"Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit"
That's the headline of Richard Cohen's column today, it's a doozy.
The premise of his piece is that President Obama, like Carter, is misunderstood. Carter had his energy crisis, which at the time he called "the moral equivalent of war," and he had his plan to win that war--solar power, sweaters, earmuffs. Cohen, ever the earnest pundit, describes Carter's energy plan as "right and bravely so." Fast forward to today, and Obama has his stimulus plan, the health care law, and the bailouts, which Cohen calls "the right things."
You may wonder at this point why, above, I placed Obama in the same paragraph with Carter. It is not because Obama is as politically challenged as was Carter, and it most certainly is not because I think both presidents pursued dumb policies. On the contrary, from health care to the stimulus, and including the Bush-initiated TARP, Obama has done the right things. He staved off both a collapse of the financial system and a deepening of the Great Recession while, paradoxically, being lambasted for doing so. As Carter himself once said, life is unfair.
The problem, as Cohen diagnoses it--the reason that Obama is suffering in the polls (with nearly half of his supporters falling into disenchantment)--is because "Obama's insistence on realism comes across as pessimism." Insistence on realism? That's a good one.
Carter's energy program was right on the money. The message was fine; the messenger was awful. This is exactly the case with Obama, who is far more likable than Carter yet is being cuffed around in a similar manner...This is because Obama's insistence on realism comes across as pessimism.
Then of course, there's the required dig at Reagan who, unlike Obama and his ostensible "realism," apparently had a hard time coming to grip with certain realities:
Reagan had his virtues, but coming to grips with energy reality was not one of them. In contrast to Carter's scolding approach to energy policy, Reagan simply declared it was morning again in America (his 1984 re-election campaign slogan) -- and left it at that. The wonders of the free enterprise system would provide. God would provide. It was a very Third World approach to a First World problem.
Maybe Reagan did not have time to pontificate about the "moral equivalent of war" because there was an actual war that he was busy fighting (and winning) at the time. And maybe the reason Carter got the door in 1980--and Obama may in 2012--is because their hard-nosed ideological agendas failed to account for the difficult economic and political realities of each's times.
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Jul '10
Re: "Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit"
"The wonders of the free enterprise system would provide. God would provide. It was a very Third World approach to a First World problem."
If only the "Third World" would adopt a free enterprise system, then they would be self-sufficient and We could eliminate foreign aid. Win-win.
Jul '10
Re: "Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit"
I wonder why anyone reads Richard Cohen or the rest of those old bitter clingers from the age of Abby Hoffman and Hunter Thompson.
Jul '10
Re: "Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit"
Genius!
Obama should follow Cohen's lead here and immediately reduce the national speed limit to 55 mph.
And let's go odd-and-even at the gas pumps, too. Remember? Boy, those were the days.
Re: "Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit"
Fair enough, but when you read a headline as outrageous as Cohen's today, you have to click on it--if for nothing else than laughs.
Re: "Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit"
I love this! Anything about Obama that begins with the phrase, "Like Carter..." is a flawless piece of political analysis.
You know you're winning when the other side doesn't even know how funny it is.
Re: "Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit"
Emily Esfahani Smith, Ed. :
Ah yes, the Left's "insistence on realism" when it comes to energy is something to behold. Distilled to its essence, the liberal position is to prophesy that we are running out of energy, then erect governmental barriers to supply, and then craft an international web of treaty obligations based on the premise that not running out of energy will destroy the planet.
And somehow the free market is still managing to provide us with energy.
No wonder Cohen, Krugman, Soros, et al. are losing their equilibrium of late.
Edited on Oct 12, 2010 at 9:01amSep '10
Re: "Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit"
Rob Long: I love this! Anything about Obama that begins with the phrase, "Like Carter..." is a flawless piece of political analysis.
You know you're winning when the other side doesn't even know how funny it is. · Oct 12 at 8:00am
When someone says "Like Carter" I always think of the Stallone remake of Get Carter. I don't know why.
Re: "Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit"
George Savag
Ah yes, the Left's "insistence on realism" when it comes to energy is something to behold. Distilled to its essence, the liberal position is to prophesy that we are running out of energy, then erect governmental barriers to supply, and then craft an international web of treaty obligations based on the premise that not running out of energy will destroy the planet.Oct 12 at 9:00am
Edited on Oct 12 at 09:01 am
It reminds me of the left's insistence on realism when it comes to the "population explosion," which doesn't exist, as Rob points out in his post today. The left likes to create problems like these that don't exist so that it can exert its control over even more aspects of our lives. It's creepy.
May '10
Re: "Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit"
Rush has a standing joke about how he lives in liberals' minds rent-free. Sometimes, I think the same can be said of liberals living in the minds of conservatives.
Aug '10
Re: "Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit"
With inspiration from Pat Sajak's post on Pundit Prison, I hereby propose the Carter Corollary of Punditry:
"Any pundit who writes in defense of Jimmy Carter's Presidency is fundamentally unserious."
We can water that down to applying only to columns, if we feel the pundits themselves are redeemable... but, per Cohen's article, I'm not inclined to give scribblers this benefit of the doubt until after Obama leaves office.
Jul '10
Re: "Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit"
I nodded in agreement when I saw the headline, but when I realized Cohen didn't mean Dave Carter, I lost interest.
Kenneth:
And let's go odd-and-even at the gas pumps, too. Remember? Boy, those were the days. · Oct 12 at 7:38am
I have a vague memory as a small child of an exchange my mother had with a gas station attendant, as she unsuccessfully tried to buy fuel for the gawdawful wood-paneled loaner station wagon she was driving:
"But, this is a rental car-"
"You're a 3, lady!"