As a young adolescent male in his teens I loathed Carter and loved Reagan. That had changed by 1984 because, well, I started to read history. And it tells you all you need to know about the intellectual and emotional level of the conservative and Trumpian mindset.
Today I believe Carter the most decent man to hold the presidency in my lifetime.
What Biden is doing for the good of our country will come out eventually. He is a wonderful President. What he is up against are the brainwashed. I read the brainwashed comments. on YouTube.
True, Eva, the wealthy learned that they could use wedge issues (abortion, immigration, gay rights, women's rights, etc.) to divert the attention away from the fact that the wealthy were robbing the piggy bank. G.W. Bush was right when at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on 3/31/2001 he said: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." Thomas Frank, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" and Heather Cox Richardson, "How the South Won the Civil War" identify how the right wing propaganda machine manipulated the thinking of white evangelicals and others.
"G.W. Bush was right when at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on 3/31/2001 he said: 'You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.'" !!!!! I never heard that before! It's horrific.
From what I have read about Carter, he was a religious man. He used his religion to show compassion not to enslave people who thought differently than him. I wonder what he would have thought of this gender identity thing.
But President Biden has a fatal blind spot - Israel's war on Gaza and the less publicized stealing of Palestinian land in the West Bank. The fact that Netanyahu has refused all attempts at negotiating a ceasefire despite all the best efforts of world leaders and Biden still supports Israel by sending war materiel to Israel should show Biden that Netanyahu does not want peace. He wants Palestine the West Bank and will not stop until he has it. Biden, and America, is enabling a genocide. History will not be deceived. Biden is a decent man with a fatal flaw.
It continues to amaze me that the solution to a supremely complicated, ancient and deeply tribal conflict fell on one man. It is outrageously ironic that the puppeteers of the Hamas invasion attack; Russia and Iran are ignored. It is also amazing to me that somehow a dictatorial criminal anxious to parlay his Country's suffering into a get out of jail free card is largely given a pass and he is actually paired with Biden, a decent man. Netanyahu, trump, Russia and Iran are the criminals here. I challenge anyone to call Joe Biden a criminal in the face of the legacy of his life.
Perhaps the ones history will remember are those people who let a madman win an election because of inadequate international information, media bias and intellectual laziness and allowed the Gaza suffering to be used to win an election. Let's remember those people as criminals who unleashed unimaginable suffering in America because they simply could not see decency and were blinded by bias.
I am certain history will remember those same people who followed like sheep the popular pastime of bashing a historical President simply because he was a decent man.
Barbara. an excellent post. I especially like your beginning description of the conflict in the Middle East. I am sitting here today grieving the loss of Carter, another very decent man, and thinking we are about to be inundated with corruption and criminality....again. The contrast is very sharp, Carter and Biden....with death star. Somehow this strikes me as the ultimate historical irony.
I was thinking along similar lines as you, Barbara -- It's kind of a parallel: Reagan follows Carter like Trump follows Obama. Sure, the familiar pendulum. But, when you add Trump following Biden as well, it's also brutalism following kindness, cruelty following fairness.
Barbara, Biden is not a criminal; however, he fell for the belief that criminal acts were somehow legitimized by the suffering of so many of the Jewish faith during WWII. That the Ashkenazim could parlay their once upon a time origin in Palestine into the criminal act of ethnic cleansing of a population, who clearly had the right to live on the lands of their ancestry and for which they had deeds to their homes and keys to their own doors, was in fact, nothing less than barbarically criminal. Unfortunately, President Biden, throughout his history in government, believed that it was OK for all of that to happen. Well, it was not OK: not in the least. For so many years, and in too many cases to even count or keep track of, Israel brought Oct. 7th on itself. All one has to do is look at the history concerning the Israeli brutalities, occupation, illegal acquisitions of land as defined by international law, illegal use of US weapons as defined by U.S. law, multiple thefts of not only US nuclear secrets, but those of European nations who actually helped Israel get on its feet, and one can only come up with one reality: Israel is a parasitic state, thuggish in manner and wholly unaccountable to international laws made for the safety of all. I don't believe that President Biden is genocidal, although he helped Israel commit genocide; however, his tag of "genocide Joe" as given by his critics on this matter, is one, like Israel's Oct. 7th: his shot in his own foot.
Biden did not fall for anything. I will put his over 50 years of experience in the fields of politics, internation relations and negotiation against anyone.
I think of Biden as suffering a lifetime of blindness wherein he cannot see the truth about Israel and its murderousness towards all those it believes are a threat. Much of America suffers from the same disability.
Hamas knew exactly what Oct 7th would accomplish and weer willing to sacrifice 100,000 of their own people to do it. The Kahanists have revealed themselves to be no better than the people they fled Europe to escape
So well said. It is indeed so sad that the American electorate repeatedly buys the lies of the right, while bashing the genuinely decent and good presidents, like Carter and Biden. So many sheep. So many gone astray.
Barbara, I certainly do NOT put Biden in the camp with Trump or Netanyahu let alone Russia or Iran. I voted for him despite his failings. I don't think supporting a politician requires you to absolve him or her of all their failures. All I have said is that I can not raise him to the level of (for me) someone like Carter who I feel had significantly fewer failings let alone major ones like Biden's support of Clarence Thomas. And despite what someone else alleged, I do not ever recall Biden providing a mea culpa for his support of Thomas.
On a moral political scale of 1 to 100, I would put Carter at around an 85, Biden at around a 60, Clinton (Bill) around a 40, Reagan around a 20, and Trump around a -967.
This is, of course, with the understanding that even the concept of a moral political scale is somewhat of an oxymoron in and of itself 😀.
I agree with you about Mr Biden. However, I am skeptical about that” history will remember “ bit. It is not always the decent that get to write history.
I believe good eventually triumphs. It may take a while, but it does. Look at the arc of history.
History will see a people who gave away their Democracy. And there will be a story of the people who got it back. It won't be Schumer, Pelosi and friends. I hold them responsible for letting this happen.
Yes. What good has it done that Reagan’s mediocrity (to put it mildly, given his evil political operations) and Carter’s lasting accomplishments are now well understood? No good whatever! That’s what! Reagan is still held up as a paragon of virtue by rethugs everywhere. Why? Because he was deeply racist at his core, and he made sure white Americans understood that.
Well said. Also don’t forget the 90M that did NOT vote. It’s one thing to become confused by financed organized noise machines but quite another thing not to care. Is the latter a byproduct of the former?
Biden's fatal flaw? He and Carter share the same flaw.
People simply could not grasp their decency.
I challenge anyone who calls the Middle East Biden's fatal flaw to indeed study the complete history of the that region and explain how to cure the situation.
Barbara, I second that. It is complicated, deeply historical, and I partially blame the Brits and the Palestinian mandate for what we see now. We are reaping all over the world the result of colonialism, imperialism, and meddling by us and European powers. Now death star is busy rattling the sabres in imperial talk.
Here we go again: pro Palestine/Hamas, Israel haters hi-jacking every discussion, every political event, even this beautiful tribute to a great human being.
I hate to add this because it’s gonna create another mental tirade . And philocetes really hates this. The people here are supposed to be well read.But , Ever since 1948, and even before to a lesser degree, the entire Arab nation has been trying to rid itself of all Jews not just the ones in Israel… it is actually in their Koran, not to.mention all the other infidels in the world, who don’t believe in Islam.
And this is why antisemitism is on the rise, Because of people posting these fallacies about the Jews here.
You should all ask yourself why is it that Israel is the only country that has an iron dome and why?
And why almost every single solitary terrorist organization is Muslim. Doesn’t mean all Muslims are bad, but the terrorist organizations are that.
A perfect example of what you’re missing is on October 7 were 1250 innocent civilians that were killed by Hamas and taken hostage in a heinous and disgusting way including beheading lighting them on fire raping and taking hostages who are still in custody in order to avoid Saudi Arabia from doing what Egypt did years before , signing a peace agreement with Israel.
And I’m going to use a dirty word here, but if Trump is successful, Saudi Arabia, will indeed do that during trumps administration.
And back to Jimmy Carter let me wax poetic about him.
Jimmy Carter did more after his presidency than any president in history towards Goodwill, humanitarian purposes , and I believe someone above said about the most DECENT president we have ever had.
Unfortunately, his fatal flaw was that he is the worst president we’ve ever , had during his administration, only succeeded, and USURPED by the current administration leaving office.
And I’m not sure if that’s Biden or Harris you guys will have to decide. Was it the semi cadaver who was the victim of the coup d’état? Or the DEI representative?
