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With a choice of words that will surely drive Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod to apoplectic profanity, the Associated Press writes tonight that their boss, President Barack Obama, is foundering in the latest AP-GfK Poll and uses the dreaded Carter era term "malaise" to describe the public's mood.The AP lede tells the story:"The euphoria of 2008 is over: America is in a funk. Elected last November on a wave of optimism, President Barack Obama now finds himself governing an increasingly pessimistic country...perhaps most striking for this novice commander in chief, more people have lost confidence in Obama on Iraq and...

Obama's aura is no longer adored. He's become a ghoulish specter, an incarnation of dread that haunts our prospects for progress, infects our anxiety when we balance our checkbooks, clouds our ideal of the future. He's the antithesis of everything that America stands for: freedom, rugged individualism, (genuine, not his fake and condescending) optimism, truth, compassion, and the unquenchable pursuit of liberty. His spray-on luster has worn off to reveal at the core what he really is: the quintessential anti-American. And even liberals don't want to say his name.

According to the magazine covers, Barack Obama used to be Abraham Lincoln. Now he's starting to sound like his uninvited defender Jimmy Carter. President Obama isn't stupid enough to play the race card that Jimmy Carter dealt last week. He wouldn't be president today if had presented himself as a victim. But, like Carter, he confuses sanctimony with persuasion, and like Carter, he thinks the American people are his congregation instead of his boss. In WHAT YEAR? Carter approvingly quoted a supposed guest of his at Camp David who sounded uncannily lot like a liberal speechwriter when he said, according...

(CNN) -- Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that racial politics played a role in South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's speech to Congress last week and in some of the opposition the president has faced since taking office.

Mr. Carter’s political problems in July 1979 are easy to chart. The energy crisis was in full, ripe bloom; there were gas lines across the country, and truckers were organizing protests. Mr. Carter’s close friend Bert Lance, a former director of the Office of Management and Budget, had just been indicted for defrauding the government through illegal loans. And one of Mr. Carter’s former speechwriters, James Fallows, had published a devastating article called “The Passionless Presidency” in the May issue of The Atlantic Monthly. “I came to think that Carter believes 50 things,” Mr. Fallows wrote, “but not one thing.”...

Today, the GOPNation.com begins a new feature, "Obama = Carter?" where we will compare President Obama's performance as president to that of President Carter. We will include polling data, unemployment numbers, inflation rates and of course, the dreaded misery index. Complete data is already available through June 2009 (compared to June 1977). Obama PositiveThe misery index (unemployment plus inflation rate) is currently at 8.12 percent compared to 13.73 percent for Carter. However, this is largely due to us currently experience deinflation. Obama NegativeUnemployment. While Carter left office seeing double-digit unemployment, in June 1977 the number stood at 7.2 percent. Compare...

More than a few observers have pointed out that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress seem determined to repeat the errors of the 1970s by returning to inflationary spending, tax increases, auto company bailouts and cuts to the defense budget while coddling dictators who hate America....So it was inevitable that this recycling effort would get around to attempting the most brazen rehabilitation of all: Jimmy Carter was a visionary president!...It was 30 years ago this month that Mr. Carter reached the nadir of his presidency with his famous "malaise" speech in which he criticized the American people for their...

Leave it to Chris Matthews, a former speechwriter to Jimmy Carter, to actually commemorate the 30th anniversary of the former president's infamous "malaise" speech. On Wednesday's "Hardball," Matthews invited on his former bosses from the Carter White House, former speechwriter and now New Yorker senior editor Hendrick Hertzberg and former aide Gerald Rafshoon to mark the event and claim that Carter was vindicated by history as Matthews proudly asserted Carter was "Dead on," about "putting on a sweater, lowering the thermostat," to solve the energy crisis. And Hertzberg did Matthews one better by proclaiming Carter a "prophet." CHRIS MATTHEWS: Rick...

Thirty years after Jimmy Carter's malaise speech, we return to the days of rising joblessness, an unresponsive economy, deference to dictators, gutting the military and an energy policy tilting at windmills... As history repeats itself on the anniversary of the speech MSNBC's Chris Matthews wrote, we wonder if the "Hardball" host, who has worked for four Democratic politicians, is still getting tingles up his legs. The Democratic Party apparently has learned nothing in the past three decades. Will we see a return of the misery index? The only thing that's different is the sweater.

