Obama's Presidency Draws Comparisons to Jimmy Carter by historians
The similarities between Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter are undeniable.
Carter studied nuclear physics and taught Sunday School. Obama edited the Harvard Law Review and taught constitutional law. Both can flash a million-dollar smile. And both won the Nobel Peace Prize....
Historian Walter Russell Mead argues both men came to power after exceptionally turbulent times. The Vietnam-Watergate era for Carter. The post-9/11 "war on terror" period for Obama.
And both sought to reduce tensions between the U.S. and its adversaries. But that goal, Mead said, conflicts with another held by both presidents.
"Both Obama and Carter were in some ways visionary idealists," he said. "And they're worried about issues like genocide, like poverty, tyranny around the world. And so it becomes very hard: How do you balance a human rights agenda with a kind of live-and-let live agenda?
"You reach out to Iran and you ask Russia for help, that means that now Putin and Ahmadinejad have the power to either make you look good or look bad. So when you set out to try to reduce tensions with adversaries, you can sometime give hostages to fortune."
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Carter studied nuclear physics and taught Sunday School. Obama edited the Harvard Law Review and taught constitutional law. Both can flash a million-dollar smile. And both won the Nobel Peace Prize....
Historian Walter Russell Mead argues both men came to power after exceptionally turbulent times. The Vietnam-Watergate era for Carter. The post-9/11 "war on terror" period for Obama.
And both sought to reduce tensions between the U.S. and its adversaries. But that goal, Mead said, conflicts with another held by both presidents.
"Both Obama and Carter were in some ways visionary idealists," he said. "And they're worried about issues like genocide, like poverty, tyranny around the world. And so it becomes very hard: How do you balance a human rights agenda with a kind of live-and-let live agenda?
"You reach out to Iran and you ask Russia for help, that means that now Putin and Ahmadinejad have the power to either make you look good or look bad. So when you set out to try to reduce tensions with adversaries, you can sometime give hostages to fortune."