Jimmy Carter turns 100 today
Carter is the first president to reach centenarian status.
I’ve written about Carter in many previous posts: in this one I compare Carter and Biden, in this one I discuss Carter’s role in the rise of Iran’s mullahtocracy, this one’s about Carter’s biggest regret, here’s one about Carter’s inadequate apology to Israel, and here’s a gem about Carter’s dialogues with Hamas. From the latter there’s this quote from Carter in 2006, when he oversaw the election in Gaza that ended up bringing Hamas to power, and he spoke with Hamas leaders:
Carter said “there’s a good chance” that Hamas, which has operated a network of successful social and charitable organizations for Palestinians, could become a nonviolent organization….The 39th U.S. president said he met with Hamas leaders in Ramallah, in the West Bank, after last week’s elections.
“They told me they want to have a peaceful administration. They want to have a unity government, bring in Fatah members and independent members,” Carter said.
Well, he wasn’t alone in that hope – some Israelis shared it. And Carter did add “What they say and what they do [are] two different matters.” But Carter also wrote a book in 2006 that popularized the word “apartheid” to refer to Israel.
I voted twice for the guy; what can I say, I was a Democrat at the time. I didn’t think he was anywhere near a great president even back then, but I later came to think of him as a very poor president. He’s been eclipsed in that regard by others since, of course. But one thing I can say about even his failures: I never thought he hated the United States.
I voted once for the guy. Third party the second time.
In the months before the November ’79 hostage takeover in Tehran, President Carter and/or Andrew Young went on record as saying more or less that the Mullahs, being religious people, would provide good governance in Iran. They didn’t realize at the time that a Good Mullah isn’t the same as a Good Baptist Minister. The Mullahs fooled a lot of Iranians, too, such as the leftists and adherents of democracy.
Coincidentally circa Halloween ’79, an Iranian employee of the company brought a computer part to our operations in Argentina. I recall having a discussion with him and some Argentines about the Mullahs. At the time, he took the point of view that if the majority of the Iranian people wanted a theocracy, so be it. At the time, that sounded reasonable to me. Not long after he left to return to the US, the “students” in Tehran took over the American embassy.
Carter pushed through some deregulation legislation that was beneficial to the country.
His actions after leaving the Presidency were, to say the least, a mixed bag. President Clinton didn’t appreciate, I would imagine, Carter’s “help” with North Korea.
To its credit, the Carter Center did go on record that the recent Venezuelan election was a sham, within days of the election. That didn’t prevent some lefty shysters from claiming otherwise, but that wasn’t the fault of the Carter Center.
In the 1960s, Carter favored civil rights legislation, which took some guts for someone living in the South. Kudos also to Lady Bird Johnson for having the guts to take a railroad whistlestop tour of the South in the campaign of ’64, right after the Civil Rights Bill was passed
Carter didn’t hate America when he was president, but after he was defeated by Ronald Reagan, he hated the American electorate. He was not nearly as nice a person as people try to make him out to be.
Carter hated Begin for not surrendering to the Islamic terrorists.
Carter also rejected the good advice of his JCS which wanted him to take out Kharg Island.
I didn’t think Carter was trying to destroy America the way the Dems are doing now. Nothing evil in his Administration. I remember trying to understand how the rescue operation failed so badly, but that’s not on him, that’s a failure of a peace time Army.
How many people thought the picture of the Bidens visiting the Carters was the creepiest thing you’ve ever seen?
An underappreciated aspect of Carter’s presidency is his policy on Nicaragua that nearly resulted in catastrophe. Carter did not think the Nicaraguan dictator was a “moral” man, so he pulled the rug out from under him and blockaded an Israeli ship carrying bought-and-paid-for arms from docking. Somoza may have been an SOB, but as FDR remarked about another Somoza “but he’s OUR SOB.” We’re lucky the entire Central American isthmus did not fall to communism, because that would have destabilized Mexico, leaving us with little choice but military intervention. Not to mention the tens of millions of refugees that would have tried to enter the USA. (Those BTW would have been actual refugees, not the economic intruders we have now, looking for free stuff and flat screen TVs.)
Jimmy “The Mullah” Carter…Jeez!? A younger brother confessed this year that he had voted for Carter. My first vote was years later—2002 mid-terms.
Voters are the problem in America. Over the span since Carter to the present, Americans have selected one great President (Reagan) and two quite good Presidents (both Bushes w/ GW my favorite of two).