The liberals are at it again. In a new bill introduced the first day of the present session of Congress, and with zero coverage from the MSM, H.R. 45 (Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009) targets all gun owners in the U.S.A. While the media the world and everyone else is focused on the “phony plan” to spend tax dollars legislation is sneeking through the House and Senate for more gun control. This nefarious bill seeks to strip us all of our Constitutional Rights to possess and bear firearms of any distinction.

Barack Obama could learn a lot from Ronald Reagan. If nothing else, he could learn something from his movies. Namely "Knute Rockne: All American." That's the one in which Knute Rockne is coaching the men of Notre Dame against Army. After the first half, the cadets have whooped on the Irish pretty good and it's looking like a blowout. Trailing by a country mile, the coach has a talk with his players. And he encourages them. He inspires them. He leaves them fired up and ready to charge out the door and onto the field. Onto the field where both...

President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech was supposed to be one of the great inaugural addresses of all time. It was supposed to encourage us, to inspire us. Instead, it deflated us. Obama’s inaugural address deflated us because it perfectly crystallized the quandary America now finds itself in: we wanted our faith renewed through a “transformational moment” -- but now we’ve got a faithless man for president. Obama has no faith in God’s stake in the American destiny; instead, God merely “calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.” Despite his protestations to the contrary, Obama has no faith in Americans;...

x-Fed Chief to Lead New Economic Panel of Outside Experts Who Will Brief Obama President-elect Barack Obama appointed former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker on Wednesday to be the chairman of a new White House advisory board tasked with helping to lift the nation from recession and stabilize financial markets. University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee, one of Mr. Obama's longest-serving policy advisers, will serve as the board's staff director, along with his duties as a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Members of the panel will be drawn from a cross-section of citizens outside the government,...

Neither presidential candidate was selling "morning in America." At times it seemed more like a competition to see who could paint the gloaming in the least unsettling hues. Tuesday night's presidential debate was remarkable for the dourness of its mood...the frequently subdued demeanors of the candidates even as they tore into each other, which they did with somewhat less vigor and venom than expected, given how little time remains until Election Day, given how nasty the campaign had turned in recent days. The debate — the second of three, and the only one to be conducted in a town-hall style...

Jimmy is on with Merideth and states that the state dept. never told him not to go to the Middle East. What a loser

ATLANTA (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of not telling the truth about warnings she said her department gave Carter not to speak to Hamas before a Middle East trip. The State Department has said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, issued the warning before Carter, a veteran of Middle East diplomacy, went on his trip last week. Rice said in Kuwait on Tuesday: "We counseled President Carter against going to the region and particularly against having contact with Hamas." "President Carter...

We just don’t get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called “dim-witted cowboy,” has created the entire mess. The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini. Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a...

The increasing vitriol of the Democratic presidential WrestleMania shouldn't distract from the opportunity before progressives. The election this year has the potential to be not simply a change election but a sea-change election, one that marks the end of the conservative era that has dominated our politics for nearly three decades. It could be the progressive equivalent of the conservative triumph of 1980. In 1980 Ronald Reagan, the self-described "movement conservative," took the White House from incumbent Jimmy Carter while Republicans picked up thirty-four seats in the House and gained control of the Senate, sweeping out liberal stalwarts like George...

When Woodrow Wilson went to Congress to ask for a declaration of war in 1917, the U.S. Army was ranked 17th in the world, behind Portugal. On Armistice Day, 19 months later, there were 2 million doughboys in France, where they had helped to break the back of Gen. Ludendorff's theretofore invincible army in its final offensive, and 2 million more in the United States ready to march on Berlin. No other nation could have done that. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, FDR demanded that a disarmed America "build 50,000 planes" -- a seemingly impossible number, but one...

In 1979, Jimmy Carter, then the 39th president of the United States, negotiated a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, somewhat belatedly, in 2002. In his recent book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Carter writes that the only way to end a war is for each side to back off amicably into their own territory. It is a simplistic solution to the complicated issues dividing Israel and Palestine, but hardly a controversial one. MOVIE REVIEW JIMMY CARTER/MAN FROM PLAINSDIRECTOR: Jonathan DemmeRUNNING TIME: 125 minutesDOCUMENTARYRATING: PG for some thematic elements and brief disturbing images...

