Jimmy Carter, 1924-2024

America's 39th President, and greatest ex-President, is gone at the ripe old age of 100.

Washington Post, “Jimmy Carter, 39th president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, dies at 100

Jimmy Carter, a no-frills and steel-willed Southern governor who was elected president in 1976, was rejected by disillusioned voters after a single term and went on to an extraordinary postpresidential life that included winning the Nobel Peace Prize, died Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia, according to his son James E. Carter III, known as Chip. He was 100 and the oldest living U.S. president of all time.

[…]

“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” Chip Carter said in a statement. “My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honoring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”

[…]

Mr. Carter, a small-town peanut farmer, U.S. Navy veteran, and Georgia governor from 1971 to 1975, was the first president from the Deep South since 1837, and the only Democrat elected president between Lyndon B. Johnson’s and Bill Clinton’s terms in the White House.

As the nation’s 39th president, he governed with strong Democratic majorities in Congress but in a country that was growing more conservative. Four years after taking office, Mr. Carter lost his bid for reelection, in a landslide, to one of the most conservative political figures of the era, Ronald Reagan.

When Mr. Carter left Washington in January 1981, he was widely regarded as a mediocre president, if not an outright failure. The list of what had gone wrong during his presidency, not all of it his fault, was long. It was a time of economic distress, with a stagnant economy and stubbornly high unemployment and inflation.

“Stagflation,” connoting both low growth and high inflation, was a description that critics used to attack Mr. Carter’s economic policies. In the summer of 1979, Americans waited in long lines at service stations as gasoline supplies dwindled and prices soared after revolution in Iran disrupted the global oil supply.

Mr. Carter made energy his signature domestic policy initiative, and he had some success, but events outside his control intervened. In March 1979, a unit of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, suffered a core meltdown. The accident was the worst ever for the U.S. nuclear-energy industry and a severe setback to hopes that nuclear power would provide a safe alternative to oil and other fossil fuels.

[…]

Mr. Carter’s fortunes were no better overseas. In November 1979, an Iranian mob seized control of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans as hostages. It was the beginning of a 444-day ordeal that played out daily on television and did not end until Jan. 20, 1981, the day Mr. Carter left office, when the hostages were released.

In the midst of the crisis, in April 1980, Mr. Carter authorized a rescue attempt that ended disastrously in the Iranian desert when two U.S. aircraft collided on the ground, killing eight American servicemen. Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, who had opposed the mission, resigned.

“I may have overemphasized the plight of the hostages when I was in my final year,” Mr. Carter said in a 2018 interview with The Washington Post in Plains. “But I was so obsessed with them personally, and with their families, that I wanted to do anything to get them home safely, which I did.”

A month after the Iranian hostage crisis erupted, an emboldened Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Mr. Carter ordered an embargo of grain sales to the Soviet Union, angering American farmers, and a U.S. boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, a step that was unpopular with many Americans and was widely seen as weak and ineffectual.

As the years wore on, the judgment on Mr. Carter’s presidency gradually gave way to a more positive view. He lived long enough to see his record largely vindicated by history, with a widespread acknowledgment that his presidency had been far more than long lines at the gas station and U.S. hostages in Iran.

Near the end of Mr. Carter’s life, two biographies argued forcefully that he had been a more consequential president than most people realized — “perhaps the most misunderstood president in American history,” author Jonathan Alter wrote in his 2020 book, “His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life.”

Both books — the other was Kai Bird’s 2021 volume, “The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter” — said Mr. Carter was often ahead of his time, especially with his early focus on reducing fossil fuel use and his efforts to mitigate the nation’s racial divide, including by expanding the number of people of color in federal judgeships.

The biographies concluded that Mr. Carter’s reputation as a poor president was unfair and came largely from his stubborn insistence on doing what he thought was correct even when it cost him politically.

“He insisted on telling us what was wrong and what it would take to make things better,” Bird wrote. “And for most Americans, it was easier to label the messenger a ‘failure’ than to grapple with the hard problems.”

Mr. Carter, noted for his mile-wide smile in public, was also tenacious and resolute, and those qualities were critical to achieving the Camp David Accords, a signature success of his presidency. He spent 13 days at the presidential retreat in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountains in September 1978, shuttling between cabins that housed Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. In a process that almost collapsed several times, Mr. Carter was instrumental in brokering a historic agreement between bitter rivals.

