Last month, the news that President Obama had turned down free solar panels for the White House (by turning down the symbolic donation of one of the Carter-era White House solar panels from environmentalist Bill McKibben) was met with bewilderment by many in the environmental community. Many people, including McKibben himself, speculated that the image managers in the White House struggled with the possibility that President Obama would catch a nasty case of Election Season Cooties if he was seen or associated in any way with the Carter solar panel — and by extension, I guess, the one-term Democrat, Carter.
Trying hard to keep that association alive, Fox News’ Steve Doocy said on Fox & Friends, “So, what the president of the United States, Barack Obama, is doing is he’s going back to the Carter days, when Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the roof of the White House.”
To their credit, while Doocy’s Fox & Friends co-hosts briefly note that George W. Bush installed solar panels to heat the swimming pool, the onscreen text during the segment read: “Welcome back Carter;” “Comparing Obama to Carter?” and “Taking a page from Carter?”
Doocy then went on to try and make the connection: “there’s a historical comparison now between Carter and Obama, and the scenario goes like this, that Carter and Obama, both liberal one-termers who left office with a 34 percent approval rating.”
Perhaps one of the producers at Fox News could explain to Mr. Doocy that while President Obama may have approved a solar installation for the White House (as did his immediate Republican predecessor), and he may have a 34 percent approval rating, he’s been president for less than two years. And two years does not a presidential term make. Watch it:
Article by Timothy B. Hurst, appearing courtesy ecopolitology.