More than a quarter-century after completing his term of office, James Earl Carter is still to be found in the thick of debates about national policies on a range of issues: nuclear arms, Iraq, North Korea, and, especially, the conflict between Israel and the Arabs. A steady stream of books and articles continues to issue forth from his pen, and he travels the world on self-selected diplomatic missions. No other former President has chosen to play a similar role. But then, Carter’s whole political career has been out of the ordinary. In order to understand the man today, it is...

Jimmy Carter says in an interview that he wouldn't have changed a thing about his presidency. He claims that if he had only had "one more helicopter," he could have freed those hostages and thus won re-election. But he adds, if he had won a second term, he probably would not have the Carter Center today. So he says, it's a good thing. I'd love for him to explain this logic to the people he ignored for 444 days.

Yesterday, I received a promotional mailing for the Leadership Summit at Willow Creek. I quickly opened the slick marketing package to learn about this year’s list of speakers and the other pertinent information. Then, like an unexpected punch in the stomach, I saw that former President Jimmy Carter was listed as a speaker, about leadership. I have long respected Bill Hybels; his seemingly innate ability to reinvent himself, find a new path, and expand his universe is something rarely seen, especially in the Christian community. However, I am disappointed that he chose the former president to speak to a group...

In his now infamous “Malaise” speech in 1979, Jimmy Carter demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of his country and his countrymen. It was the tipping point for his presidency. Last week, President Bush had his own malaise moment when he attacked a large segment of the American people and insinuated they were ignorant about the immigration bill he has fashioned with Ted Kennedy. The American people don’t like to be criticized by their presidents, especially when they are at 28 percent approval, either then or now. This clash is a “Panama Canal moment” for the GOP. The bar fight over the...

Leadership: When it comes to economic performance, there's no contest: Apart from the early years of the Depression, Jimmy Carter's brief tenure as president was the worst in the 20th century. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Profile In Incompetence: Second In A Series More on this series-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carter's rather smug attempt to rank President Bush as the worst president ever wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so wrong. The irony, of course, is that the peanut farmer from Plains, Ga., shares that distinction with a number of other presidential mismanagers of our nation's economy. Carter apparently has gotten so used to being called...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Former President Carter says President Bush's administration is "the worst in history" in international relations, taking aim at the White House's policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy. The criticism from Carter, which a biographer says is unprecedented for the 39th president, also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative funding. "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," Carter told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a story that appeared in the newspaper's Saturday...

Former President Carter blasts Bush 11 minutes ago Former President Carter says President Bush's administration is "the worst in history" in international relations, taking aim at the White House's policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy. The criticism from Carter, which a biographer says is unprecedented for the 39th president, also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative funding. "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," Carter told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a story that appeared in...

To bring about peace in the Middle East, the United States needs to play a more prominent leadership role, and Israel must allow Palestinians to regain control of the West Bank, former President Carter told a packed audience at UC Berkeley on Wednesday afternoon. "The bottom line is this: Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighbor's land," he said. "And the hostility toward Americans throughout the Islamic world is directly related to the continued bloodshed between Israel and Palestine and the (United States') lack of effort to bring peace to that region." Carter...

Former President Jimmy Carter expressed his support for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria, rejecting White House criticism of the visit. "I was glad that she went," Carter said Wednesday. "When there is a crisis, the best way to help resolve the crisis is to deal with the people who are instrumental in the problem." Pelosi arrived in Syria on Tuesday, in an attempt to open direct dialogue with Syria's leader, something President Bush opposes. Pelosi also discussed with President Bashar Al-Assad concerns about Syria's support for militant groups. Bush on Tuesday called the trip "counterproductive" and said it...

Jimmy Carter’s Jewish Problem For those with eyes to see, there were hints as far back as the 1976 presidential campaign of the trouble to come. Early that year, Harper’s magazine published “Jimmy Carter’s Pathetic Lies,” a devastating exposé of Carter’s record in Georgia by a then little-known journalist named Steven Brill. Reg Murphy, who as editor of the Atlanta Constitution had kept a close eye on Carter’s rise in state politics, declared, “Jimmy Carter is one of the three or four phoniest men I ever met.” Speechwriter Bob Shrum quit the Carter campaign after just a few weeks, disgusted...

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is calling for an international conference to convene on alleviating the damage done by the war in Iraq. Carter told Voice of America that such a conference would provide reassurance to the Iraqi people that the international community cares about them. He said participants in the conference would include the countries surrounding Iraq, European nations, the United States and others. Carter in particular said he believes Iran and Syria should be brought into the process, although he said this may not involve direct talks between the two nations and the U.S. Carter also called for...