With very few exceptions, one term, president are usually one term presidents for a reason. The Bushes are a perfect example and george, who should have been a one termer….is one exception.
When terminology trumps reality, good seldom comes of it. What matters is whether or not killing large numbers of human beings permanently solves any problem.
Again as it pointed out so many times, most people have no idea of what the world is really like. They make their decisions on whatever the latest loud voice tells them, and with those in the trumpy bubble, so much of those social media comments are lies. Easier to simply believe and go back to watching a favorite idiot tv program.
Why do you think a ceasefire in Gaza occurred shortly after Nov. 5, 2024? Just as conservative Washington insiders set up release of hostages on Reagan’s inauguration so did the same conniving, lying cloned conservatives arrange a ceasefire AFTER Election Day; a thank you gift to America for voting in the convict. That is the fatal flaw; not seeing the entire Palestinian genocide was manufactured by Netanyahu (and other shady suspects) to influence the US election. Innocent lives were brutally incinerated by a power monger who resented and ignored Biden’s constant reproach to spare civilian lives in a collective effort to manipulate the US election outcome. And how perfect to stage campus riots by outsiders to further that manipulation? Biden simply followed a post WWII agreement to protect the sole democracy in the Middle East. But of course, just as you do, Biden is unfairly blamed as an accessory for a genocide prolonged and horrifically implemented by Israel’s cold hearted authoritarian leader. I have come to abhor politics as now the truth becomes buried ever deeper while the orange jester, aided by billionaires, dismantle our democracy.
Alas more than one. His instincts seem to be good: warning Netanyahu, condemning Russia's latest invasion of Ukraine and resuming American participation in the Paris Climate Accords. But in all three cases the words were not followed by decisive action. Biden appears great thanks largely to the despicability of his predecessor and successor.
Indeed. Continued shipments of bombs to Israel, not a single F16 to Ukraine, the two largest ever oil leases (Alaska and Gulf), just for three. How many pardons for environmental activists? Zero.
So Deidre we meet again. His quiet and impotent diplomacy has created a vacuum of power in the world and that is why Russia decided to attack Ukraine and the Middle East is out of control again and China is now threatening with a show of military might.
Let’s see how many of you give Trump credit if he’s all able to quickly or as quickly as possible and the Russia, Ukraine conflict.
And in any resolution of wars, land may be the cost of the agreement, but land is a cheap price to pay compared to human lives, and suffering.
Israel's encroaching on land outside of their country is so reminiscent of the Russian policy. We do n9ot support Russian so why should we support Israel? There is no way they will get rid of Hamas or any terrorist groups. Look at the Taliban. How many countries in Afghanistan? The Taliban is as strong as ever.
But Eva, it is not just or so much those that may or seem to be brainwashed, as there is a gigantic number of those who just do not care to participate in the American form of government - our democratic process of educating themselves and voting - at least once every 4 years, if not once every 2 years!
So let me see if I understand what you’re saying… the people that voted for Trump eight years ago were not educated, became incredibly educated proceeding Bidens election, and then became uneducated during Trump’s reelection? Do I have that correct? What happened to those 13 million votes that old Biden got that Obama didn’t get?
Sorry on this I disagree. Biden made a major set of errors in his career, any one of which can be considered to have a serious negative effect on the country, starting with his support of the nomination and confirmation of Clarence Thomas, an almost inherently unqualified judge, to the Supreme Court of the US. That alone takes Biden out of any "top ten president list" I might try to construct. Biden did many good things but his negative were just too great to ignore. His failure to clearly communicate in a regular basis with the country during his Presidency is another issue I have with him, and his recent decision to pardon his son, regardless of my sympathy with him for having to make that decision is another.
He did many good things as I mentioned, but for me it just doesn't help enough to offset his major failings.
Your attitude and insistence on a perfect alignment with your values for every step of yours and his life is why we lost this election. For you, a man is judged by every day of his life not by the wisdom his life taught him. Every misstep he took blots his copy book and nothing he can do removes the stain. I wouldn't have let them sentence my son to prison either. And he did communicate clearly with the people during his presidency. Just not the way you wanted. He went out among the people but spoke to the press using a spokesperson. Why you ask? Because Americans require perfection in speech. Every time he spoke there was criticism not about what he said but about his stutter. When he came out there was no decorum from the press just a barrage of sound coming from every direction all at once. Nobody likes that. Did no one replace Helen? I thought about it like a feeding frenzy of piranha. I wouldn't have been able to understand anything anyone said.
You have a right to disagree with me although i expect you are misunderstanding. I supported Biden strongly in 2020 despite my misgivings because politics is NOT about perfection, it is about what is possible.
I did not support Biden in 2024 NOT because of his speech issues but because of his age,
because he promised to be a one term transition President and reneged on that and because he was in a terrible pit in the polls which I felt would take him down and all of us along with him. On that i think I was sadly correct. I don't think any amount of support would have changed that result either. Had he gotten out of the race earlier or kept his promise to not run again, MAYBE things might have been different.
And believe me my objections to Biden Have NOTHING to do with his speech impediment. His support of Clarence Thomas in the face of the outrageous conduct he committed against Anita Hill was absolutely disqualifying for me. And yet i STILL voted for him because I am not an idiot and Biden's failings pale in comparison to Trump.
I was very unhappy that Anita Hill was not treated as a credible witness and that Thomas's behavior was not disqualifing. But that's the way some men treat women, look at our incoming president. Look at Giselle's husband in France. But Biden became a better person. Look at his cabinet, his VP, the women he added to the judiciary, and the very diversity of women he elevated. Look at what he has done to atone for some of the wrongs to the indigenous by returning sacred places, apologizing for the irreparable damage the boarding schools did to their cultures, and some of the treaty violations against the tribes. Not enough, but not nothing. The water is a big thing and they did get water rights on their reservations.
Again, his speech impediment is from his Catholic school when the nuns turned him from left hand to Right hand. His mother held him back a year because of the developed speech impediment. We learned in nursing school that switching the hands causes a speech impediment. Obama was born left hand also. He was in a school run by nuns who did not switch his hands. He is still left handed.
Where his speech impediment came from is irrelevant to me. I could see him struggle at times to bring forth a particular word and then switching to another that might have been easier for his to say. The rhythm of his speech would become halting until he could return to his thought. He was a terrible public speaker most times, but at others he hit his stride and spoke brilliantly. Especially that last State of the Union Address after the heckling, his quick mind saw an opening and he took it. Well done Joe!
In my catholic school, St. Joes, 4th grade teacher Mrs Henigan put me under her desk for talking in class and I hadn’t been that close to you know what since mommyhood. And it never made me stutter at all.
They tried so hard to make my mother (born in 1924), right handed, too. It seemed to make her stronger though in her resistance, and live with a life long opposition to inflicting the same on anyone else. My brother did very well as a left handed person and I've long been observant of successful left handed people like Barack Obama.
Your comment about Biden's source of stuttering, though, lit the little light bulb in my head about others like my brother-in-law who were needlessly traumatized for years, with substantial lasting negative affects.
I’m just wondering how many of you know that Joe Biden actually got on his hands on the streets of Boston, protesting, racial integration and Busing? His quote was something like I don’t want to have to my children get educated in a racial jungle. His words
Jon-Do you feel the same way about Bush who nominated Clarence Thomas and all of the others who voted for him? Biden did not single handedly put Thomas on the bench. Thomas is also not the only Supreme Court justice who has accepted bribes and disrespected women and others.
Gaza is another story-I agree there’s no way the U.S. should be supporting Netanyahu’s genocide. October 7th was horrific but what Israel has done is an affront to humanity.
The comparison is to Carter, not Bush, and a fair qualifier for Biden's legacy. He made deals, votes and, more importantly, didn't do things that Carter would do as a matter of conscience and morality (Gaza speaks to that, and is your point well made.) Biden is an insider and lifetime Washingtonian. Supreme Court votes are a legacy that can't be shirked with piecemeal credit/blame. They are which side are you on statements.
Biden doesn't hold a candle to Carter, and that is not a horrible reflection on Biden. Carter is a tough compare for any human being, more so than I realized even after reading HCR's letter.
Well I certainly feel the same way about Bush!!! That's an easy one. Not sure about ALL the Senators who voted to confirm Thomas as voting on a confirmation involves lots of variables and it is sometimes difficult to weigh the poses and minuses but I don't hold that Senate from 1991 in very high esteem generally.
