NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - President Bush said Monday that our economy was suffering from a hangover, that we're suffering a hangover specifically from the stock market and corporate profits binge of the late nineties.

I had the uncomfortable feeling as I listened to the president that he was somehow blaming the consumer and the investor for the binge, not corporate America and Wall Street, not the regulators who allowed some executives to effectively loot their companies, and not the crooks who cooked the books. I hope that isn't what Mr. Bush meant.

Even as the president today said our economy is fundamentally strong, the stock market was falling and the dollar dropping below parity with the euro for the first time in two-and-a-half years. I couldn't help but hear resonate in my memory another presidential speech.

In that speech, the president said, "As you know, there is a growing disrespect for government and for churches and for schools and for the news media, and other institutions."

The president warned against a mistaken idea of freedom...."the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others." And the president declared, "the erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and political fabric of America."

That president was Jimmy Carter, and he delivered that speech as he struggled to lead a nation beset by double digit-inflation and double-digit interest rates, hostages soon to be held in Iran, an energy shortage, economic and market stagnation, a continuing cold war with the Soviet Union, and what he saw as a crisis of confidence in the nation. Although I've never asked President Carter, my guess is it's a speech he wishes he hadn't given.

And it's a curious coincidence that President Bush gave his speech on our economic binge today on the very anniversary of President Carter's famous malaise speech. But now, just as 23 years ago this very day, it really doesn't do for leaders to blame followers for a lack of leadership on any issue.