Get Carter

"Comparisons between the Obama White House and the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter are increasingly being made," writes John Fund in today's Wall Street Journal, "and by Democrats." A list of interesting examples ensues.

Meanwhile, Cato's Gene Healy, writing in the D.C. Examiner, wishes that Obama could be as good as the undead peanut farmer:

Too often […] Carter critics descend into hyperbole. Last month, a Rightwingnews.com poll of conservative bloggers ranked Carter as "the worst American of all time" -- beating Benedict Arnold and the Rosenbergs, spies who gave Stalin the A-bomb. In a recent column, Karl Rove bashed President Obama with a Carter comparison: "weak and radical at the same time."

That's half right -- and half ridiculous. Carter was a weak president, but he was anything but radical. In fact, in "Recarving Rushmore," his 2009 book re-ranking the presidents based on small-government criteria, Ivan Eland calls him "surprisingly the first conservative chief executive since Calvin Coolidge."

An impishly provocative assessment -- but there's a lot to be said for it.

Whole thing here. Reason on Carter's deregulatory record here. Nick Gillespie and I made the Carter comparison–and some inaccurate legislative predictions–back in July 2009.