The Nation: Carter's Dog-Day Afternoons

As the President confronts some tough problems, criticism grows

It was the end of the season of beaches and barbecues, the doldrums for much of the nation—but not for Jimmy Carter's sloop of state. The Administration was being buffeted by crosscurrents of criticism on a variety of domestic and foreign issues. None of the President's problems—Bert Lance, the Panama Canal treaty, relations with China, the Middle East, the economy, the thorny question of racial quotas—are near the magnitude of a real crisis. But the problems are numerous enough to raise doubts about the Carter Administration's mastery of the issues that confront it....