The Camp David Accords led to the first significant Israeli withdrawal from territory captured in the Six-Day War of 1967 and a peace treaty that has endured between Israel and its largest Arab neighbor. In 1978, Begin and Sadat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor conferred on Mr. Carter 24 years later for a lifetime of working for peace.

Against fierce conservative opposition, Mr. Carter pushed through the Panama Canal treaties, which ultimately placed the economically and strategically critical waterway under Panamanian control, a major step toward better U.S. relations with Latin American neighbors. He signed a nuclear-arms-reduction treaty, SALT II, with the Soviets, but he withdrew it from Senate consideration when Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan.

Taking advantage of the opening made by President Richard M. Nixon, Mr. Carter granted full diplomatic recognition to China. He made human rights a central theme of U.S. foreign policy, a sharp departure from the approach of Nixon and his national security adviser and second secretary of state, Henry A. Kissinger.

Two Cabinet-level departments — Energy and Education — were created under Mr. Carter, as was the Superfund to clean up toxic-waste sites. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act more than doubled the size of the national park and wildlife refuge system.

Mr. Carter was ahead of his time on environmental issues. In June 1979, he installed 32 solar panels on the roof of the West Wing of the White House, telling reporters that the point was to harness “the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.”

“A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people,” Mr. Carter said. Reagan removed the panels in 1986.

His relations with Congress were often strained, even though it was controlled by his party, but he had more success than most modern presidents at winning passage of his legislative proposals.

With the deregulation of the airline and trucking industries, Mr. Carter set in motion a movement that picked up steam under Reagan and his conservative allies. The military buildup under Reagan was often credited with hastening the collapse of the Soviet Union, but that buildup began under Mr. Carter.

Inflation was a constant scourge to his administration, but it was Mr. Carter who appointed Paul Volcker chairman of the Federal Reserve. Volcker was later hailed as the man who broke the back of inflation in the early 1980s, when Reagan was president.

In the 2018 Post interview, Mr. Carter said he had “a lot of regrets” from his time in office, mainly over the Iran hostage crisis and his not having done more to unify the Democratic Party. He said he was most proud of the Camp David Accords, his work to normalize relations with China and his focus on human rights.

“I kept our country at peace and championed human rights, and that’s a rare thing for post-World War II presidents to say,” he said, adding that he was also proud that he “always told the truth.”

New York Times, “Jimmy Carter, Peacemaking President Amid Crises, Is Dead at 100

Jimmy Carter, who rose from Georgia farmland to become the 39th president of the United States on a promise of national healing after the wounds of Watergate and Vietnam, then lost the White House in a cauldron of economic turmoil at home and crisis in Iran, died on Sunday at his home in Plains, Ga. He was 100.

[…]

Tributes poured in from presidents, world leaders and many everyday people from around the world who admired not only Mr. Carter’s service during four years in the White House but his four decades of efforts since leaving office to fight disease, broker peace and provide for the poor. President Biden ordered a state funeral to be held and was expected to deliver a eulogy.

[…]

A lifelong farmer who still worked with his hands building houses for the poor well into his 90s, Mr. Carter had long defied death and outlived not only his wife but his vice president, most of his cabinet, key aides and allies as well as the Republican president he defeated and the Republican challenger who later defeated him. Over the years, he beat back a series of health crises, including a bout with the skin cancer melanoma, which spread to his liver and brain, and repeated falls, one giving him a broken hip.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Former President Jimmy Carter dies at 100

Former President Jimmy Carter, a man who redefined what a post-presidency could be, died Sunday. He was 100.

His son, Chip Carter confirmed that the former president died at his home in Plains about 3:45 p.m.

Carter, who lived longer than any other U.S. president, entered home hospice care in Plains, Georgia in February 2023 after a series of short hospital stays.

The only Georgian ever elected to the White House, Carter left office after a single term that was highlighted by forging peace between Israel and Egypt, but was overshadowed by the Iran hostage crisis. In the decades after, his reputation grew through his and wife Rosalynn Carter’s work at the Carter Center in Atlanta and his philanthropic causes such as Habitat for Humanity.

“People will be celebrating Jimmy Carter for hundreds of years. His reputation is only going to grow,” Rice University history professor Douglas Brinkley wrote in his book “The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter.”

