Paralelismos

Ayer, un destacado analista político me comentaba que, de ser electo, Obama podría representar un segundo período de Jimmy Carter. Espero que se equivoque:

What were we thinking when we elected him? The answer is: some of the same things we are thinking now.

He was a blank slate to be filled with visions of Roosevelt and Kennedy. People thought his unique background and perspective would unite North and South, black and white. He had accomplished little in his political career, but he had written a thoughtful autobiography, with an audaciously hopeful title: "Why Not the Best?" He gave good speeches.

There was little substantive content to his campaign, which instead endlessly repeated his government-as-good-as-its-people mantra. His one specific proposal was "zero-based budgeting," under which each year the federal budget would start at zero and be analyzed by him line by line. He had no national or foreign policy experience.