In !979 and thru 1980 the Iranians held our embassy. 2012 and the Egyptians have seized our embassy (although it appears the police may have secured it back). In 2009 Obama went to Cairo and gave a major speech and said he was making us liked by the world and he got the Nobel Peace Prize. Now almost 4 years thru his term obviously hatred of USA is up in Egypt with our embassy seized and there is no way the Secret Service would allow him to speak to a massive crowd there.

We are sitting in the remnants of a major recession in 2012 that had its beginnings in 2008 under Bush and were in a recession in 1980 that was on the later stages that had its beginnings under Ford (does anyone remember WIN?)

How much the president really can get economy to grow or shrink is debatable. How much the president has to control of image of Americans to rest of world is a debatable item too. Part of both are purely what people perceive of both and may have nothing to do with truth. Part has to do with how other parts of world and politics work also. Part of it is how the the president addresses the items. Carter said we were in a malaise (term used by Obama administration recently oddly) and Reagan was always upbeat optimist. Obama we know was optimist on campaign trail but has not really given the inspiration since. He also promised the world the USA would quit wars in 12 or 18 months and won Nobel Peace Prize along with winning Presidency) and it took several years for Iraq to end of USA troop involvement (on deadline negotiated by previous president) and Afghanistan has enlarged war and this president has negotiated to withdraw NATO and USA from fighting in 2 more years.

We have two candidates in 2012 with very little prior experience with foreign affairs before being president and in 1980 we had the challenger with no foreign affairs experience and the incumbent having only served in the Navy as his foreign affairs experience before being president.

Dwight