Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit

[babylonsister]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/10/12/like_carter_obama_is_right_but_doesnt_get_credit.html

Like Carter, Obama is Right But Doesn't Get Credit
By Richard Cohen

snip//

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.

Jimmy Carter was an odd duck as president and exceedingly hard to like. (I never managed the feat.) Still, on what was and remains the single biggest challenge facing this country, the energy crisis, Carter was right and bravely so. He laid out his ideas in a much-reviled Oval Office speech while at other times wearing a sweater to suggest turning down the heat. In his speech, he used the phrase "the moral equivalent of war" to characterize the ongoing energy challenge. Americans would have to make sacrifices. The crisis demanded it and the government would insist on it. Break out the sweaters.

Carter called for home insulation, an increase in coal production, a decrease in the importation of foreign oil and, significantly, a reduction by 10 percent in gasoline consumption. He predicted that America would be running out of crude oil -- almost 10 million barrels produced per day in 1970 to less than 6 million today -- and said the "cornerstone" of his policy was conservation. "Those citizens who insist on driving large, unnecessarily powerful cars must expect to pay more for that luxury," he said.

Carter exhorted Americans to increase their use of solar energy. He put our money where his mouth was and installed solar panels on the White House roof. Ronald Reagan removed them in 1986.

snip//

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. Being right is nice. Convincing others you are is essential. Yet even George W. Bush, who left a grateful nation with two wars and a recession -- somehow he forgot the mumps -- hypothetically runs neck and neck with Obama. This is because Obama's insistence on realism comes across as pessimism. It is our national character flaw and it is what did in Carter. He asked for sacrifice. What he got was the door.

[stopbush]

1. Could that be because we're a nation of spineless "patriots"

who insist that homespun "wisdom" beats facts every day of the week?

[Vincardog]

2. Obama's problem is that when the times called for radical liberal ACTION, he called for compromise

and reconciliation with what should have been the moldering putrid corpse of 'conservative ideals'.

[dflprincess]

5. And he did this after the Republicans made it clear to him that they would never cooperate n/t

[zipplewrath]

3. "Some" at best

"On the contrary, from health care to the stimulus, and including the Bush-initiated TARP, Obama has done the right things.

You can keep repeating this, hoping it sticks, but there was much done wrong on many of these issues. It doesn't mean it wasn't done better than McCain, but it's the turd in the punch bowl problem. Often it doesn't matter how much you do right. If you do certain key things wrong, it won't work out in the end. There is no "partial credit" in politics, or life really. It doesn't matter if you "try your best". It only matters if you succeed.

In 10 years we'll most likely be lamenting HCR, much as we do DADT and DOMA today. It remains to be seen how much, if anything, is "kept" from TARP in the future. It may easily become a poster for how NOT to handle such a crisis. He was handed much of this for sure, just as Carter was. But just like Carter, in the end it doesn't matter how much he got right, it's about what went wrong.

[flamingdem]

4. American media = assclowns with anyone but fellow assclown in office nt

[unblock]

6. someone SERIOUSLY needs to give me a few dozen billion dollars

so i can buy a big microphone and let america see what "fair and balanced" REALLY means.

democrats (including carter and obama) would be doing a whole lot better if they had the media pumping them up the was fauxlies does for the right-wingers.

[moondust]

7. A Tale of Two Parties

One is all substance and no salesmanship while the other is all salesmanship and no substance.

[angee_is_mad]

8. Kick

and recommend!