Jimmy Carter's second term

Well, the moment we've all been waiting for has finally arrived--Jimmy Carter is getting another crack at the Presidency. Wait--did I say Carter? I mean Obama. Except that it's going to be a lot like "deja vu all over again," as Yogi Berra so eloquently put it. Like Jimmy Carter, Obama enters the Oval Office under the mantra of "change," and harbors a deep-seated belief that he can use optimism and the force of his personality to pass an ambitious partisan agenda while making friends with the rest of the world. Like Carter, Obama will ultimately end up a failure, because he combines naivete about domestic politics and world affairs with a terrible lack of judgment about the character those around him.

Now, I'm probably not the first person to make this comparison, and I realize that much has changed between 1976 and 2008. But hear me out. There are quite a few similarities between Obama's situation today and Carter's 32 years ago. Like Obama, Carter entered office at the end of protracted, unpopular war. The previous Republican administration had lost its swagger and its ideological identity after 8 years in office, although the war it had prosecuted had been fought to a winnable stalemate (at least until 1975, when the Democrat-controlled Congress chose to abandon South Vietnam after North Vietnam broke the '73 truce and invaded again). America in the mid- to late-1970s was going through its first serious economic crisis since the Great Depression, gas prices were at an all-time high, the dollar had lost quite a bit of its value against foreign currencies, and it just wasn't cool to be American anymore, especially overseas. In addition, America continued to face the very real threat posed by its sworn enemy, the Soviet Union.

In the '76 election, Americans elected Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford because they wanted "change," and Ford was identified as being part of the Old Guard in Washington (although this characterization wasn't really fair--Ford and Nixon were hardly longtime political allies, and Ford didn't even get brought into the Nixon administration until halfway through Nixon's 2nd term). Jimmy Carter entered the scene with very little in the way of national leadership experience, a very limited voting record, membership in a controversial (whites-only) church, a checkered family tree (Billy Carter, anyone?), and most importantly, the attitude that he could change Washington and make the world a friendlier place.

Like Obama, Carter would enjoy the support of a Democratic-controlled Congress during all 4 years of his administration. Like Obama, Carter had to rely upon the advice of Democratic Party hacks in foreign policy issues, since he didn't have much of a background in this area himself. Other countries perceived Carter's weakness in foreign affairs and took advantage of this, particularly the Soviet Union, which used the cover of "detente" to drastically improve its nuclear arsenal, and then invade Afghanistan in 1979. The radicals in Iran weren't far behind. And of course, Carter's controversial decision to give up control of the Panama Canal highlighted American weakness to our neighbors south of the border, and set the stage for the Panamanian intervention in 1989.

Although Carter did do some good as president (the Egypt-Israeli peace accords, among other things), he ended his term as a failed president, because he was unable to effectively address the biggest problems facing America--a worsening economic crisis, an invigorated Soviet adversary, Muslim terrorism in the Middle East, and "malaise" at home--just a general dissatisfaction with life on Main Street. In 1980, Carter struggled to even win his party's nomination for another term, and ended up losing badly to Ronald Reagan, who fomented the "Reagan Revolution" that reinvigorated the Republican Party base for another 20 years.

Obama will be no different. If he thinks that saying "Yes We Can!" to Ahmadinejad is going to get Iran to give up its not-so-covert nuclear weapons program, he's kidding himself. If he thinks that OPEC will lower the price of oil because Obama is going to bring "change" to America's foreign policy, he's crazy. If he thinks that increasing the tax burden for those Americans who have actually have money to invest in our economy will cause Americans' standard of living to go up, he's nuts. Most importantly for us conservatives, if Obama thinks that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and the Democrat congress is just going to lie down and do his bidding because he's the Chosen One to lead us out of our troubles, he's got another thing coming.

Obama is a first-term, junior senator; Pelosi and Reid have had long legislative careers, and have learned to manipulate the executive branch to get what they want. Despite their support for Obama during the election, Pelosi and Reid have their own agendas, geared towards winning reelection for themselves and the rest of their allies in congress. Even a Democrat-controlled congress will not pass Obama's ambitious domestic agenda unless there's something in it for them--in essence, Obama owes them favors, not the other way around. And come January 20, they are going to call those favors in.

So fear not, fellow conservatives! This country survived Carter. It can survive Obama, too. Unless Obama manages to get a voting majority of Americans hooked on government bailouts and assistance programs (and I agree that this is a serious threat that we need to fight against), his gaffes these next 4 years will be public and obvious, and in 2012, we'll get another crack at him. This time, with a proven track record of failure on the grandest stage in the world, Obama's cries for change will be heeded again, but not in a way he will like. Don't get too comfortable in that new house of yours, Barry--you'll be outta there pretty soon.