Because he lived so long, the last few years in poor health and, indeed, nearly two years after entering hospice care, I’ve essentially eulogized him several times already and won’t belabor the point here. Suffice it to say that, while I was very much not a fan of his administration as the time (I turned 15 shortly after his loss to Reagan), and had some quibbles here and there with his post-presidential advocacy, I’ve come to greatly admire him as a man. And, indeed, to see his presidency much more favorably in hindsight.

I am not alone in this. As Nick Kristof writes, “Jimmy Carter Deserved Our Thanks and Respect, Not Our Sneers.”

We in the news media and chattering class mocked Jimmy Carter as a country bumpkin, with cartoons depicting him installing an outhouse next to the White House. His public approval dropped to 28 percent, and when Ronald Reagan succeeded him, the Reagans’ interior designer reportedly smirked about the need to “get the smell of catfish out of the White House.”

President Carter, a member of Congress lamented in 1979, “couldn’t get the Pledge of Allegiance through Congress.” Rolling Stone described Carter as “the great national sinking feeling.” Ousted after a single term, he wasn’t so much criticized as sneered at. Even Democrats like Bill Clinton treated Carter as an embarrassment who had undermined liberals and paved a path for Reagan.

Yet all this speaks to our failure of discernment.

Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 100, probably improved the lives of more people over a longer period than any recent president. He was a far better president than is generally acknowledged — and is the only one in modern times who didn’t lose a single soldier to combat (although he did lose eight service members to an air collision during the failed hostage rescue mission in Iran). Carter was also the best-ever ex-president: Hundreds of millions of people around the globe are living better lives because of his relentless efforts to overcome violence and disease.

So Carter’s death is a moment to reassess his legacy, but it also is an opportunity to reflect on how we in the news media and the political world got him so wrong and treated him so unfairly.

[…]

I’ve interacted in some form with eight presidents (I first encountered Carter when I was a high school senior covering his run for president in 1976), and Carter stands out in three ways.

First, he was less focused on himself than almost any other leader I’ve known. He never sought riches, and he continued to live in the same humble bungalow that he and Rosalynn constructed in 1961 in Plains, Ga. His study was a converted garage.

Second, he took on superhuman challenges: Middle East peace, eradication of Guinea worm, energy independence — and, at a personal level, running as an unknown for president. (When he told his mother he was running for president, she supposedly asked, “President of what?” His campaign rented a hotel ballroom for his Iowa campaign kickoff, and just three people came.) Sure, Carter often fell short, but it’s only because he persistently aimed so unreasonably high that we’re talking about him today.

Third, he was guided by principles more than politics, and he sought to use his platform to help others. That’s not to say he refused all moral compromises: He wanted to be elected governor of Georgia, so in 1970 he stayed quiet on civil rights and even feigned respect for the segregationist George Wallace. That’s an ethically complicated side of Carter, who believed that repudiating racists “would have been the end of my political career,” as he told Jonathan Alter, the author of an excellent biography of Carter and a contributor to Times Opinion. So he could indeed be calculating, but his aims were loftier than his means, and — imperfectly — he regularly did what he thought was right even when it was politically costly.

He was truly a unique figure in American history. May he rest in peace.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is a Professor of Security Studies. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Not the IT Dept. says:

    He lived his faith and didn’t use his Christianity as a club to attack others. He simply went about his post-presidency helping people and staying (mostly) out of politics. It would have been cruel to wish him more years on this earth but I hope he went peacefully and gently into that good night.

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  2. Tony W says:

    Carter was the Fred Rogers of US Presidents and the contrast between him and the new guy coming in couldn’t be bigger.

    I am just grateful that Carter died while Biden is still president so that Mr. Carter can have a dignified ceremony in Washington DC that focuses on the man we lost.

    I have also seen suggestions of staging a large, televised “Live Aid” style musical event to raise money for Habitat For Humanity with dozens of big artists performing to take place on January 20th and I think that’s an excellent idea.

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  3. Mister Bluster says:

    On Inauguration Day 1977 President Carter fulfilled a campaign promise by issuing a “full complete and unconditional pardon” (amnesty) for Vietnam War-era draft evaders.
    WikiP
    Executive Order 11967–Relating to violations of the Selective Service Act, August 4, 1964 to March 28, 1973

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  4. Scott says:

    Besides all the standard obituaries (which, of course, have been long written, two additional random thoughts came to mind:

    Carter was an unknown who used retail politics to become known. But he learned retail politics through his faith. He went into strange neighborhoods, knocked on doors, evangelized, and invited people to church. He met people where they were. That is a skill that very few have.

