A START SO AWFUL IT'S INDUCING CARTER NOSTALAGIA:

Jim nauseam: Constant comparisons to Jimmy Carter are driving Barack batty. (STEVEN STARK, April 2, 2009, Boston Phoenix)

[I]t's time to set the record straight. The comparison is completely unfair — not to Obama but to Carter.

At this point in his administration, Jimmy Carter (disclosure: I worked for Carter briefly in earlier days) was more popular and — believe it or not — almost as much of a phenomenon as Obama. He, too, jumped out of his limo to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue after his inaugural address, in a "first" that was remembered far more than anything that happened on January 20, 2009 (save, perhaps, for Aretha Franklin's hat). Several weeks later, Carter gave a widely praised national address on energy, sitting in a sweater in the White House. His first effort to bring the presidency back to the people — a town meeting in Clinton, Massachusetts — was deemed a huge success. And in another mid-March appearance, he took questions from viewers at home via Walter Cronkite.

That might not seem like anything earth-shattering in the 21st-century era of the permanent campaign. But at the time, in the days after Watergate, when fears of an imperial presidency were still real, it was highly innovative and hugely popular. One hundred days after Carter took office, the Harris Poll pegged his approval rating at 75 percent and Democratic wise man Clark Clifford pronounced that Carter has ushered in "a return of the confidence of the people in our government."

Even Carter's early so-called missteps look different with the passage of time. His confirmation struggles didn't concern nominees who hadn't paid taxes or a treasury secretary in bed with the industry he was trying to control. Rather, they were an attempt to bring more civilian control to the CIA by nominating former JFK aide Ted Sorensen, who faced so much Senate opposition (put up in part by the agency) that he ultimately withdrew.

And for those he think the Right's hatred of George W. Bush was a singular phenomenon, here's a helpful reminder that they hate[d] Ronald Reagan too and for the same reasons, Carter Conservatism: Carter was Right (Sean Scallon, 4/06/09, American Conservative)

This was not the speech of some America-hating leftist. Carter did not try to tear down the country, he simply wanted it to come together and direct itself toward a goal other than unlimited growth or unending progress. As Andrew Bacevich points out in The New American Militarism, the president recognized the high cost of empire:

In July of 1979, Carter already anticipated that a continuing and unchecked thirst for imported oil was sure to distort U.S. strategic priorities with unforeseen but adverse consequences. He feared the impact of that distortion on American democracy still reeling from the effects of the 1960s. So he summoned his fellow citizens to change course, to choose self-sufficiency and self-reliance and therefore true independence but at a cost of collective sacrifice and lowered expectations.

Self-sufficiency, discipline, sacrifice, conservation, independence, the striving for meaning and purpose beyond material wealth. All of these characteristics were once associated with conservatism, and they were all part of a speech given by a man who was naval officer, farmer and large landowner, small businessman, Sunday school teacher, and Southerner. Does this not sound the background of a conservative? [...]

Caddell and Carter had hoped the speech would create a new synthesis between the neoliberalism that emerged from the 1960s and the traditional conservatism of, say, the Nashville Agrarians, but the exact opposite took place. Instead, the backlash led to a synthesis between New Deal liberalism and nationalistic Cold War conservatism. Reagan never repudiated his four votes for Franklin Roosevelt and soon began gathering elements of the traditional New Deal coalition into his fold—neoconservatives; socially conservative Democrats of the Midwest, urban Catholic Northeast, and the Protestant South; and idealistic Kennedy Democrats who could not stomach the notion that a country that put a man on the moon should turn down the thermostat.

The new anti-malaise coalition, Left and Right, agreed on a nationalism that regarded an America with any kind of limits as a place that could never be America in any meaningful sense. They believed in the divine American mission and the rhetoric behind it: “leader of the free world,” “the last best hope for man on earth,” “the shining city on a hill.” Carter’s speech, to them, was heresy. Thus Reagan, with help from other former liberals, could transform conservatism from a traditional doctrine of prudence, caution, and sustainability—a tough sell politically—into a highly marketable brand of American exceptionalism.

Unfortunately, as Carter feared, the American mission and lifestyle proved unsustainable.

He wishes.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 2, 2009 2:46 PM