Biden however was in charge of the judiciary committee at that time and more or less controlled the process. His decision to support the nomination given the clear negatives was shameful and to me still is given the disaster that Thomas being on the court has proven to be. It is probably the single worst nomination since the Reagan era and there have been some doozies. His elevation to the SCOTUS was the start in the destruction of what the court had become since Eisenhower put Warren on the court as Chief Justice.
John McKinley, one of my Grandfathers held the title of worst Supreme Justice until now. Like Thomas, Mckinley never wrote an opinion, etc. He just held the seat.
He communicated, but not clearly and stridently. And not often enough, and his speech issues I think made it difficult for him as he aged. But he has been one of the greats.
That his legacy will be attributed to the imbecile trump is too galling.
What the Democrats have failed to do, IMO, is to take some pages from Thomas Frank's book, "What's the Matter with Kansas," and launch a barrage of attacks on the wealthy and their Republican politicians who have stolen the Middle Class lifestyle and security from ordinary Americans. They are the ones to blame as they enjoy their billions and billions of dollars while dumping an unconscionable Federal debt onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. The idea of "going high when they go low" is BS. It doesn't work.
Richard-You’ve mentioned Timothy Eagan’s book-A Fever in the Heartland-many times. Black people have survived in America because when White people have gone “low” by burning, castrating, buying and selling people, separating Black bodies, massacring Black neighborhoods etc. Black people went “high” by transcending their physical situation and relying on spirit to keep the faith for future generations. I think this is where Michelle Obama is coming from with that expression.
If we all go “low” we’re going down a hole that we’ll never be able to dig ourselves out of-especially since Americans have re-elected people who only know how to go low. As Egan said, “a vein of hatred was always there for the tapping. It’s there still, and explains much of the madness threatening American life…”.
The wealthy and too many politicians have been successful because they can always use racism to keep us divided. It wasn’t the price of eggs that tipped this election in the Rs favor.
Do you think the Rs would have won if they didn’t have brown people “invading” the border or Haitians eating pets? Hate is winning-not the love, hard work and joy Kamala tried to inject into the election.
It’s unfortunate but most Americans don’t see how dividing people by skin color allows those who want to profit from our labor and control us “go low”. It’s been a time tested strategy (e.g. southern strategy) that always works.
If we “go high” by keeping the faith, loving humanity and working hard to combat racism (and other isms) one day we the people (all of us) will get to the “promised land”.
Jimmy Carter was a good example of someone who loved humanity, worked hard and kept the faith. He lived to be 100 years old and contributed greatly to our world. His example is something we can build on instead of erecting walls (that even Mexico won’t pay for).
Richard, sadly, I think you are correct in your statement. I hate the thought of pulling dirty tricks but I also think it might be the only way to reach much of the voters. They went for Trump, in spite of their better interests, because they like the entertainment value.
My son (white) ran a stop sign and had to go to court. I went with him to court. I'll never forget the big burly black man who came up to me and advised "Don't let your son go to jail." He did not get jail time.
Paula, I am giving you a like especially for your mention of “ Helen” who o assume is Helen Thomas who for years sat in the front row of presidential press conferences until George W Bush punished her by removing her. ( think I am correct on this). Ms. Thomas was one of the few who was critical of the Bush administration’s policies that violated civil liberties and his invasion of Iraq. When she criticized Israel’s actions in the.
West Bank, she was condemned by liberal pundits as being anti semitic. I wonder how that label affected her personally and professionally. I did not know she died until a few years after her passing. I called her at her office once expecting to just leave a message of support. I was surprised when she answered her phone. We had a nice conversation about civil liberties and her concern that the press was not doing a good enough job of addressing these civil liberties abuses .
My father’s parents immigrated from Lebanon. Ms Thomas was Lebanese American Christian. I read her columns in our local newspaper. I never thought for a moment that she was antisemitic. Ironically Arabic people are often considered semites. The Jewish people in my hometown treated my father and my family like their own. Ms Thomas spoke at a local college and my wife and I attended. She was so warm and kind and passionate and inspiring. I miss her.
Despite the people’s here acknowledgment of the fact that every single Republican and every right thinking conservative KNEW that Biden was going to pardon his son, and had no problem with it. Made total sense.
Biden created his own problem by stating in public on two occasions, without hesitation, that he would not pardon him. And then he lied, and therein lied the problem.
I don't think Biden would have pardoned Hunter if the Dems won the election; however, with the MAGA administration coming in, Biden knew Hunter would be the victim of trump's revenge. Good for him for getting him out of the way of that.
I also agree this was a major mistake. Not putting in a special counsel to prosecute Trump within a few months was a huge Garland blunder that should have cost him his job. As they say actions (or failures to act) have consequences.
Purobi, as I have opined here and other places, Garland's appointment as AG was indeed a mistake, but it was •forced• error provoked by Mitch McConnell. With Garland's methodical approach and obsession with appearing nonpartisan, he was the perfect candidate for a seat on the supreme bench. He was denied that seat by McConnell.
I think Biden's appointment of Garland as AG was a well-intentioned "consolation prize." Perhaps no one could have anticipated what a failed AG Garland would be. The mistake not to fire Garland was another forced error. Biden was intent on being the opposite of his predecessor and therefore, did not meddle with the DOJ.
Mistakes were made, but lay the blame where it belongs.
Shouldn't the buck stop where it should? President is the boss. I would give him credit where credit is due but mistakes were his too. Consolation prize so that one person's feelings do not get hurt and the country be damned???? I respect President Biden immensely but "mistakes were made" is not something I would buy.
It is inspiring to reflect on President Carter’s character and actions during his presidency and post-presidency, but more amazing when viewed in the perspective of today’s politics, and what apparently qualifies one to be president. May he and Rosalynn rest in peace and enjoy the well-deserved fruits of their labors.
Every person I have met. Every leader I have heard of. And me. We all have or had "major failings".
Biden: The Thomas hearings, "Tough on Crime Laws" and not stepping back to be the "transitional" president he should have been. But Joe Biden accomplished more with razor slim support than any previous president in modern history. And he was decent and empathetic. My kind of person.
Carter: A little arrogant, his faith (meh), his support for nuclear power - all negatives for me. But his accomplishments and core values as described by Heather can't be beat. And he knew how to build homes for the poor. He was decent and empathetic. My kind of person.
Jefferson: Treated his slave as a concubine and indulged in luxuries only the super rich could afford while the humans around him... But he was brilliant and we wouldn't be living the way we are today without him.
Washington: In the face of certain defeat, his men losing appendages to frostbite, he turned the tide and led us to independence. But he never freed HIS slaves. How should we feel about George?
Me? My list of failings and failures is quite long. But I'm still in the game trying to be of some help to family, friends, neighbors and a few readers.
When you find the perfect leader that we all can agree on who has no flaws, no mistakes and will engender complete support from all quarters, please post your example. I am looking forward to it. Here is a recent Guardian article about potential presidential candidates for 2028. Got a favorite? I see "major flaws" in all of them. But I really like most of them as well.
If he doesn’t commute the sentence of Native Indian activist Leonard Peltier, then I will fully agree with you. I think he had no choice pardoning his son given the political circumstances. 100% on Thomas. And he did nothing at the border for the first part of his administration. He should have instituted a parlor talk or fireside chat reminiscent of FDR but he instead remained behind the scenes and thereby lost passing the baton.
I didn’t vote for Carter the first time because I was young and stupid. But I did vote for him the second time. Sometime in the 1990s, he came to Hartford’s Trinity College to give the commencement. Being my hometown, I arrived early with his photo so to get it autographed. I found him by himself over on the quad near his security agent. As I approached, I stopped. I suddenly had felt that I shouldn’t approach him and I always regretted it. Today, I have the images of two presidents on the walls of my house; Lincoln’s original Emancipation Proclamation engraving and an unsigned photo of Jimmy Carter.
But the Palestinian issue have virtually NOTHING to do with my feelings on Biden. I am a strong supporter of Israel (although not of Netanyahu). I wish Biden had done some things d differently on Israel but I expect most of what happened would still have happened regardless of Biden's decisions. My problems with Biden have to do with his flaws as a political "animal". I don't find him very trustworthy although he has done better recently after finally giving up his hope to run again.
My comment Jon was in reference to decency. On the other hand, when you have a long political career you normally carry a long list of mistakes. I still would give president Biden a place among the 10 top president list.
I approve of President Biden 's decision to pardoned his son Hunter. It's clear to me (and I think many others) that the incoming administration will at the least attempt to persecute Trump's critics by winning up spurious charges of corruption, etc.