    Second, under his, and his DoD Secretary, Dr Harold Brown, leadership, he reorganized the Department of Defense, raised its budgets, and perhaps more important, invested in long range military R&D, specifically stealth technology. Reagan was the beneficiary of his Defense foresight.

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  5. James Joyner says:

    @Scott: The Carter/Brown/Perry “Offset Strategy” was indeed huge and under-credited. But the defense budget exploded, in both nominal and % of GDP terms, under Reagan.

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  6. Michael Reynolds says:

    The last real Christian in American politics.

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  7. steve says:

    Carter was responsible for most of the deregulation for which Reagan gets credit. Stuff that actually improved our economy like transportation and importantly, beer. Reagan gets credit for deregulating the financial sector leading to the S&L crisis.

    Steve

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  8. Scott F. says:

    @Tony W:

    “He insisted on telling us what was wrong and what it would take to make things better,” Bird wrote. “And for most Americans, it was easier to label the messenger a ‘failure’ than to grapple with the hard problems.”

    History will note the juxtaposition of how most Americans saw Carter in real time and how a plurality of Americans see the propagandist Trump now and it will not reflect well on the US population of the last 50 years.

    As Nick Kristof writes, those in the news media and the political world who then got Carter so wrong show us how very difficult contemporaneous discernment can be and those who now are sanewashing and bending the knee to Trump are showing us it hasn’t gotten any easier.

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  9. MarkedMan says:

    @steve: Reagan was incredibly lucky in his reputation and legacy. Jimmy Carter preceded him, and failed to get re-elected because he aggressively tackled the things Nixon let fester. George HW Bush followed him, and failed to get re-elected because he tackled the things that Reagan screwed up.

    But as the older women (aunts, coworkers, etc) in my life at the time kept telling, Ronald Reagan was such a handsome man.

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  10. Kylopod says:

    He grew up without electricity or plumbing.

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  11. Fortune says:

    @Scott F.: Carter never met a totalitarian he didn’t like, and praise in public, and work with against America’s interests, and he gets credit for his concern about human rights. That’s sanewashing.

    1
  12. Scott F. says:

    @Fortune: As usual, assertions without evidence. On a post eulogizing an ex-President no less.

    Bless your heart, you are the poster child for Kristoff’s “failure of discernment.”

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  13. Fortune says:

    @Scott F.: Scott, you and others arleady brought politics into the eulogy thread. If you want evidence, look up Carter and Arafat, Tito, Ceausescu, one of the NK Kims I forget which one, his praise for Saudi Arabia’s religious freedom, his condemnation of Israel’s record on religious freedom and everything else he said about Israel.

    2
  14. Not the IT Dept. says:

    Could James or Matt please remove Fortune’s vomit from this thread? He’s never made sense (and can’t spell), and I don’t see why he should be inflicted on us.

    2
  15. Fortune says:
  16. Mikey says:

    @Fortune:

    That’s sanewashing

    You tried so hard. Bless your heart.

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  17. Fortune says:

    @Not the IT Dept.: Could James or Matt also remove Tony and Scott’s politicization of the thread? What am I saying, no one’s petty enough to call for comments being removed.

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  18. We should all thank Fortune for demonstrating for us in no uncertain terms how tRumpers think. They are utterly devoid of empathy. They, like their hero, are trans people – and by that I mean transactional. Transactional people cannot understand people who do things that don’t bring them the promise of tangible benefit. This causes problems.
    An Army shrink was assigned to observe the defendants at the Nuremberg War Trials (1945-49).
    “In my work with the defendants I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
    -Captain G. M. Gilbert

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  19. DK says:

    @Scott F.:

    As Nick Kristof writes, those in the news media and the political world who then got Carter so wrong show us how very difficult contemporaneous discernment can be and those who now are sanewashing and bending the knee to Trump are showing us it hasn’t gotten any easier.

    This.

    What the press is saying, belatedly, about Carter’s disposition they will soon be saying about Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden — two other decent, caring, faith-grounded Democrats whose work helped the disadvantaged, but who Americans were taught to hate thanks to sexist and ageist smear campaigns led by extremists and aided by lazy pundits.

    Was Carter’s presidency a success? Since we judge presidencies primarily by their economic and legislative outcomes, no. Did he have more foresight and positive impact than he got credit for? Yes.

    Did Jimmy deserve to be trashed and besmirched? Did Hillary? Did Joe? Also no.

