We’ve heard it’s his 9/11 and his Katrina, how about his hostage crisis? George Will on This Week:
The danger isn’t that it’s his Katrina, it’s that it’s his Iranian hostage crisis. That happened to Carter in his first and, it turned out, only term. So it wasn’t like Katrina which was sort of beside the point by which time Bush was a spent force anyway… [The Iranian hostage crisis] reinforced perception. People said, “Carter’s well-meaning, like him, intelligent fellow, but maybe he just isn’t up to the job.” And the jury’s still out on that for Barack Obama.
Reuters makes the same comparison. Clarence Page, too. (Our Joe G quotes both here.)
I’m finding myself very much in sync with reasonable conservatives this weekend. George Will went on to weigh in on the Sestak brouhaha with this:
That’s what we do in this business. That’s called democracy and free government… For Republicans, of all people, to try and resuscitate that Frankenstein monster of the Independent Counsel is preposterous.
If you caught the Liz Cheney and William Kristol performance on Fox News Sunday this morning, you saw what Will’s talking about.
David Brooks also came off as very reasonable on The PBS NewsHour Friday also sounds reasonable to me:
You know, the government isn’t in the shrimp business. I don’t expect them to be responsible for it. And the government isn’t in the oil business. I don’t expect them to be responsible for it.
And that is sort of my view. I think people are saying, well, President Obama, President Obama, do something, do something. But they are always very vague about exactly what he should do about the oil that is coming out still.
And so I don’t expect him to be able to close that hole. That’s BP’s job.
Exactly!
You can find me @jwindish, at my Public Notebook, or email me at joe-AT-joewindish-DOT-com.