For Biden to expose his only surviving son to such behavwould have been incomprehensible
You are misinformed. Biden did not support Clarence Thomas. He did not vote to confirm Clarence Thomas. He chaired the confirmation hearings. That’s what he did. You are damning an entire lifetime of excellent (but not perfect) public service based on one thing which didn’t even happen.
He was the chair of the committee. He could have allowed other testimony. The hearings and the treatment of Anita Hill were appalling. I don't care if he didn't vote for Thomas.
Jon, I think most of the historians and other informed people who rate presidents consider only the time period the men (yes, they've all been men) were actually in office. If that is the criteria, then Biden will likely be in the top ten.
To penalize him for a mistake he made a long time ago is an unfair factor in rating his presidency. His was not the only vote to confirm Thomas. None of us has a functioning crystal ball. Consider the possibility that Biden's interest in making SCOTUS more diverse (a noble motive) caused him to give less weight to Anita Hill's complaint. Maybe it was a matter of doing the wrong thing for the right reason. In any event, his confirmation vote was not a presidential act.
Surely you are not the same man you were 20 years ago. At least I hope not. I know that I'm not. Experience and exposure have taught me that some of my previous positions were erroneous. In many cases, I've modified my positions and in a few, I've reversed them. This doesn't make me a flip-flopper; it makes me enlightened. I expect the same of our leaders.
Other mistakes Biden has made were, as I've stated elsewhere, forced errors. Even a powerful U.S. president can be "boxed in" by uncontrollable circumstances or unscrupulous opponents, and there is no "clean" way out.
While I agree that the Thomas confirmation was a mistake, it hardly merits such a complete condemnation of Joe Biden. And hindsight, as my father was fond of saying is always 20-20.
The greatest Presidential communicator (IMO) was Abraham Lincoln, but even his mastery was not enough to end the scourge of prejudice and violence against black people nor, finally, could he save us from ourselves as our history has made abundantly clear.
The problem is not Joe Biden’s mistakes, who I believe did about the best he could under very difficult and divisive circumstances. While I do fault him for his hubris in deciding to run for a second term, the fact remains that it was that half of American voters who appeared to completely misunderstand, ignore, or worse still agree with Donald Trump’s distorted version of America who put him back in the White House. It was his consummate skill in communicating that distorted version as somehow valid which got him re-elected.
The real problem, as once so succinctly stated by the comic strip character Pogo, is “We have met the enemy, and they is us.”
The real problem is that far too many of us simply do not understand what we were designed to be. Yes, the design itself was flawed, most egregiously by the retention of slavery, but it is the extraordinary promise behind the design that needs to be far better understood if we are to maintain this, the most extraordinary, the most crucial, and the riskiest experiment in human government ever attempted. Lincoln understood that as well as any American who ever lived, and far better than most. We need to listen to him far more than many of us do.
I would count the confirmation of Thomas as a major mistake. He and Ds did fail to communicate the good, but in part I blame the media for that and their constant harping on inflation and then attention to death star. I am also troubled by our sending of weapons and bombs to Israel. Given what was going to happen if Hunter was not pardoned, I think it was OK to pardon his son. He would not have if death star had lost.
Joe Biden did not vote for Clarence Thomas, even though he did preside over the hearings with Anita Hill and could have perhaps done a better job showing he believed her accusations.
I watched the hearing. It was a pathetic appalling performance by all the Senators on the committee. As chair of the committee Biden could have allowed other testimony. He didn't. The whole thing still makes me sick.
I think Biden's unqualified support of Israeli genocide of Palestinians knocks him out of any "top 10 presidents" list, but you're gonna have to explain to me how something Biden did as a U.S. senator 33 years before he was elected president disqualifies him from being a good president. Yeah, his support of Thomas was awful, but it wasn't a presidential act, not within decades of being one.
I too, believe Biden in his core, is decent. However, pandering to the likes of Bibi Netanyahu puts the unmistakable hair in the eye of those who like him for his national policies, but wonder uncontrollably about his efficacy in Middle East understanding. As decent as he may be, he is far less decent in acknowledging the murderous capabilities of the Israeli government. On that score, he unfortunately has much for which to make up.
Riad, If you keep looking the situation in the Middle East though the eye of a needle you'll miss a lot of collateral consequences. Lebanon, since Israel decimated the militia in the south, well armed and organized, might return to normality after decades of turmoil and civil war. In Gaza, very painful for the civilians, Hamas is a spent force and the West Bank Palestinian Authority might be able to take control of Gaza. In Syria, Israel destroyed most if not all the arsenal accumulated for years and noe there's a chance for at least a moderate government that would stop the transit of weapons from Iran to Lebanon. Iran lost its 2 proxies armies in the region and is economically broken. Only the Hutis remains in Yemen but they have their days counted.
So, maybe, due to the bloody attack on Israel October 7th last year, a rearrangement, positive in my view, is occurring. Peace is a possibility now.
Regarding what I think is your main concern, the civilian casualties in Gaza, I share your concern deeply but is not enough or fair to blame Israel. Hamas should have known that by launching a progrom Israel would react forcefully to prevent a repetition of that massacre. They know they lost and they keep hiding behind the civilians. Just surrender, return the surviving hostages, spare the population left with nowhere to go and face the consequences. Hope this comment helps you as your helped me.
''...We are all Americans together, and we must not forget that the common good is our common interest and our individual responsibility.”'' - Jimmy Carter
"Our common vision of a free and just society”.....
Unfortunately we don't have a common vision of what "free" looks like (freedom to v. freedom from) and what "just" looks like (white supremacy v. DEI).
An important point and I agree, becky estill. @heathercoxrichardson makes the same point often enough that I can now remember this split is still a live issue in our country (not a great achievement for me, I admit). I appreciate that you have reminded us about it because it’s one of those facts that help us all to better understand “What is happening right now?”
Carter deserved far more credit than has ever been given to him by our society and the press. The one thing he was not was a slick TV personality, and Reagan was. Owing to the degree that TV and it's equivalents now shapes our culture, stagecraft regularly tr*mps statecraft. It has not served us.
J L, an excellent read on Carter's life is by Jonathan Alter called 'His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life'. Heather Cox, as usual, has provided a terrific summary of his life and work.
As most significant figures are, he was complex. He was prickly (while working on homes for Habitat for Humanity he had no interest in setting his hammer down to speak with visitors: he was there to work, dammit, and would shrug them off) and ambitious, courageous (while in the Navy he led an emergency mission to Canada to stabilize a nuclear reactor which had become dangerous, and was part of the team that successfully rendered it safe by working in very short shifts to minimize exposure.) He was self-confident that he could fix things, damn the political consequences, and he paid a price in 1980.
But he was an honorable man who led a humble life after the presidency, shunning the trappings and wealth of an ex-president in service to his fellow man both in Plains as well as around the globe.
He was the first president I was eligible to vote for in 1976, and I did. Rest in Peace, Jimmy.
I cannot forget that being in the Silent Service he was influenced by and taught by Hymen G. Rickover. Whatever one might say about Rickover, his commitment to excellence and safety were paramount. As a student and candidate of his, Carter had that commitment to excellence and doing the right thing no matter the cost.
Hyman Rickover was against civilian nuclear power because he knew they would never do it to his safety standards. Though many in the field still live up to his standards the best they can, they need the top level support from those in position to make sure the standards are met well past the time we no longer need any active nuclear use, but do need to manage the waste forever.
I’ve been reading the front page articles about Jimmy Carter, with long overdue praise. What will be P-E Bone Spurs epitaph? “Finally!” would be my guess. Can you imagine a DJT administration negotiation the release of hostages in a similar situation to the one faced in Iran? Joe Biden was left with a mess in Afghanistan: In addition to my reply to Doug: As he was leaving office, then Pres. Bone Spurs announced that “We are leaving Afghanistan”, left immediately to play golf, and Biden was left to pick up the pieces (well, Ok, execute the withdrawal!). Meanwhile, the Taliban wasn’t sitting idly by…
Lee, I don't know what his epitaph will be, but I can't wait to find out. He's the polar opposite of Carter, and doesn't deserve even to be mentioned in the same breath as Jimmy.
Agreed on tv and its ability to pummel on a point, in this case Carter took the heat over the Iran hostage affair which plummeted his ratings, though it was his team which finally negotiated the hostages' release. I could never take Reagan and his "evil empire" rhetoric then "star wars" which was inherently provocative. Biden lost his net positive rating with the rushed exit from Afghanistan and the ISIS suicide bomber which no one could likely have stopped, MAGA went crazy dumping on that.