    But we never give due until people are dead or dying. You’d think Kristoff’s colleagues, Carter’s newfound fans, and the American people would see the parallels. And start acting like character, honor, and decency matter when folks are still alive and seeking office — instead of sneering at their “moralism.”

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  20. al Ameda says:

    @Fortune:
    Okay, Jimmy wasn’t perfect. Duly noted.

    But I’d say that he did more than a few things in his life that will live on as his legacy of good works and decency.

    I leave you with the supposed words of Bette Davis, upon hearing of the death of her Hollywood nemesis: “You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good, Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”

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  21. Liberal Capitalist says:

    Makes one wonder… What dumpster will Trump’s body be deposited on his demise?

    The memorial plate: “The Tomb of the Unknown POTUS. Sucker and loser.”

    (Feeling mighty not-trumppy today)

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  22. Mike in Arlington says:
  23. just nutha says:

    @Fortune:

    If you want evidence, look up Carter and Arafat, Tito, Ceausescu, one of the NK Kims I forget which one, his praise for Saudi Arabia’s religious freedom, his condemnation of Israel’s record on religious freedom and everything else he said about Israel.

    You’ve got that exactly backwards. The person disbelieving you doesn’t need any evidence; the person making the accusation is the one who presents evidence.

    That said, I will acknowledge that I don’t agree with every assertion Carter made post-Presidency. I still admire the body of his life’s work. In total, his accomplishments are amazing and unrivaled by anyone of whom I can think.

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  24. Gustopher says:

    @Fortune: from the heart of your linked article.

    Carter scolded Bush for his program of monitoring international communications between suspected al-Qaida members and individuals in the United States. He tried to create a parallel between the Bush program and the government surveillance that was conducted on the Kings in the 1960s. Later he said the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina showed racism is alive in America.

    His remarks are especially jarring coming at Mrs. King’s funeral, with President Bush sitting nearby. We’re left to conclude that Carter’s sense of decency was overcome by the desire to score political points wherever he can.

    On Carter’s statements about the response to Katrina, and leaving poor black folks to die… I think Mrs. King would have been proud of him.

    The gross, disgusting indifference of Bush to the incompetence of his FEMA is not something that should be left unchallenged. Even at a funeral for the wife of a great civil rights leader. Especially at the funeral for the wife of a great civil rights leader.

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  25. DrDaveT says:

    @Tony W:

    Carter was the Fred Rogers of US Presidents and the contrast between him and the new guy coming in couldn’t be bigger.

    This. Carter was the opposite of Trump in every way — intelligent, thoughtful, persistent, compassionate, self-controlled, dedicated, moral, ethical, self-sacrificing, an effective negotiator and mediator and advocate. Our last statesman president.

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  26. The GOP narrative is that Carter was pro-dictator.

    The reality is that US foreign policy used to be very much (and still very much can be) pro-dictator. The GOP beef in the past (and the mythology persists) is the Carter tried to respect national sovereignty and self-determination in Iran and Nicaragua.

    But, quite honestly, trading Somoza for Ortega was not a big shift, if the issue was whether or not an authoritarian was in charge (same with the Shah and Kohmeni). The issue was whether the authoritarian in question was pro-US or not.

    There is also the poorly thought-out question of whether the US could have forestalled either the Iranian or Nicaraguan Revolutions. I don’t think the Iranian Revolution could have been stopped. Maybe US support for Somoza could have forestalled his toppling for a while, but even there I am skeptical.

    The cost of either would have been too great.

    But some narratives die hard.

    Likewise, the Panama Canal was not about loving authoritarians. It was about respecting local sovereignty and self-determination.

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  27. @just nutha:

    You’ve got that exactly backwards. The person disbelieving you doesn’t need any evidence; the person making the accusation is the one who presents evidence.

    Indeed.

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  28. Fortune says:

    @df***@fs*.edu: You’d need a lack of empathy to exchange compliments with the likes of Tito and Kim. Both Trump and Carter overlook human rights atrocities if you praise them enough. Losing the presidency takes a toll – although Trump was always that needy.

  29. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @Fortune: It hurts that Jimmy Carter, a man you despise—has made a far larger impact on life than you, a typing Ape, are capable of. Doesn’t it?

    It should hurt—now go get your banana box.