The rest varied from absolutely terrible (Obama), two so-so (Clinton & Trump), and the 2020 version of Bernie Lomax (Biden).
Fool not Knave. And sometimes a sanctimonious fool.
but that’s not on him
Yes it is, not entirely of course, but certainly to a significant degree. The military and the state of our national defense deteriorated dramatically during his tenure in the oval office, and the outcome of the abortive rescue operation was a product of that deterioration. Overall he botched the situation with Iran catastrophically, not least because what Iran did was an act of war by any standard and he failed to conduct the nation’s affairs accordingly.
During his tenure also we had the 1979 oil crisis (leading to his notorious, and pathetic, “Crisis of Confidence” i.e. “malaise” speech), killer stagflation, and double-digit interest rates.
For these an other missteps the buck stopped at his desk and he wasn’t up to meeting the challenge.
He was also, in private, a mean-spirited son-of-bitch, a trait that only manifested publicly whenever he spoke of Reagan.
JFM:
They had entered the uncanny valley.
He is a raving antisemite. I saw him being interviewed by Bill Moyers. First he piously berated American Jews for not being sympathetic enough to the Palestinians, at a time when Munich and Achille Lauro were of recent memory. Then he went off on a sarcastic rant about the “chosen people” that sounded like David Duke on crack.
I’m sure he was never favorable but I suspect his animus was intensified by the belief that Jews were responsible for him losing to Reagan. Never mind stagflation or the hostage crisis. Or the fact that the typical Reagan Democrat was a blue-collar Catholic. For some people it’s always da Joooos. Especially embittered losers. It is still a humiliation to me that I voted for him twice.
“Carter said “there’s a good chance” that Hamas, which has operated a network of successful social and charitable organizations for Palestinians, could become a nonviolent organization…”
In evaluating Hamas, could anything be more basic than a quick reading of its charter? It’s simply not possible to do so and conclude that Hamas could ever become a nonviolent organization.
An incompetent fool of a statesman is the least damaging appraisal of Carter that can be offered.
Sigh + eye-roll regarding Carter. I guess he was generally an ok guy, but so thoroughly misguided politically it’s hard to not judge him harshly – given that the only reason we know him at all is via politics. I once referenced an essay here that argued that he was the first anti-American president, and got some pushback for it. I think what the author was getting at is that he was the first president skeptical of Western hegemony, or at least sympathetic to anti-western intellectuals. Not saying the author nailed it, but he was certainly onto something.
Not an evil or even bad man, but unforgiveably naive.
Wow Dwaz, you said that a lot more efficiently than I did.
I voted for him in 1976, however by 1978 I thought he was a disaster. He was the doom sayer to me after that malaise speech. The gas lines. The 55 mph dictate. Lower your expectations, and your thermostat.
I never voted for another Democrat after that.
The election of 76 was my first. I was commuting between Mercer Island and Seattle for school. One day I get home to find the driveway blocked by a TV truck. They are interviewing my 13-YO brother. He is like the youngest person working on the Carter campaign or something. He gets invited to the inauguration and some Seattle Dem treats him and another young person to the festivities while chaperoning the two of them. He was terribly disappointed when I didn’t vote for Carter.
In 80 I was on my way from work to vote when Carter conceded.
Chases Eagles,
That’s a hilarious story about your little brother!
Too young to vote for Carter. I did read his autobiography, “Why not the best?” when I was 22. Good book. Inspirational.
I wasn’t super political during either of his Presidential campaigns, but I was for him over Ford or Reagan, mainly because the people I watched on SNL made fun of the other guys. I was astounded to see how much Reagan changed the mood of the nation, and subsequently the nation (and the world) by espousing positive, uplifting messages. I learned that even if a leader truly believes the population he’s leading has entered an economic period of malaise it’s not motivational to lecture them about it.
Amazing he’s still alive and Rosalynn made it to 96!
