(Author’s Note: The following has been revised from the original version of this post, which was based on my mistaken reading of the Reston quote as referring to the Carter-Reagan race of 1980 instead of the Reagan-Mondale contest of 1984. As it happens, I think the 1984 election is at least as relevant to the 2012 race as that of 1980. True, Obama has not had to deal with continuous criticism from the major mainstream media outlets as did Reagan in 1984, but Reston’s essential point about an electorate ignoring such critics stands as equally apt. My apologies for the mis-reading of the original quote.)

Can you guess which highly esteemed member of the Fourth Branch wrote the following quote and to which president he was referring?