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  30. Bill Jempty says:

    Jimmy Carter singing-

    Thanks for the memories
    Of Begin and Sadat
    Hamilton and his pot
    Billy drinking beer in the parking lot
    Thanks so much

    RIP

  31. just nutha says:

    @Gustopher: Wasn’t Katrina the “Great job, Brownie!!” storm? I get them mixed up, with how frequent they’ve become since the climate hoax accusations.

  32. Scott F. says:

    @just nutha & @Steven L. Taylor:
    Ergo, the commenter demonstrates NK’s “failure of discernment.” Discernment – as in the ability to judge well – takes evidence from each position, weighs the arguments, then reaches independent decision. Fly-by assertions allow none of that.

    It is so very tiresome.

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  33. Also, I would note, that Carter explicitly tried to infuse respect for human rights as part of US foreign policy–it is part of why he withdrew support for Somoza.

    See, also, how he dealt with El Salvador and then contrast with Reagan’s approach.

    I do not recall Carter’s comments on Tito, but if we are going to put such comments in context, it should be noted that Tito’s Yugoslavia had been known to buck the USSR and was a bit of a renegade in the Communist Bloc. That, alone, might result in an American President saying nice things.

    4
  34. Kathy says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    I don’t think the Iranian Revolution could have been stopped.

    Not without a DeLorean to keep Ike from backing a coup to reinstall the Shah.

    But remember that was justified to keep Iran from going communist and aligning with the Soviet Union.

    2
  35. Gustopher says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: With regards to Arafat — if you want to try to get peace in Israel-Palestine, you have to be able and willing to speak with the leaders.

    Not that I think Fortune cares a whit about such things, as they only care about scoring points, and being an anti-anti-Trumper.

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  36. JohnSF says:

    A much under-rated President, and a good man.
    “Ave atque vale”

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  37. Fortune says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: So four examples wasn’t enough.

    1
  38. JohnSF says:

    @Fortune:
    Exchanging compliments with unpleasant people is what heads of state do.
    It comes with the job.
    I have a private vision of her late Majesty checking her calendar, sighing and muttering:
    “Another day, another arsehole to make nicey with.”

    4
  39. @Fortune: you are confusing making assertions and making an argument.

    Just making a list isn’t evidence.

    4
  40. Richard Gardner says:

    I see the old White House solar panel (hot water, not electricity) BS against Reagan has been trotted out again. Reality was the White House was being re-roofed and GSA put them into storage. It wasn’t anything political.

    1
  41. Fortune says:

    @just nutha: I assume if someone’s interested enough in a topic to comment on it and they have access to the internet, they can find anything in five minutes and would want to do so.

    The person disbelieving you doesn’t need any evidence

    This is funny because I know what you meant, but it’s also a definition of closed-mindedness.

  42. @Fortune:

    Carter never met a totalitarian he didn’t like, and praise in public, and work with against America’s interests, and he gets credit for his concern about human rights.

    The problem is that your assertion here is just a glib statement. That he then said something positive or diplomatic about some dictators is true of every American president.

    It is one thing to correctly note that he said some positive things about authoritarian rulers (which was especially par for the course during the Cold War, as I noted about Tito above).

    But that isn’t making an evidence-based argument to back your assertion.

    As I noted above, you are simply cleaving to a simplistic, long-standing GOP narrative.

  43. Fortune says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: Good you have two new rules that apply to me. I have to present my comments according to the rules of formal debate, and I can’t agree with a GOP narrative. The first rule applies only to me I guess, but the second rule, no one’s allowed to agree with the GOP, right?

  44. Matt Bernius says:

    Jeebus, I had forgotten how boring thin-skinned contrarians are. @Fortune do you whine this much on all of those right wing forums that accuse you of being a lib commie? Or would that be too on the nose because they’d complain about you being a whiny lib snowflake?

    But please take this post as a belated Holiday gift: I got you another excuse to complain about how unfairly you get treated here. Happy Holidays!

  45. Fortune says:

    @Matt Bernius: I want to talk about Carter but people want to talk about me. You want to avoid tiresome conversations about me, talk about Carter.

  46. @Fortune: I am asking you to talk about Carter in the post above. I am trying to explain how to make your case.

    I accept that Carter said things about authoritarians they you don’t like and may even be objectionable. But that doesn’t prove your initial assertion. Moreover, you have never said what specific things bug you.

    I also addressed Nicaragua and Iran above and cited an example of El Salvador. If you want to engage on specifics, please do so.

