Just seen on NBC Nightly News: a piece on the President’s sliding popularity among Republicans featured a clip of Tim Russert asking Congressman Jim Talent, “Do you believe that President Bush is a great president?” His reply: “Certainly he’s going to end up better than Jimmy Carter, probably not better than Ronald Reagan.”
My close personal friend David Gregory then tried to spin this into proof of a lack of enthusiasm on the right for the commander in chief. But of course that’s unreasonable. Remember the rule of thumb: whenever a conservative says “Jimmy Carter”, you can swap in “Don Knotts” (or possibly “Bob Denver”) without significantly altering the speaker’s intent. The same trick works for “Ronald Reagan” and “Jesus Christ”.