Jimmy Carter

I remember election night 1976, when some of the older men in my newsroom were thinking the world was ending. At 22, I was thrilled.

I remember election night in 1980, when Reagan was elected and I felt as badly as the old Republican men did in 1976. Another unelected Republican, like Nixon in 1968, who backchanneled with foreign leaders to sabotage an existing administration and alter an election.

Recent bios have shown his administration accomplished far more than he was credited for; had we listened to him on energy dependence we'd be much better off today.

Egypt and Isreal have not gone to war since Camp David. That's something to be proud of even if he accomplished nothing else.

 

Carter was the first President I voted for. He had been my governor in Georgia. I watched as he tried to push through good legislation, but Georgia has 159 counties and the rednecks they elected cock-blocked him at every turn. Then he got elected President, and went up there with a bunch of his guys from Georgia and tried to push things through the system, and the insiders in D.C. (both parties, pretty much, as much fellow Dems as the R's) knifed much of that.

He was elected in the face of inflation/stagflation. He tried hard to reduce inflation through cutting government spending and the deficit. He tried to start a Federal energy conservation program, and the country likely be better off had he been able to succeed.

He got hung with the label of "peanut farmer" with the unspoken "Georgia cracker dirt farmer" that accompanied it. He graduated from the Naval Academy and worked on nuclear submarines. Trust me, nuclear physics isn't for dummies.

He has certainly been the best ex-President of my lifetime

 

18% home mortgages are hard to forget. As ever, the President gets too much blame and credit for things that happen while he's in office.

 

Inflation was off and roaring under Richard M. Nixon, who also presided over the first gas crisis.

The Shah of Iran, whose despotic regime led more or less directly to the uprising of radical Islam in that nation, was installed in power by the CIA under ... gasp ... Dwight D. Eisenhower.

 

I would have guessed Truman on the POTUS when the Shah came to power. He was in there for a long time.

 

His presidential failing was thinking that the first post-Watergate election meant everything outside of Washington establishment was OK. One of my dad's friends and colleagues was very well connected in DC politics, and the word was that Carter was unnecessarily disdainful of Congress and that he overplayed his hand. And when he lost, he realized that. He became determined to be remembered for something good. Mission accomplished.

 

Visited his presidential library a few years ago on my first trip to Atlanta. Wish I could have seen him there/then.

 

I went to Plains on Jan. 2 this year since I had the day off and saw the national historic site museum, “downtown” (the town center consists of a single block, which includes the depot headquarters and Billy’s service station) and the family farm a few miles outside of town. Even though his family was well off by local standards they were by no means rich. It’s odd to think he will likely be the last president to come from a true agricultural background.

 

The Brits pitched Truman on regime change on Iran -- not coincidentally when the Iranians started making noise about the raw deal they were getting on the Anglo-Persian Oil Company -- but Truman wasn't convinced. Once Eisenhower was in office, all the Brits had to do was hint Mossadegh had communist sympathies and the US was on board. The operation was even led by Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., grandson of Teddy. Stephen Kinzer's book All the Shah's Men goes into great detail about the context around the overthrow and its effects.

 

Great man. Great ideas.

Got chewed up by politics and oil.

Too bad we didn’t listen to him.

 

A man too good and too decent for the political machine.