    1
  47. Fortune says:

    On Tito:
    “President Tito is a man of great courage….He’s a man of eternal strength, of eternal youth, of eternal vigor, and of eternal courage….He’s a man who believes in human rights.”

    https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/toasts-state-dinner-during-the-visit-president-tito-yugoslavia
    Do I have to specify what bugs me about Tito’s human rights record?

  48. @Fortune: All you have demonstrated is that he said nice things about Tito at a state dinner in his honor. No one was disputing that he said nice things about authoritarian rulers. I noted above a likely reason he would have done so (Cold War logic–see above). Of the Eastern European dictators, Tito was one of the better ones, but I am not disputing his human rights record.

    Your initial assertion was “Carter never met a totalitarian he didn’t like, and praise in public, and work with against America’s interests, and he gets credit for his concern about human rights.”

    That he praised Tito neither confirms nor invalidates that statement.

    Part of the problem is that your statement is so overbroad as to be difficult to defend. The other problem is that Carter did, actually try and infuse more respect for human rights into his foreign policy than did his successors. How well that worked is debatable.

    I used to teach a class on US-Latin Amerian relations, so I am pretty well versed on this topic as it pertains to that region. Teaching a course on revolutions (and just an interest that goes back to undergrad) means I know a good bit about Iran.

    In my view you are simply spouting common GOP talking points without much of an actual position.

    If your proof that Carter loved totalitarians is that you can find examples of him saying nice things about some of them, then I have some bad news about the guy who was just elected President (not to mention, quite frankly, probably all presidents but especially the Cold War ones).

    Keep in mind that prior to the late 80s/early 90s a lot more of the world was authoritarian and, therefore, there were more authoritarians to potential praise for geopolitical reasons.

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  49. One more point, I would note that a lot of GOP criticism at the time of Carter was, as I noted above. about Iran and Nicaragua–insofar as he “lost” them from the US sphere of influence. But that had nothing to do with not liking dictators. The Shah and Somoza both were brutal dictators with terrible human rights records (which is one of the reasons Carter did not stand with them when the revolutions came).

  50. Fortune says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    If your proof that Carter loved totalitarians is that you can find examples of him saying nice things about some of them, then I have some bad news about the guy who was just elected President

    I know, and everyone here condemns him for it as they should. Your team should also condemn Carter for the wrong he did.

    Part of the problem is that your statement is so overbroad as to be difficult to defend.

    This is a comments section not a dissertation. Anyone who’s familiar with foreign affairs knows the case against Carter. Believe it or not I don’t want to make every comments section a fight, my comment was just a counterpoint.

  51. DrDaveT says:

    @Fortune:

    I have to present my comments according to the rules of formal debate, and I can’t agree with a GOP narrative.

    No, you have to present some actual evidence (as opposed to unbacked assertions) if you want your accusations to be taken seriously. Agreeing with a GOP narrative upgrades that requirement, since nearly all GOP talking points are lies. (Yes, that’s an unsupported assertion — I can enumerate if you really want.)

    If you can show me any evidence that Carter was more pro-autocrat than other US presidents of his era, I will concede that you have one legitimate complaint about him. I’m not holding my breath — and even that would do nothing at all to undermine the dozen ways he was superior to those who have come after.

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  52. @Fortune:

    Your team should also condemn Carter for the wrong he did.

    Carter was far from perfect. Of the things I would be more than happy to criticize him for, the Tito comments likely don’t make the list.

    This is a comments section not a dissertation. Anyone who’s familiar with foreign affairs knows the case against Carter.

    Having written both a dissertaion and many, many comments, I can assure it is possible to make a more comprehensive argument than what you present here.

    And, again, having taught the subject at the university level for years, I am aware of the foreign policy record.

    Believe it or not I don’t want to make every comments section a fight, my comment was just a counterpoint.

    Then take your lumps when a glib and incomplete comment is criticized for being such.

    You want your cake and to eat it too: to make vague, incomplete, and unsubstantiated comments and then take offense when you are called out. Worse, you then assert that these are only comments, not dissertations.

    Pick a lane.

  53. @Fortune:

    I know, and everyone here condemns him for it as they should.

    BTW: I have never heard you do so. And Trump is currently a lot more consequential than Carter, what with being alive and all, not to mention the president-elect.

  54. Fortune says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    Having written both a dissertation and many, many comments,

    You’re making fun of your own tendency toward self-importance, right? No one would have written the above seriously. It’s good you realize how full of yourself you get and are willing to poke fun at it.

  55. @Fortune: Happy New Year.