Sunday, May 01, 2011

Glenn Reynolds: Obama's the black Jimmy Carter!

I love the way this piece begins:
People on the right have been comparing President Obama with Jimmy Carter for a while now: The rise from nowhere via inexplicable press adulation, the smarmy moralizing, the excessive faith in his own abilities, the tendency of everything he touches to turn to crap -- all seem eerily reminiscent of the Carter presidency.

People on the right have also compared Obama to Hitler, questioned his citizenship and accused him of trying to destroy America, so I think we can safely conclude that they're probably not the best folks to get an objective analysis from.
To Carter, higher energy prices were an insoluble problem; to Obama, they're a tool to encourage Americans to live more constrained lives -- and perhaps to buy a Chevy Volt from the bailed-out General Motors.
And what were the spiraling energy prices under Bush/Cheney for?
At the moment, Obama is involved in three wars, and in two of them he is losing. (The third, ironically, is the war he ran against, in Iraq, where things seem to be going comparatively well).
From 2001-2008, we were never losing any wars. Now we're losing two, despite Obama retaining Bush's SecDef, the bulk of his national security policies and increasing defense spending.

Amazing how that works.


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