Like you I was a teen in '76 - under voting age - but I SO yearned to elect Jimmy Carter. I can't find words to describe my admiration and appreciation for all he and Rosalynn gave to our country and the world.
The 26th Amendment arrived in time for me to vote in the election of 1976. I voted for Jimmy Carter. I did not vote for the person who was elected president again until 2008. (in the elections of 1980 and 1984, the election was called before the polls closed on the west coast, and I cast my vote for the Independent candidates both of those years. I did not vote for Bill Clinton either time he ran, believing he was "Republican Lite".
So glad you changed your mind on that. I always felt Carter tried to be too much of a "micro manager" but I also always felt he had one of the most sincere and honest outlooks on how to run this country, far superior to most Presidents before him and certainly all after him.
You and I were caught in the same misguided trap. I was enthralled with the glamour of the Reagans and "the shining city upon the hill". He had great speech writers, and she had great designers. But I too, learned my lesson quickly and have regretted my choices ever since. The beast was let out and we have been paying for it ever since.
Ray-gun got the credit for freeing the hostages on Inauguration Day. Donthecon promises to end the war against Ukraine his first day in office but we know he blames Zelenskyy for all his troubles because Zelenskyy refused to grant him that simple favor of telling a lie. I wish that the Inauguration Day surprise will be Donnie’s arrest. Is that too much to ask??🙏🏼
Amazing that a reply to this comment about Biden also being a good and decent man turned this—the most liked posting—into an argument about Biden with scarcely a mention of Carter.
I still esteem the two candidates of the 1976 election -- President Ford and President Carter -- to be the two best of my lifetime, with President Ford, for whom I did not vote being number-1 and President Carter, for whom I voted, as number-2.
With 20/20 hindsight it is true the pardon set a standard of unaccountability. However, in Ford's defense, he was a man of his time and never fathomed the rise of Trumpism in 21st century America.
And yet I worried from day one that it would set a terrible precedent, both because it was really a grant of immunity, not what I think of as a pardon to right an error of justice, and because it established the president as above the law. Nor, so far as I could see, did the social healing it was supposed to ease take place. It saved us the very difficult job of wrestling with justice and reconciliation, but at great cost. I never dreamed that the rough beast now slouching toward the oval office was even a possibility, but surely departure from equal justice and protection could be recognized as hazardous in principle.
To his dying day, Ford kept in his wallet this quote from a Supreme Court decision: "...[a pardon] carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it..." Burdick v. US (1915)
I wish I could LIKE this comment 100 times! When history is written about this era, the Nixon pardon will loom large in the background as to how our political destiny was determined.
And therein lies the reason Ford was mediocre at best. He had no vision, no great integrity--look more closely into his career. A handy distraction from the disgrace of Agnew.
Ironically, Dr Cox Richardson and I started out on opposite sides reversed our view over time and remained on opposite sides.
At the time, Dr Cox has said, she supported the pardon but has come to believe that it was one of the worst decisions because it gave people an expectation of skating around accountability through pardons.
At the time, I opposed the pardon, at least in timing. Instead President Nixon should have been convicted in a court of law and then pardoned. Over time, I have come to the belief that President Ford was right.
There is no precedent value here. President made an independent decision to prevent the nation from being ripped asunder by a long drawn out court battle in an unsettled public who knew President Nixon was guilty.
As far as later bureaucrats abusing power in expectation of a pardon, I simply do not believe these officials think this way, at least until Trump drumpfed the republican machinery
I think by not holding Nixon criminally accountable, it made it possible for us to deteriorate to the point where we could have an open crook like Trump in office. I don’t think self-government will survive Trump.
Ned, a point of order: Cox is Heather Richardson's middle name; her last name is Richardson. I do acknowledge your use of her title (Dr. in your sentence, I prefer "Professor" but both are proper honorifics.)
Trump made two gracious remarks about President Carter.
"I just heard of the news about the passing of President Jimmy Carter. Those of us who have been fortunate to have served as President understand this is a very exclusive club, and only we can relate to the enormous responsibility of leading the Greatest Nation in History.
"The challenges Jimmy faced as President came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.
"Melania and I are thinking warmly of the Carter Family and their loved ones during this difficult time. We urge everyone to keep them in their hearts and prayers."
+++ 😲
"President Jimmy Carter is dead at 100 years of age. While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realized that he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for. He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect. He was a truly good man and, of course, will be greatly missed. He was also very consequential, far more than most Presidents, after he left the Oval Office. Warmest condolences from Melania and I to his wonderful family!"
💔
Trump caught flak from his base over the first remark for he had deprecated President Carter during his campaign, which elevated me to Russian nobility as Count Pistov. So, Trump made the second statement; while seeking to assuage his base, Trump did not back down on his high opinion of President. That is impressive to me.
I’ll never forget a moment in the mid 1980s - I was a high school social studies teacher working on a curriculum project at the Carter Center in Atlanta. It was lunchtime, and I found myself sitting alone, enjoying a brief pause in the day. Suddenly, from over my shoulder, a gentle voice asked, “Mind if we join you?” I turned around and found myself face-to-face with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. To my astonishment, they sat down and chatted with me for about half an hour.
Their kindness and genuine interest in our conversation left an indelible mark on me. It wasn’t just their warmth but the profound humility of a man who had once led the free world and yet made time to engage so personally and meaningfully.
As we mourn his passing, I’m reminded that Jimmy Carter wasn’t just a statesman or a humanitarian—he was a man of extraordinary grace who believed deeply in the power of connection. Rest in peace, Mr. President. Your light will continue to guide us.
Thank you for sharing this, Peter. I believe that one of the greatest gifts that Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter possessed was their ability to connect with other human beings. 🌺
I am baffled by why people vote for trustifarians like Donald Trump who has never missed a meal or had to figure out how to make something out of spare parts because they couldn't afford it any other way.
What is most lacking in the entire Republican Party at all levels is creativity. They are not and never have been the party of creativity. As we witnessed in Trump's 1st term, he got many of his ridiculous ideas from watching the bozos on Fox News. And we know they aren't the greatest problem solvers.
It's already happening again, and Trump has surrounded himself with other billionaires who only care about dying with the most toys.
Aside from Margaret Chase Smith, Ike, and Gerald Ford, Republican support of the Republic has been questionable since the election of FDR and rescue of our government by his administration.
I keep waiting for Trump to lose it because of all the attention Carter is getting. Sooner or later, he will need to lash out and get the focus back on himself.
One might argue that Trump is also a man of "extraordinary character." Unfortunately for us all of his attributes are undesirable. This morning Simon Biles said that character doesn't matter to Americans any more. I couldn't disagree more.
Most Trump voters and supporters may not care about positive attributes like integrity, empathy, caring, unselfishness etc., but I cannot agree that it is all Americans.
Jon, how wonderful to see those two words linked, ‘grace and character’ plus ‘extraordinary’. I cannot agree more. Sadly very few voters apparently know the immense value of them. I immensely fortunate, had a Father with them as well who spent his life creating nonprofit opportunities for people for better health, housing and jobs. I spent my growing years listening to my parents talk about raising money ideas for organizations. As a child, I’d inwardly groan. Thank you for your sparking reply to Heather’s superb and moving letter today.
Thank You Peter Pappas for this sweet remembrance of a good and decent man. I am moved by his words on our Voyager space craft out in deep space.“This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problem we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”
-- Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, the White House, June 16, 1977
Funny story. The National Council for the Social Studies put out a call for 12 teachers to serve as "Curriculum Consultants" at the Carter Center for a big international arms control session with big names from all over the world. I applied - no pay - but free trip for a week to Atlanta.
After a few days, I asked our handler how tough it was to sort through all the application and choose only 12. She replied with a sly grin: "Only 15 applied." After that, I applied for everything I saw. Ended up getting loads of grants and fellowships. Lesson learned.
Carter paved the way for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. We can honor Carter’s memory by urging Biden to take action on the now fully ratified ERA as a tribute to Carter.
Please please, the ERA is not fully ratified and the continuing question looms as to whether the original 7 year restriction and is extension in fact limit the ability to ratify the amendment. That case had not been decided and until it is there can be no ratification. I am writing this as a 50 year active supporter of the ERA (I once had a CA license plate that read ERA2DAY) but I am also a supporter of the Constitution and the ERA is sadly still potentially flawed.
Publish the ERA and let it be litigated. Then the Constitutionality of the time limit can be argued. Until then, women will remain second class citizens before the law and sexual misconduct by men will remain socially allowed and women will not regain bodily autonomy. Without the ERA, the law remains in Genesis.
