How Obama Is More Like Ronald Reagan Than Jimmy Carter

Some Republicans have tried to compare Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter. Eli Lake looks at Obama’s foreign policy views and finds that, with regards to fighting terrorism, Obama’s polices have more in common with Ronald Reagan’s approach used against the Soviet Union in the final days of the cold war than with Carter’s policies.

One of the refreshing things about Obama is the manner in which he really does have a post-partisan outlook. Moving beyond the old partisan divides is one of the reasons he has won the nomination in an era where old definitions of Democrats and Republicans no longer apply, and so many of us independents who had been unhappy with both the Democratic and Republican Parties are backing him.

While there remain those who are too blinded by ideology to realize it, the old stereotypes on economics are obsolete, with Democrats now winning the votes of affluent professionals and having the candidate with the better grasp of free market economics (as opposed to Republican corporate welfare). Obama might bring about the same type of changes in the roles of the parties on foreign policy as Americans are finally learning, as a consequence of Iraq, that the strongest foreign policy is often the one which is the smartest, not the most bellicose.

It is a shame that many Americans have failed to learn from history as the same lessons could have been learned after Viet Nam. Instead we were doomed to relive the worst of the Nixon years under George Bush (in ways not limited to Viet Nam).  While Obama has often been compared to several previous presidents of both parties, there is little doubt as to which previous president Bush most closely resembles.

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