In Defense of Jimmy Carter...

I don't really find huge similarities to former President Jimmy Carter and current President Barack Obama, despite the hype being presented out there that's supposed to be a slam on the former and the current president in articles like this one, ‘Jimmy Carter’ tag has Obama wincing where it states:

LESS than two weeks into his administration, President Barack Obama is being portrayed by opponents as a new Jimmy Carter - weak at home and naive abroad - in an attempt to dim his post-election glow and ensure that he serves only one term.

The charge has stung because it was made privately by Hillary Clinton supporters during a hard-fought primary campaign and plays to fears about Obama’s inexperience.

He is engaged in early trials of strength with Republicans in Washington and critics of the United States around the world – not least Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president. Obama faces battles to talk Wall Street into giving up its addiction to large bonuses and US banks to start lending again.

“Barack Obama thinks he can charm his adversaries into changing their ways but his personality can’t change the dynamics,” said Tom Edmonds, a Republican consultant.

Jimmy Carter was the first president I voted for, he's also one of my favorite presidents to date, Barack Obama is not even close to Jimmy Carter in a huge number of ways but larger than that, is the statement that Carter was "weak at home and naive abroad," that's revisionist history. The reasons why Carter had issues was because he was what Obama is not, a true Washington outsider and he could not get the system to change, it infact resisted against him. A more realistic historical review of Jimmy Carter can be found here:

On President Carter's first day in office, he pardoned all the draft evaders of the Vietnam War.

Carter had won his election campaign as an outsider, and came to Washington intent on using that to his advantage. Unfortunately he found that this made almost all his activities more difficult. He proposed an ambitious energy program, only to see it severely watered down in Congress. Carter was instrumental in concluding a treaty to turn over the Panama canal to the Panamanians, but he was forced to commit enormous political capital, getting Congress to approve.

Carter's largest success was his successful negotiations of the camp David Peace agreement, between Israel and Egypt. His success at the Camp David underlaid his greatest strength that ultimately became one of his greatest weakness. President Carter had tremendous personal tenacity in dealing with issues, and became involved in all the details. That allowed him to succeed at Camp David. However, it forced him to become too involved in day to day management. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan destroyed what was left of detente, and the Iranian seizure of American Hostages, dominated all other government activities in Carter's last year in office, insuring his defeat to Ronald Reagan.