Sadly a response from a man who will deny women equal rights when nobody but the most self-righteous is playing by the rules. Why are women and people of color subjected to rules that have never restrained white men?
That is highly presumptuous and a typical albeit sad response when you have NO idea who I am or what I have done.
In the 70s, I fought heavily for the ERA, and for almost 2 years during the final years of ratification, I made periodic trips to other states to lobby the state legislatures to ratify it. That said, I am also a strong supporter of legal interpretations of the constitution and I have never been satisfied that the Congress in the 70s didn't make a major mistake by including the 7-year term of ratification, which was extended once for 2 more years. The intent was to try to push states to ratify quickly. Instead, after Reagan won the 1980 election, it worked against us by giving states a reason to drag their heels in the hope that the clock would run out.
Now, of course, people who would like to get one more "thing" done by the Biden administration are encouraging non-justifiable actions like attempting to get ratification enshrined when it is still being litigated in the courts. As someone who believes strongly in favor of using our system properly, I think that is wrong. If the courts decide that the 7 year limit and its extension were not legal in the first place that it is possible that they will declare the ERA ratified OR they might declare it completely invalid as its provisions were unconstitutional. I expect neither of those outcomes, but rather that they will decide that Congress had the right to impose that limit and thus the time clock has already expired and it will be required to pass the ERA again, something which is tragically unlikely at least for 4 years at a minimum.
It is difficult to have been a 50+ year long supporter of equal rights for women and then to be accused by someone who doesn't even know me at all except from what I post on this forum of being a womans' rights denier. You should be ashamed of yourself for making such a comment without even having the courtesy to ask me about my background and activities.
Very typical these days, sadly, when people are quick to judge but slow to investigate and learn.
We moved to Springfield, IL in 1984 and found a home in a small neighborhood of about 100 homes. Never to shy away from controversy, my wife would speak her mind at neighborhood meetings. She became known as the "IRA" lady in the community.
Of course, what they meant to call her was the "ERA" lady, but these weren't the brightest bulbs in the tree.
The Illinois Secretary of State lived in our neighborhood. Each workday, a limo would arrive at his home to drive him the 5 or so miles to his office. Like Jimmy Carter, he was also a decent man and became a two term Illinois governor in the 1990's.
"Carter echoed the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights established by the United Nations, promising he would promote “human freedom” while protecting “the individual from the arbitrary power of the state.” Since I learned about the UDHR, I have often wondered why this hasn't been the philosophical cornerstone of every administration, both nationally and internationally.
Instead of learning from WWII atrocities and respecting the work lead by Eleanor Roosevelt to craft this declaration, we now must experience a regime of noodniks, who lack both experience in national governance and civics, and seem intent on creating world instability with childish and exploitive pronouncements. What a disappointment.
And the timing of the bailout has always been received by the public as positive for the Republicans.
We have the internet and social media now. Dems need to increase their communication with the general public, let them know where things are as they happen. Don't leave discovery of their accomplishments solely to the historians. Otherwise we're permanently caught in a cycle of 2 steps forward, 3 steps backward, and will never advance our great democracy.
I agree that the timing of the bailouts have always been received by voters as positive for Republicans.
Regarding communication with the general public, we've got to deal with news deserts and not just the messaging. How do you get information to people who live in them?
USPS, billboards, fliers. Dems should use the USPS to announce that they're bringing internet to these news deserts.
The hard part will be convincing these people to accept the new information. We can't convince people that ivermectin isn't a valid treatment for covid; how will we get them to believe they've been hoodwinked by their idols?
I read Steve Schmidt’s masterpiece post yesterday , Carter’s speech -I’d forgotten- but so many hated .
Sitting tall in the saddle is reserved for few notably..it led me also to realization in Revelations that: the antichrist rules for 42 months…also the time from Abraham to JC …
Initials the same lends me the warmth of Iris Dement’s line in ‘Let the Miracle Be’ which I love to sing and play “ some say you’ll rest in the arms of our Savior if in sinful ways you lack” .
Giving Thanks the day before NYE -that’s a likely for Jimmy- he was a great example for many …
Will America survive the 42 by #47 the second time around the first was a telltale whirlwind.
Enough math for me today ..I’ll be counting down the ball tomorrow night ..hopeful it’s a safe one and ‘WE’ endure .
I am confused by nothing written in this post about Reagan's backchanneling w the Taliban to tank Carter's reelection. An enormous violation of international and US law for which the world and US suffered for decades.
Jimmy was an avid fly fisherman, and was well acquainted with the plants and animals of rural Georgia. He was truly connected to the earth. He inspired the hatred of the worst people in our country. That's gotta mean something.
"President Carter said, 'When I was in the White House, I thought of human rights primarily in terms of political rights, such as rights to free speech and freedom from torture or unjust imprisonment. As I traveled around the world since I was president, I learned there was no way to separate the crucial rights to live in peace, to have adequate food and health care, and to have a voice in choosing one’s political leaders. These human needs and rights are inextricably linked.'"
This shows President Carter at his best. What people dismissed as flip-flopping or weakness was, in fact, the workings of an open and lively mind.
He was a decent man -- and Heather's record of his actions captures that.
But what a contrast with the monster billionaires stalking America now.
How is it so many of these billionaires are going so contrary to Timothy Snyder's excellent advice -- that none ought surrender in advance to the oligarchs, autocrats, and their vulgar sycophants?
The answer is they're humanly empty. They love money. Love the trappings of money. But there's nothing personal inside. Such a contrast to all the main facts of Jimmy Carter.
How did America begin to generate so many humanly empty? In Jimmy Carter's name we can venture to ask this necessary Q. And answer it, as some have.
In Daniel Markovits’s new book, “The Meritocracy Trap,” and in a David Brooks recent piece in “The Atlantic,” both have argued the U.S. has failed its working classes by all our schools. Our elites push only the neutered superiority games as built in all standardized testing. Shelly Swearingen and Jared Hendersen have videos going into detail on these meritocracy conceits in all the tests that so contort all the schools.
In Jimmy Carter's name, let's put the human back in the schools, and never again produce so many ogres, dead souls, and other such living dead as now so rule.
Decent, intelligent, compassionate, hard-working: these are the four adjectives that encompassed him in a nut-shell, just as the four winds encompass the Earth.
"This focus on individualism distorts the nation's purpose. [...] We are all Americans together, and we must not forget that the common good is our common interest and our individual responsibility."
That says it all.
If to "We are all Americans together," we add the words "We are all human beings together," this short passage can serve as essential guidance for the future of mankind.
*
In the mid-1980s, I became aware of a deep change in the attitude of political leadership. I was working for a political organization in what was to become the European Union. With the retirement of those who had fought in the Second World War, those who had suffered under and survived the Nazi-Fascist onslaught, came a new generation. With this changing of the guard, the earthy practicality of "What's in it for US?" was replaced by "What's in it for ME?"
We are living with the results of that aberration.
We are both individual beings with individual experiences and personalities and we are social creatures. Our lives are greatly enriched and often sustained by our interaction with our society. Freedom is not just pursuit of individual happiness, it is a union, an environment that sustains that opportunity for all. I think that the necessity of base line solidarity and responsibility is vividly evident in our founding documents. We sustain our own freedom by protecting unalienable rights of one another.
John Kennedy's famous quote "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" today would be "Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what you can do for Trump. " Sigh...
Yes, I agree, but Phil points to a huge problem before us. The tech billionaires who are so obviously stalking around in this transition between presidents have participated in the transformation of social media from a way to actually connect and stay in touch with friends and family in a way never before possible to an algorithmically driven way to push us further and further apart and make us addicted to conflict. This has really messed with our politics and has greatly harmed the human need for real social connection. The fact that it has made a lot of men billionaires makes it even worse.
So have media outlets like Fox News. We Democrats should have set up our own media outlets years ago to reach the public, and the mainstream media outlets are hardly “liberal.” Republicans succeeded in “working the refs” to the point that MSM engages in fake balance and bothsidesism.
Most Democrats supported the principles of reporting the news without fear or favor. Fortunately, that was inadequate for contesting the well-funded sources of right-wing propaganda, and we still haven't figured out how to amplify our positions adequately. We must keep trying.
You are 💯 % right Mary. I never said is going to be easy, by the contrary, billionaires been planning taking over for a long time and have all the money needed and more to accomplish that goal. To make situation worse, they also planned to stay for a long run and it's not only locally, it's the whole world.
I know I said we need to survive the next 4 years but tha was before taking my first coffee. Thanks for your response.
