Welcome Back, Carter
Now he recommends conservation? While Jimmy Carter had his oil policy imposed upon him, Bush’s troubles are a compound of natural disaster and disastrous management of Middle East policy, the latter a significant point of difference between the two presidencies. While Bush fancies himself a latter-day Reagan, with the fiscal extremism to prove it, he shows none of the subtlety, such as it was, of that administration, let alone even an iota of the compassion of the preceding incumbent. Is this how it has to go in American politics: soft followed by hard, peace followed by war, Carter-Reagan/Clinton-Bush? It still comes down to selfishness: the economic prosperity of the 1990’s led to not just complacency but a level of get-it-while-you-can greed readily exploitable by the sons of privilege who’d been living that lifestyle all along. There’d have been no suspect rebuilding contracts and a solid reconstruction plan under Carter – or Clinton, for that matter. If you insist on talking about moral values, I’d suggest looking at your own behavior first: mote vs. beam, and all that.