Obama's presidency resembles Jimmy Carter's more every day. The latest example came Tuesday at a San Francisco fundraiser when Obama chided the American people, saying, "We have lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge."

As Ronald Reagan famously said to Jimmy Carter, "There you go again." What is it about San Francisco that makes liberals run down this country? It was in front of a San Francisco audience that Obama made his quip about bitter middle Americans clinging to their guns and religion.

Whether it was Carter in 1979 or Obama now, America doesn't need a president whose first instinct is to blame his fellow Americans. We couldn't easily build the Golden Gate Bridge today because there would be layer upon of layer of bureaucratic red tape standing in the way. Then there would be environmental impact studies that would take years.

If you got past all of that, you might face lawsuits from liberals eager to protect the polka-dotted blueberry river flea that only mates in odd numbered years in the precise location where the bridge is to be built. Other lefties would object, claiming that a bridge only continues our dependence on cars and fossil fuels. And on and on it would go. We haven't lost our ambition; we have been beaten down by the political left.

And while Obama is lecturing us about losing our imagination and willingness to do big things, he has slashed NASA's budget. In fact, there are reports today that he plans to zero out funding for all planetary exploration.

Ronald Reagan never ran down America. He had an infectious love for this country. He believed America was a "shining city upon a hill," a blessed nation that had a rendezvous with destiny. Reagan had an optimistic, "Yes we can" attitude, one many saw in Candidate Obama in 2004 and 2008.

Yes, America has faced tough times. But we got through them -- and not because we were soft or lacked imagination. If anything, it is Big Government, which the left constantly turns to, which lacks imagination, stifles innovation and causes people to go soft.