Tim Pawlenty: Barack Obama ‘Is Behaving Like Jimmy Carter’

Photo Courtesy - Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a likely White House hopeful, criticized the country’s 44th president -- and the 39th Friday at a conservative convention.

Pawlenty, in a speech at CPAC, pointed to the passage of the health care reform law and policies that he said amounted to “big government strangulation” as proof that “Barack Obama is not behaving like Ronald Reagan, he’s behaving like Jimmy Carter.”

“The individual mandate in Obamacare is a page right out of the Jimmy Carter playbook,” Pawlenty said, adding: “They, the bureaucrats, don’t tell us what to do. We, the people, tell the government what to do.”

He also offered a full-throated criticism of Obama, including the president’s response to the crisis in Egypt and other foreign policy challenges. “Bullies,” he said, “respect strength, not weakness.”

“We undermine Israel, the U.K., Poland, the Czech Republic, and Colombia, among other friends. Meanwhile, we appease Iran, Russia, and adversaries in the Middle East, including Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood,” Pawlenty said, urging President Obama “to get tough on our enemies, not our friends.”

His reference to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement that is officially banned in Egypt but is said to have thousands of members there. Some U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern about the organization’s rise in the country now that President Hosni Mubarak has stepped down, but foreign policy analysts have downplayed its influence.

Pawlenty was clearly trying to stoke conservative flames on Friday, declaring that “America’s place is leading the world” not lagging behind other countries. He, and other potential GOP candidates who have been speaking at CPAC over the past two days, cited China as a looming threat.

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