Most conservatives liken Barak Obama to President Jimmy Carter since it provides us an opportunity to compare Obama with one of the worst U.S. Presidents since the end of World War II. However I don’t think it’s a fair comparison for a number of reasons.
Carter entered the national scene with a lot less baggage then Obama and lot more credibility. Carter, not unlike Obama, identified himself as a Christian. However, Carter’s Christian identity was that of a “born again” Christian, something many Christians embrace, while Obama’s Christian identity is that of “black liberation” a revolutionary doctrine which is not very well accepted among most Christians.
Before entering politics Carter was a high ranking Naval officer serving under one of America’s most revered admirals, Admiral Rickover, developing the nuclear science that ultimately powers our battle ships and aircraft carriers today. Obama has no military credentials whatsoever. Not unlike Obama Carter came into the national scene at a time when most Americans were sick and tired of the Republican Party, seeing it as both unethical and incompetent. Also, Americans were still divided over the Vietnam War, angry that we got into it, even though a Democrat could be blamed for that, but even angrier with the perception that we lost it
With the country angry and divided Carter was perceived as a true healer, a Christian healer who would smooth over the anger concerning the War and the frustration of a stagnating economy.
Obama is definitely not perceived as a healer, not perceived by the left or the right as one who understands much of what is happening to our economy or for that matter that of the world’s. With no military background to rely upon he is seen by most Americans not very competent about national security. In this regard the most that Obama ever says about this subject is that he will keep America safe.
Carter was clearly a disappointment. Throughout his four years as President he never revealed a deep abiding belief in anything not even the required belief of any modern day American President, a belief in American exceptionalism, though he never abjured. Obama however has deep beliefs, beliefs that have powered him to the walls of the U.S. Presidency…and perhaps to the Presidency itself.
Obama’s beliefs are more in line with another American political figure, Henry Wallace. Wallace was Vice-President during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s third term. Wallace was a Soviet sympathizer and was disliked by many members of Roosevelt’s cabinet because of that. When Roosevelt ran for his forth term, knowing he was not going to survive he threw Wallace overboard and picked the then unknown Harry Truman as his running mate. Wallace ran against Truman in 1948 as a Progressive though everyone in America knew he was a Socialist, and he lost.
It’s ironic that during this campaign McCain has been compared with George Wallace, a southern racist. But the charge missed the wrong Wallace and the wrong candidate. Obama is really a modern day Henry Wallace. But with a nasty twist. Wallace was a benign Socialist and ultimately saw the dark and brutal side of the Soviet Union. Obama is a clear revolutionary who embraces the Socialism of Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro while having developed political and social relationship with Marxists like William Ayers while at Columbia University and Chicago. And I might add, without apologies.
Should Obama win on November 4th he will be the first President who views our Constitution in a very different way that even garden variety Democrats view it. He sees it not as a successful document which has brought America to this place and time as leader of the free world but rather as defective in that it does not contain the one essential ingredient which every socialist revolutionary requires in its founding papers: the requirement that citizens act ethically. By that standard the Soviet Union’s constitution in that particular regard was a far better document than ours.
Obama and his Columbia/Chicago revolutionaries intend either to bend the U.S. Constitution to implement this concept, by picking justices who agree with this or ignore it and develop the social justice concepts by way of the political parties of the left. These parties promote fair wage, redistribution of wealth, free higher education, universal health care, a secular philosophy devoid of any religious references, a confiscatory tax policy to engine these benefits and a military that looks more like a national police force capable of nothing more than keeping domestic peace, which it may have to.
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written by Jay Golub , October 28, 2008
I agree with the Obama/Carter analogy - as i've documented in other parts of UE.
Another similarity between the two is that both will be facing an energy crisis of sorts - although much of the high energy prices seen a few months ago have retreated during the economic turmoil.
But i do not agree that Obama is a socialist and would like to see more details as to why you've drawn such a connection.
My view of Obama's political compass is not much different that those on the Left in Europe. It would seem to me that he would welcome a government more similar to France than the former USSR.
Obama doesn't seem to dislike capitalism - just people who have become wealthy due to it. He doesn't want to eliminate private property or material gain, he just wants to "spread it around."
In that vain, he's more like FDR than his third term VP - Henry Wallace - although you are correct that Wallace supported similar positions as Obama in areas of "worker's rights" and "univeral healthcare."
Wallace, to my knowledge, was not a communist. the accusations of his connection to the communist party were never proven. I would think he was more the victim of some of his other beliefs - such as the ending of segregation - of which the media made the claims that were common in those days about "soviet influence."
Obama is Carter in many of the ways you state. His presidency should take lessons from Carter's, if he's so lucky to be elected...
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