old Teufel Hunden
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To: Old Teufel Hunden

I think it’s much, much worse.


3 posted on 08/09/2011 5:08:57 AM PDT by corlorde (NH)
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To: corlorde

Comparison of practical skills:

Carter: Farming, engineering, home construction
Obama: ?


4 posted on 08/09/2011 5:14:11 AM PDT by NewHampshireDuo
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To: markomalley

Carter = anti Nixon
Obama = anti Bush

No real regard for either present in the voters


5 posted on 08/09/2011 5:28:14 AM PDT by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: markomalley
There are two levels to analyze the Carter/Obama comparison: either both men were merely misguided leftists who tried but failed to advance the story of their country or one or both of them despised America and wished to neutralize her or even deconstruct the American system.

I am willing to give Jimmy Carter the benefit of inference that he was a patriot who wanted the best for his country even though he regarded American foreign policy to be misguided and domestic policy to be insensitive to the needs of those less "privileged." I believe he accepted a need to counter the Soviet Union but sought to do so through appeasement hoping that that would render the Soviet Union less aggressive and the world safer. He was disabused of his naïveté by the Soviets' invasion of Afghanistan. Domestically, he had no understanding that he was reaping the reward of American intemperance During the Great Society and our squandering of assets in Vietnam. If he believed that inflation and a sagging economy were the results of bad government policy, his reaction was always to add more government policy.

Obama, in contrast, gets no inference of a white heart with an empty head from me. I believe his heart is dark and the man himself is the embodiment of enmities, jealousies, frustrations, and resentments which, in Churchill's words, "corrode the human breast." I believe he actually despises the middle of America, especially white America. "Despises" in the sense that he has no regard for us but sees us as at best greedy, self-destructive capitalists and racists at home and imperialists abroad who are ignorant of the Marxist insights which illuminate his understanding. He identifies not with the masses for whom he professes compassion, but for the elitists who conjure up their remedies to transform a world into one of social justice.

He is invested with the airy indifference typical of Marxist elitists to the human cost of the "good" they do. Therefore, Obama is incapable of being disabused about the wrongheadedness of any of his policies. Any setback is chalked up to the need for the chef to break a few eggs when he makes an omelette. Mao was a positive genius at these rationalizations.

I believe this is a more accurate picture of the mind of Barack Hussein Obama. It is pointless to try to persuade him or even to negotiate with him along the lines of common human give-and-take. Persuading him is like trying to persuade Stalin at Yalta.

He must be utterly beaten, disgraced, and exiled from power.


6 posted on 08/09/2011 5:39:40 AM PDT by nathanbedford ("Attack, repeat, attack!" Bull Halsey)
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To: nathanbedford
Well put.

I do remember Jimmah Cahtah and the damage he did. It may not have been deliberate at the time but in the past several decades, Cahtah has revealed himself as a confirmed Jew hater and has accepted huge sums for his Emory University glorification from the Saudis. Something has seriously gone wrong with his brain.
Obama, however, has always been thus.

7 posted on 08/09/2011 6:00:20 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Eh ?)
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To: nathanbedford
At the end of the day, down the road, I believe Jimmy Carter will wind up being considered to the superior president to Obama. Carter, to his credit, understood or had some semblance of how to manager, to his discredit, he had wish or desire to delegate, and was a micromanager to an extreme level (in his defense, his underlings were incompetents, but at the same time, he did hire them).

Carter, grasped more in his presidency, then Obama ever will.

8 posted on 08/09/2011 9:24:27 AM PDT by Sonny M ("oderint dum metuant")
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To: Sonny M
Sorry, my keyboard isn't working right.

At the end of the day, down the road, I believe Jimmy Carter will wind up being considered to be the superior president to Obama. Carter, to his credit, understood or had some semblance of how to manage, to his discredit, he had no wish or desire to delegate, and was a micromanager to an extreme level (in his defense, his underlings were incompetents, but at the same time, he did hire them).

Carter, grasped more in his presidency, then Obama ever will.

9 posted on 08/09/2011 9:50:43 AM PDT by Sonny M ("oderint dum metuant")
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