FOAF on October 1, 2024 at 5:53 pm
Do you believe any of Carter’s antisemitism was related to his deep evangelical orientation and the interpretation that the Jews committed deicide against Jesus?
no I don’t think so, plenty of evangelical think otherwise, in fact they see the jews as allies, up to a point, but he’s easily led, yes Camp David, which really came about because the Saudis pushed Sadat toward Begin, fwiw, but as we see in the blood of abraham, his embrace of the senior assad, whose defense minister, wrote a thesis on blood libel, their support of Abu Nidal, Carlos, Habbash et al
settlements, well he sits on Oglethorpe, which is a much larger settlement that Judea and Samaria by a country mile, that became Georgia, not to mention the other colonies
as you may have gathered from the other thread, i’m not keen on many of his other policies, he decapitatate two regional allies led to the expansion of perhaps likely but inplausibly hard to complicate policies in Centfal America and the Middle East
the bloodshed that ran from El Salvador north, the brutal counterinsurgency that had to be employed to prevent further Soviet encroachment
not to mention the inattention that led to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,
habitat for humanity, is near bear
I voted for Carter in the primary (one of three lifetime votes for Dems) but voted for Reagan in the general, although oddly enough I thought Reagan seemed like a clown in a debate with Jimah. I was a callow fellow and politics wasn’t a big deal for me then.
I wonder if Carter could be an example of the Peter Principle. It was weird the way he seemed to come out of nowhere to win the nomination.
Before his candidacy I had never heard of a Born Again Christian.
I recall hearing on the news years ago that he had stopped cancer treatments and was putting his faith in God’s hands. Happy birthday, Jimah! God must be keeping you around for some reason!
My first vote was against Carter and FOR Reagan.
Have not regretted it ever.
I do not wish him anything but a peaceful end, but boy did he screw the pooch as President.
I’m not at all a fan of Carter’s presidency, or of him particularly, but I believe that he worked on building houses with Habitat for Humanity, out of a sincere desire to help people, after he left office.
R2L, I have no idea where it came from originally, though as I said I suspect it was there all along. And I don’t really care that much. I just know the idea that Carter is a “nice guy” is bunk. He is a nasty bigot. I’ve heard his wife is even worse, though I’ve never been treated to as stunning a proof as I saw in that Moyers interview.
You’re wrong Dwaz. I saw and heard with my own eyes and ears what a bigot he is.
Carter was associated with Desmond Tutu in a pretentious bit of nonsense called “The Elders”. Tutu’s hostility to Jews was most amazing.
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What’s notable about Israel is that it is vigorous, self-motivated, and accomplished. They’re willing and able defend themselves with force. This repels the world’s self-appointed social workers, Carter among them. He actually found Hafez Assad more to his liking than Menachem Begin.
Carter, like the rest of the old guard in the Democratic Party (e.g. Michael Dukakis) has been unwilling to critique the criminality which has been manifest in the central organs of the Democratic Party for the last dozen years. For that reason, I’m done with him.
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During his time in office, he had more sensible inclinations than did the mode of the Democratic congressional caucus. His still made crippling errors. The other curio is that he was (which Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon were not) an experienced executive in the private and public sector, but he was famous for getting bogged down in minutiae. His time as a state governor seems to have taught him nothing about how to build relationships with legislators. He couldn’t manage to be congenial with the Secret Service. His people skills were just about zero.
The gas lines. The 55 mph dictate. Lower your expectations, and your thermostat.
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The lowering of the speed limit occurred in 1973-74, before Carter took office. The first round of gas lines took place then as well. There was a second round in 1979. Carter had invested political capital in 1977-78 in an attempt to remove price controls on petroleum products, with partial success. He wasn’t the responsible party for the shortages.
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Carter compounded some silly ford era policies the second oil shock came from his allowing the shah to fall now its arguable how much he could have held out but the huyser mission much like the wisner mission to mubarak bolloxed things up
I spent my military time during Carter’s years. Only remember being short of aircraft parts and of course the Iranian takeover of the embassy. It wasn’t the best years to.be in the military.
Never voted for him, didn’t start until after he was gone.
The only reason Carter didn’t make the cut-off for the Gates Maxim about Biden’s foreign policy was that he only had one term as President and none in Congress.
https://www.politifact.com/article/2014/jan/16/fact-checking-gates-claims-about-bidens-foreign-po/
(Gates said that the former longtime Democratic Senator was “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue of the past four decades.”)
@ Art Deco > [Carter was an] “experienced executive in the private and public sector, but he was famous for getting bogged down in minutiae.”
President Carter is the reigning avatar for the Peter Principle.
https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/management/peter-principle/
That post is oriented mostly toward “solving” the Peter Problem, and describes almost every possible solution except the one chosen by the voters: Fire him!