ATLANTA Former President Jimmy Carter says his 1994 peace efforts regarding North Korea are now "in the wastebasket," because of actions by the Bush administration. Carter criticized the administration for not agreeing to direct, bilateral talks and guaranteeing that the U-S will not attack North Korea. Carter spoke at a panel discussion last night about his 1994 peace efforts. But Carter says he does not foresee the current dispute over North Korea's test of a nuclear bomb leading to war. Although North Korea has branded the current U-N sanctions an act of war, Carter says they are not as stringent...

Nobel laureate and ex-envoy Jimmy Carter, on CNN (after his dealings with dictator Kim Il-sung) on June 22, 1994 CARTER: What the North Koreans were waiting for was some treatment of their exalted leader with respect and a direct communication. I didn't have to argue with him. When I outlined the specific points that were the Clinton administration's position, I presented them to him. And with very little equivocation, he agreed. I think it's all roses now. I've known that there were people in Washington who were sceptical about any direct dealing with the North Koreans. They were already condemned...

39th President of the United StatesIn office January 20, 1977 – January 20, 1981 James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (born October 1, 1924) was the 39th President of the United States (1977–1981) and the Nobel Peace laureate in 2002. Previously, he was the Governor of Georgia (1971–1975). In 1976, Carter won the Democratic nomination as a dark horse candidate, and went on to defeat incumbent Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election. As President his major initiatives included the consolidation of numerous governmental agencies into the newly formed Department of Energy, a cabinet level department. He enacted strong environmental legislation;...

RENO, Nev. Former President Carter is urging northern Nevadans to elect his son, Jack, to the Senate to help combat a Bush administration he says has brought "international disgrace" to the country. The former president told a crowd of about 300 on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno today that the nation is more sharply divided that it has ever been as a result of Bush's policies. The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, he says he's deeply embarrassed that the American government now stands convicted around the world as one of the greatest abusers of...

Former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday major policy changes are needed because the Iraq war has divided the nation "almost as much as Vietnam." "So there's no doubt that our country is in much more danger now from terrorism than it would have been if we would have done what we should have done and stayed in Afghanistan," he said on the campaign trail with his son, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Jack Carter. The former president said the Bush administration made a "terrible mistake" by invading Iraq and diverting troops from Afghanistan. Jack Carter criticized his opponent, Sen. John Ensign,...

FALLON, Nev. - Former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday major policy changes are needed because the Iraq war has divided the nation "almost as much as Vietnam." "So there's no doubt that our country is in much more danger now from terrorism than it would have been if we would have done what we should have done and stayed in Afghanistan," he said on the campaign trail with his son, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Jack Carter. The former president said the Bush administration made a "terrible mistake" by invading Iraq and diverting troops from Afghanistan. Jack Carter criticized his opponent,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Monday the Bush administration had eroded America's global influence with its conduct in Iraq and by condoning the torture of terrorism suspects. "They have redefined torture to make it convenient for them," Carter said of the Bush administration in an interview with Reuters. "Things that are unanimously almost or globally assumed to be torture, they claim that this is not torture. I don't think there is any doubt that is what they are doing," said Carter, a Democrat who was president from 1977 to 1981. He has since been a...

New Haven, Conn. -- Democrat Ned Lamont said Wednesday the U.S. is weaker because of the war in Iraq backed by rival Sen. Joe Lieberman, and he called for shifting forces to Afghanistan and elsewhere. "We have sacrificed our daughters and sons and our treasure in a war we didn't have to fight," Lamont said. "We have ignored the real threats and security needs in the war we should be fighting, the one against the terrorists. ... Senator Lieberman believes that President Bush has it right in Iraq. I believe that he's dangerously wrong." The Democrat, who upset the three-term...

For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week. Carter's term as president was dominated by the rupture in relations after the 1979 Iranian revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days until the day he left office. Iranians made the overture for the meeting, and the Carter Center in Atlanta is working on the possible timing, said Phil Wise,...

Former US president Jimmy Carter lashed out at British Prime Minister Tony Blair for being "so compliant and subservient" to the Bush administration in Washington. "I have been surprised and extremely disappointed with Tony Blair's behaviour," Carter told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper as he promoted his new book "Faith and Freedom." "I think that, more than any other person in the world, the prime minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington, and he has not," said the 81-year-old former head of state. He faulted Blair for not having been a constraint on US President George W. Bush's decision...