Very interesting. It brought to mind my nephew, his wife (born in South American) and two kids visiting her family, and then salt flats (in Argentina, I believe). He was suffering from altitude sickness and was given coca leaves to chew which alleviated his headaches. I recall being alarmed to hear this at first, but then realized that as this article points out, it wasn't concentrated--just mild enough to give him relief.
100%. But that requires putting into office and positions of leadership people who also feel the same way. So much money is driving policy decisions, both top down and bottom up. The power elite have been playing the long game and have decimated the educational system on all fronts, not just basic education - which is the most fundamental problem, but also secondary education, where folks can get training in what they want to do to sustain themselves. Everything has been geared toward getting an expensive college education, at your own financial peril. Pubic underwriting has dried up, banks love to loan money that no one can repay at exorbitant interest rates - you get where I am going. Since the 1980's, the ability to be well-educated, from K-12, and beyond is now a pipe dream, and only reserved for the well-off. And that includes many of us here. Critical thinking is clearly in short supply and the goal is just to produce a basic workforce that doesn't question the status quo.
I adored Jimmy Carter. He was never weak. Carter had strong convictions and he stood by them, never wavering. The capture of Americans under his time in office was always seen as his downfall. As Heather pointed out, the hostages came home on Reagan’s Inauguration Day thus, Ronnie was given credit. What I truly loved about the Carters was their commitment to people who needed help in our country. Rosalyn concentrated on the mental health community and Jimmy built homes, working alongside normal folks who might win that home. Habitat for Humanity wasn’t founded by Carter but he and his bride definitely put it on the map. The two of them devoted their time for Habitat’s projects for 36 years! He felt this mission was a marriage of “partnership, removing the stigma of charity” (dallasareahabitat.org). What’s not to admire?
Sad thing is, Marlene, Carter was victim to U.S. malevolence a quarter century earlier.
It was John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles who, in 1953, planned and implemented the overthrow of the recently democratically elected leader of Iran, Mossadegh.
In place of the decent Mossadegh -- and, repeat, democratically-elected -- the U.S. elite thugs (with C.I.A. money and clandestine tools) used subterfuge and deceit to get a coup going there -- to install a deeply corrupt and vicious Shah. A Shah beholden to and in the service of U.S. fossil fuel.
The U.S. also provided funds, training, and arms to Savak, the Shah's (and the U.S.'s) truly savage, remorseless, unaccountable secret police. The people of Iran hated the Shah, hated Savak.
All that hatred wasn't Jimmy Carter's fault. Due to it, though, he lost an election to another man who would be doing steady business with dictators -- arms for Contras aiming for the U.S. to continue to try to topple non-U.S.-corporate-propped-up but otherwise legit governments abroad.
For more on this sordid side of our U.S., do an online search for Smedley Butler, Major General commander of the U.S. Marines (and very good guy) nearly 100 years ago.
In the 1980 election between Carter and Reagan the Iranian hostage crisis was just one of the determining factors for Reagan winning the election. Just minutes after Reagan was inaugurated, Iran announced the release of the American hostages. This set in motion another conspiracy theory that Reagan’s team had reached a deal with Iran to delay the release until after Reagan’s inauguration.
GRATEFUL, I HONOR him for his KINDNESS and how his actions and policies were aligned with his positive values, and needs of the environment like solar panels on the White House and need for dialogue between countries toward peaceful agreements. Was a fantastic role model.
Nearly 20 years ago I had a serendipitous opportunity to briefly meet Jimmy and Roslyn Carter at a small event in Seattle. It was really a singular experience. The man had an aura. Otherworldly - he glowed. I could feel his capacity to really care about every person on the planet - and the planet. It’s hard to put into words. My experience led me to appreciate him ever since as a truly extraordinary human being. Grateful to have had that opportunity. May his memory be for a blessing.
Katie Couric of The Today Show asked him if the Nobel Peace Prize or being elected president was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him, Carter answered: “When Rosalynn said she’d marry me, I think that’s the most exciting thing.”
This is why I’ve always highly respected Jimmy Carter. He was an authentic and kind man.
When he campaigned for President, he stayed in ordinary people‘s homes. He practiced the Christianity he taught. He was a man of the people, like Lincoln.
Thanks for the lovely tribute to Former President Jimmy Carter. He and his wife were a class act all the way.
Earlier today my Regional leader of Democrats Abroad Germany shared a letter from Former President Carter today from 2014 that he wrote as honorary Chair of Democrats Abroad where he talks about his mother having served in the Peace Corp in India and being one of the original Democrats Abroad. He also said that he and his wife have been Democrats Abroad in a sense , having visited 145 countries in their work.
Linda, it's very touching that every article I've been reading since yesterday, there's always a mention to his inseparable wife. Together in life and in memory.
The world is a better place for the century you spent in it.
He sacrificed his Presidency for the country’s wellbeing when he brought Paul Volcker in to tackle inflation. People under the age of fifty do not understand that Bidenflation is a drop in the bucket compared to what Americans experienced almost a half century ago.
Thank you for wilderness protection.
Thank you for the Department of Education.
Thank you for the Camp David Accords.
Thank you for diversifying the judiciary.
Thank you for promoting human rights.
And so much more.
But most of all, thank you for being a good and decent man, who loved God, his wife, and his country, and who cared deeply about humanity.
This was a president who truly cared for his country and its people. While he wasn’t the most successful president, what he did with his life after the presidency was truly remarkable. He was certainly one of the finest citizens to hold that office. A remarkable man with a remarkable life.
A very fine, decent man. As the 1976 election was my first in which to participate, I worked as the Lexington area coordinator for the Carter campaign in my freshman year at W.&L. While President Carter became unpopular and I often wondered whether he was just not big enough for the job, I could never leave him.
Though I was conservative by temperament, I could not abandon him in favor of Governor Reagan, toward whom I warmed but feared would be heartless. President Carter's dedication to human rights and his determination to bring home our kidnapped countrymen without blowing Iran away are what I remember most fondly.
Two quick anecdotes. My father used to do a lot of work in D.C. and had occasion one evening to spend time in the White House. No, no BIG policies were hatched. Dad was taking up his favorite social posture: seated behind a piano in a sing-along. He found President Carter to be a real engineering type (i.e., steely), who soon departed the frivolities. Yet Dad was bewitched by Mrs Carter. As they talked behind the piano, Mrs Carter described her nightly 'paddling' (i.e., slogging) up and down the upstairs hall, occasionally annoying "Jimmy."
IT HAS BEEN FORTY YEARS, SO BE SKEPTICAL ABOUT DADDY-lore
The kidnapping of fifty-two American diplomats in November 1979, excited a taste for vengeance against Assa-hola Khomeini and his fired-up fuzzy-wuzzies. At the end of that school year, as l prepared to graduate, I was with a close friend, a dyed-in-the-wool lib. We were taking a survey on whether to attack Teheran, I admitted to my philosophy bud that, no, killing a bunch of Iranians would do no good. That was at a radical variance with my more public utterances at the fraternity house. I admitted to my intellectually more honest friend that, yes, I deeply admired President Carter for doing something I would unlikely be able to do: jamming the impulse to hit back, hard.
As a young adolescent male in his teens I loathed Carter and loved Reagan. That had changed by 1984 because, well, I started to read history. And it tells you all you need to know about the intellectual and emotional level of the conservative and Trumpian mindset.
Today I believe Carter the most decent man to hold the presidency in my lifetime.
Followed very close by President Biden.
What Biden is doing for the good of our country will come out eventually. He is a wonderful President. What he is up against are the brainwashed. I read the brainwashed comments. on YouTube.
True, Eva, the wealthy learned that they could use wedge issues (abortion, immigration, gay rights, women's rights, etc.) to divert the attention away from the fact that the wealthy were robbing the piggy bank. G.W. Bush was right when at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on 3/31/2001 he said: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." Thomas Frank, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" and Heather Cox Richardson, "How the South Won the Civil War" identify how the right wing propaganda machine manipulated the thinking of white evangelicals and others.
"G.W. Bush was right when at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on 3/31/2001 he said: 'You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.'" !!!!! I never heard that before! It's horrific.
Yes, and we on the left can often ignore the log in our eye
Thank you for mentioning W’s comment
From what I have read about Carter, he was a religious man. He used his religion to show compassion not to enslave people who thought differently than him. I wonder what he would have thought of this gender identity thing.
But President Biden has a fatal blind spot - Israel's war on Gaza and the less publicized stealing of Palestinian land in the West Bank. The fact that Netanyahu has refused all attempts at negotiating a ceasefire despite all the best efforts of world leaders and Biden still supports Israel by sending war materiel to Israel should show Biden that Netanyahu does not want peace. He wants Palestine the West Bank and will not stop until he has it. Biden, and America, is enabling a genocide. History will not be deceived. Biden is a decent man with a fatal flaw.
