JIMMY OBAMA

His most ardent supporters debate whether Mr. Obama is more like Abraham Lincoln or like Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  But so far, the president he most closely resembles is Jimmy Carter.  Call him Jimmy Obama.

In 1976, Mr. Carter was a fresh new face with a thin political resume who blew past better known Democrats in the primaries running as an "outsider" and a "reformer."

Jimmy Carter, like Barack Hussein Obama, took office during tough economic times.  Mr. Carter coined the term "misery index" (the rates of inflation and unemployment added together).

Mr. Carter proceeded to make a bad situation worse.  The misery index stood at 13.57 in the summer of 1976 when he was clubbing President Ford with it.  Four years later, it had risen to 21.98.

It’s way too early to pass judgment on Mr. Obama’s economic stewardship.  But the early signs are not favorable.    Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner rolls out a vague proposal for TARP II, a second bailout of the banks.  The stock market tanks.  Mr. Obama signs the "stimulus bill."  The stock market tanks.  Mr. Obama unveils his plan to subsidize some home mortgages.  The stock market slips, and the president is mocked on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

As a candidate, Jimmy Carter pledged to have a higher ethical standard.  But he suffered embarrassment when Bert Lance, his director of the Office of Management and Budget, was forced to resign over alleged mismanagement and corruption at the Calhoun National Bank in Georgia when Lance was chairman of its board.

Mr. Obama has suffered one embarrassment after another with his nominees.  Mr. Geithner was confirmed despite not having paid his payroll taxes for four years, but tax troubles forced Tom Daschle, his nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, to withdraw.  New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson withdrew his nomination for Secretary of Commerce when it was revealed the FBI was investigating the governor in connection with a "pay to play" scandal in New Mexico.

Most presidents describe the economy in rather more rosy terms than the facts may warrant in order to keep the spirits of Americans up.  The only two in modern times to talk the economy down are Mr. Carter and Mr. Obama. 

In 1979, Mr. Carter gave his famous "malaise" speech.  "The public and political pundits reacted very harshly to the speech, criticizing Carter for not offering enough solutions to the problems he identified," said the Encyclopedia of Earth.

Mr. Obama has said repeatedly the economy is in its worst "crisis" since the Great Depression — though the statistical evidence indicates the 1982 recession was worse — and has predicted "catastrophe" if the measures he seeks aren’t enacted into law.

"The danger for him is using the Jimmy Carter malaise rhetoric, particularly for Mr. Obama, who was elected because people thought he was the solution," said pollster Frank Luntz.  "There’s only so much negativity they will tolerate from him before they will feel betrayed."

In foreign policy, President Carter believed he could charm America‘s enemies by reaching out to them, and by apologizing for American "arrogance."  But events were unkind.  On his watch, the mullahs took power in Iran and seized the U.S. embassy there, and the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

So far, the substance of Barack Obama’s foreign policy has been very like that of George W. Bush.  But his rhetoric echoes that of Mr. Carter.  The first interview he granted to a foreign news organization was to al Arabiya, which has had kind things to say about Islamist terrorists.  The president was apologetic for U.S. policy toward Moslems in the past.

"When his self-inflation as a redeemer of U.S.-Moslem relations leads him to suggest that pre-Obama America was disrespectful or insensitive or uncaring of Moslems, he is engaging not just in fiction but in gratuitous disparagement of the country he is now privileged to lead," said columnist Charles Krauthammer.

Dr. Krauthammer is also a medical physician.  In determining whether the new American president has any spine, any spine at all as Jimmy Carter had none, he observes, "preliminary X-rays are not very encouraging."

Jack Kelly is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.