There are so many sad things to write about today but we all need the cathartic diversion of a true laughingstock, so let us talk about Jimmy Carter. Carter, by all biological indications, is still alive, so we may speak of him ill. Very, very, incurably ill. From Jan. 20, 1977, through Jan. 20, 1981, our nation endured an unpleasant, aberrant, tragicomic episode. In the somewhat confused political atmosphere subsequent to the resignation of Richard Nixon, the electorate succumbed to the blandishments of a folksy Georgia governor who espoused a form of bland centrism. The theory, presumably, was that boredom...

by Mark Finkelstein August 18, 2006 - 07:42 If not quite from the grave, the decision by one of Jimmy Carter's judicial appointees, striking down the NSA terrorist surveillance program, was an unwelcome blast from past. Call it Carter's Revenge. Malaise Redux. The spirit of Desert One lives. That this was a political decision more than a legal one is evidenced by the intemperate language of the decision itself: "“There are no hereditary kings in America," harumphed Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the United States District Court in Detroit, in a case filed by the ACLU. Naturally, the NY Times...

SPIEGEL: Mr. Carter, in your new book you write that only the American people can ensure that the US government returns to the country's old moral principles. Are you suggesting that the current US administration of George W. Bush of acting immorally? Carter: There's no doubt that this administration has made a radical and unpressured departure from the basic policies of all previous administrations including those of both Republican and Democratic presidents. SNIP..... SPIEGEL: You also mentioned the hatred for the United States throughout the Arab world which has ensued as a result of the invasion of Iraq. Given this...

Former US president Jimmy Carter speaks with DER SPIEGEL about the danger posed to American values by George W. Bush, the difficult situation in the Middle East and Cuba's ailing Fidel Castro. SPIEGEL: Mr. Carter, in your new book you write that only the American people can ensure that the US government returns to the country's old moral principles. Are you suggesting that the current US administration of George W. Bush of acting immorally? Carter: There's no doubt that this administration has made a radical and unpressured departure from the basic policies of all previous administrations including those of both...

"In my opinion, maybe the worst ally Israel has had in Washington has been the George W. Bush administration, which hasn't worked to bring a permanent peace to Israel," Carter told the newspaper.

Carter: Bush pursuing 'erroneous' policy 41 minutes ago Former President Carter, who helped broker the historic Camp David peace accord, said President Bush has pursued an "erroneous policy" that has fostered violence in the Middle East. Carter said the United States should work for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah and the world community should concentrate on a long-term solution, but he is uncertain whether Bush can accomplish a cease-fire. "It depends on whether world opinion is strong enough to get the administration to change its erroneous policy, which has been to encourage the continuation of attacks on both...

President Bush has pursued an "erroneous policy" that has fostered violence in the Middle East, said former President Jimmy Carter, who brokered the historic Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. "In my opinion, maybe the worst ally Israel has had in Washington has been the George W. Bush administration, which hasn't worked to bring a permanent peace to Israel," Carter said Friday during a stop in West Michigan. Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, were here as part of a fundraiser for their son, Jack Carter, who is seeking a U.S. Senate seat in Nevada. The $500-a-person event, attended by...

Former President Stopped In Chicago To Raise Money For Son's Campaign (CBS) CHICAGO Former President Jimmy Carter is in Chicago raising money to send another Carter to Washington. Jimmy’s son, Jack, is running for U.S. Senate in Nevada. CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine sat down with the former president to get his take on the Middle East crisis. It’s hard to believe it’s been more than 25 years since he was president. At 79 years old, Jimmy Carter is trim and active. He looks virtually the same as he did when he left the White House in 1981....

Global War On Terrorism: Jimmy Carter says it's "inhumane and counterproductive" for Israel "to punish civilian populations" for Hezbollah's aggression. If you hadn't helped overthrow the Shah of Iran, Jimmy, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Our former president made this statement in a Washington Post op-ed in which the man who helped midwife the habitat for inhumanity that is Iran spouted the standard liberal dogma about cease-fires and something called "lasting peace." He forgets that Hezbollah is the spawn of Iran, and Iran is the spawn of his failed foreign policy. Carter, upon taking office in 1977, declared that...