Morning Jay: What Would Jimmy Do?

Last week, in a piece entitled “The right really, really wants Obama to be Jimmy Carter,” Salon’s Steve Kornacki cited my item on Carter as the prime example of a systematic effort on the right to invoke Carter as a bogeyman to “fill the GOP base with resentment and hostility, which translates into increased activism and turnout at the polls.” Kornacki should have read more carefully. I was not so much comparing Obama to Carter as I was using an example from the Carter era to explain the limits of Obama’s political theater.

Yet Kornacki has accidentally stumbled upon my true opinion. I would like Barack Obama to be more like Jimmy Carter. It would make him a better president.