Stop Caricaturing Carter

A presidential election year is notoriously no time to make serious political pronouncements—or to take seriously those that are made. But I cannot pass over in silence the editorial “Rescuing the World-View” which appeared in our August 22 issue. What has happened in both political parties as a result of the powerful conservative trend in American public opinion is much too important to be misrepresented in the excitement of a presidential campaign—least of all by a journal that has always rightly insisted on the importance of distinctions.

The editorial is as straightforward (and undiscriminating) as a college yell: Jimmy Carter is just another liberal Democratic President. A list of various Carter actions and policies is recited in support of that proposition. Off at the end, however, a curious anomaly is acknowledged: liberals detest him. Why so? An intricate explanation—the novelty and real point of the editorial—is offered: Mr. Carter’s liberal policies have failed disastrously—so disastrously that even the liberals realize it. By condemning Carter, they hope to “personalize” the disaster, while saving the policies themselves for another day.

A presidential election year is notoriously no time to make serious political pronouncements—or to take seriously those that are made. But I cannot pass over in silence the editorial “Rescuing the World-View” which appeared in our August 22 issue. What has happened in both political parties as a result of the powerful conservative trend in American public opinion is much too important to be misrepresented in the excitement of a presidential campaign—least of all by a journal that has always rightly insisted on the importance of distinctions.

The editorial is as straightforward (and undiscriminating) as a college yell: Jimmy Carter is just another liberal Democratic President. A list of various Carter actions and policies is recited in support of that proposition. Off at the end, however, a curious anomaly is acknowledged: liberals detest him. Why so? An intricate explanation—the novelty and real point of the editorial—is offered: Mr. Carter’s liberal policies have failed disastrously—so disastrously that even the liberals realize it. By condemning Carter, they hope to “personalize” the disaster, while saving the policies themselves for another day.