THE PRESIDENCY by HUGH SIDEY: Refuge in the Rose Garden

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By most measures Carter has been correct to stay on the job through this crisis, though he has come close to being too cute about it. He made too many phone calls to Iowa for a Commander in Chief supposed to be pacing the bridge. He still spends too much time stroking political figures in the White House, thus casting doubt on his story of total absorption in crisis. If the future for this nation and the free world is as ominous as the President says it is, he had better be at work designing some dramatic new schemes for the 1980s. So far we have got little more than warmed-up leftovers from the past year. The greater worry remains that Jimmy Carter, the incurable campaigner, will soon dash off with his suit bag over his shoulder in quest of delegates, while Leonid Brezhnev goes on gathering up countries.