It continues to amaze me that the solution to a supremely complicated, ancient and deeply tribal conflict fell on one man. It is outrageously ironic that the puppeteers of the Hamas invasion attack; Russia and Iran are ignored. It is also amazing to me that somehow a dictatorial criminal anxious to parlay his Country's suffering into a get out of jail free card is largely given a pass and he is actually paired with Biden, a decent man. Netanyahu, trump, Russia and Iran are the criminals here. I challenge anyone to call Joe Biden a criminal in the face of the legacy of his life.
Perhaps the ones history will remember are those people who let a madman win an election because of inadequate international information, media bias and intellectual laziness and allowed the Gaza suffering to be used to win an election. Let's remember those people as criminals who unleashed unimaginable suffering in America because they simply could not see decency and were blinded by bias.
I am certain history will remember those same people who followed like sheep the popular pastime of bashing a historical President simply because he was a decent man.
Enough.
Barbara. an excellent post. I especially like your beginning description of the conflict in the Middle East. I am sitting here today grieving the loss of Carter, another very decent man, and thinking we are about to be inundated with corruption and criminality....again. The contrast is very sharp, Carter and Biden....with death star. Somehow this strikes me as the ultimate historical irony.
Michele, I have been feeling the irony also. We are burying a supremely decent man and are inaugurating a supremely evil man.
The contrast is heartbreaking.
Thank you! I am sick and tired of simplistic arguments and am
confident to believe Trump had a heavy hand in Gaza with
his mini me Netanyahu.
It all makes me sick.
I was thinking along similar lines as you, Barbara -- It's kind of a parallel: Reagan follows Carter like Trump follows Obama. Sure, the familiar pendulum. But, when you add Trump following Biden as well, it's also brutalism following kindness, cruelty following fairness.
"Brutalism" Wow. Great word.
Than you, Barbara.
An excellent, precise summary
of events.
Barbara, Biden is not a criminal; however, he fell for the belief that criminal acts were somehow legitimized by the suffering of so many of the Jewish faith during WWII. That the Ashkenazim could parlay their once upon a time origin in Palestine into the criminal act of ethnic cleansing of a population, who clearly had the right to live on the lands of their ancestry and for which they had deeds to their homes and keys to their own doors, was in fact, nothing less than barbarically criminal. Unfortunately, President Biden, throughout his history in government, believed that it was OK for all of that to happen. Well, it was not OK: not in the least. For so many years, and in too many cases to even count or keep track of, Israel brought Oct. 7th on itself. All one has to do is look at the history concerning the Israeli brutalities, occupation, illegal acquisitions of land as defined by international law, illegal use of US weapons as defined by U.S. law, multiple thefts of not only US nuclear secrets, but those of European nations who actually helped Israel get on its feet, and one can only come up with one reality: Israel is a parasitic state, thuggish in manner and wholly unaccountable to international laws made for the safety of all. I don't believe that President Biden is genocidal, although he helped Israel commit genocide; however, his tag of "genocide Joe" as given by his critics on this matter, is one, like Israel's Oct. 7th: his shot in his own foot.
Biden did not fall for anything. I will put his over 50 years of experience in the fields of politics, internation relations and negotiation against anyone.
Armchair quarterbacking is just that.
I think of Biden as suffering a lifetime of blindness wherein he cannot see the truth about Israel and its murderousness towards all those it believes are a threat. Much of America suffers from the same disability.
Hamas knew exactly what Oct 7th would accomplish and weer willing to sacrifice 100,000 of their own people to do it. The Kahanists have revealed themselves to be no better than the people they fled Europe to escape
Your first sentence describes the blindness of far, far too many Westerners.
So well said. It is indeed so sad that the American electorate repeatedly buys the lies of the right, while bashing the genuinely decent and good presidents, like Carter and Biden. So many sheep. So many gone astray.
Barbara, I certainly do NOT put Biden in the camp with Trump or Netanyahu let alone Russia or Iran. I voted for him despite his failings. I don't think supporting a politician requires you to absolve him or her of all their failures. All I have said is that I can not raise him to the level of (for me) someone like Carter who I feel had significantly fewer failings let alone major ones like Biden's support of Clarence Thomas. And despite what someone else alleged, I do not ever recall Biden providing a mea culpa for his support of Thomas.
On a moral political scale of 1 to 100, I would put Carter at around an 85, Biden at around a 60, Clinton (Bill) around a 40, Reagan around a 20, and Trump around a -967.
This is, of course, with the understanding that even the concept of a moral political scale is somewhat of an oxymoron in and of itself 😀.
It is possible to vote for someone and still be so negative about them this ends up hurting them.
Your moral scale? Whew Jon! You have you own moral scale?
I agree with you about Mr Biden. However, I am skeptical about that” history will remember “ bit. It is not always the decent that get to write history.
I believe good eventually triumphs. It may take a while, but it does. Look at the arc of history.
History will see a people who gave away their Democracy. And there will be a story of the people who got it back. It won't be Schumer, Pelosi and friends. I hold them responsible for letting this happen.
Yes. What good has it done that Reagan’s mediocrity (to put it mildly, given his evil political operations) and Carter’s lasting accomplishments are now well understood? No good whatever! That’s what! Reagan is still held up as a paragon of virtue by rethugs everywhere. Why? Because he was deeply racist at his core, and he made sure white Americans understood that.
Well said. Also don’t forget the 90M that did NOT vote. It’s one thing to become confused by financed organized noise machines but quite another thing not to care. Is the latter a byproduct of the former?
One of the best descriptions of the fatal flaw of Biden's presidency.
Biden's fatal flaw? He and Carter share the same flaw.
People simply could not grasp their decency.
I challenge anyone who calls the Middle East Biden's fatal flaw to indeed study the complete history of the that region and explain how to cure the situation.
Barbara, I second that. It is complicated, deeply historical, and I partially blame the Brits and the Palestinian mandate for what we see now. We are reaping all over the world the result of colonialism, imperialism, and meddling by us and European powers. Now death star is busy rattling the sabres in imperial talk.
Here we go again: pro Palestine/Hamas, Israel haters hi-jacking every discussion, every political event, even this beautiful tribute to a great human being.
I hate to add this because it’s gonna create another mental tirade . And philocetes really hates this. The people here are supposed to be well read.But , Ever since 1948, and even before to a lesser degree, the entire Arab nation has been trying to rid itself of all Jews not just the ones in Israel… it is actually in their Koran, not to.mention all the other infidels in the world, who don’t believe in Islam.
And this is why antisemitism is on the rise, Because of people posting these fallacies about the Jews here.
You should all ask yourself why is it that Israel is the only country that has an iron dome and why?
And why almost every single solitary terrorist organization is Muslim. Doesn’t mean all Muslims are bad, but the terrorist organizations are that.
A perfect example of what you’re missing is on October 7 were 1250 innocent civilians that were killed by Hamas and taken hostage in a heinous and disgusting way including beheading lighting them on fire raping and taking hostages who are still in custody in order to avoid Saudi Arabia from doing what Egypt did years before , signing a peace agreement with Israel.
And I’m going to use a dirty word here, but if Trump is successful, Saudi Arabia, will indeed do that during trumps administration.
And back to Jimmy Carter let me wax poetic about him.
Jimmy Carter did more after his presidency than any president in history towards Goodwill, humanitarian purposes , and I believe someone above said about the most DECENT president we have ever had.
Unfortunately, his fatal flaw was that he is the worst president we’ve ever , had during his administration, only succeeded, and USURPED by the current administration leaving office.
And I’m not sure if that’s Biden or Harris you guys will have to decide. Was it the semi cadaver who was the victim of the coup d’état? Or the DEI representative?
With very few exceptions, one term, president are usually one term presidents for a reason. The Bushes are a perfect example and george, who should have been a one termer….is one exception.
You can call what Israel is and has done to the Palestinians anything you like, but it is not genocide.
Actually, it is. Here’s a the dctionary definition:
“ Genocide is the intentional destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part. ”
Sounds pretty much like what’s happening in the not-so-holy land today.
When terminology trumps reality, good seldom comes of it. What matters is whether or not killing large numbers of human beings permanently solves any problem.
Yes I agree. I admire Joe Biden and believe he is a good person. But” Mitch McConnell is a good friend “? There lies some of that flaw.
Again as it pointed out so many times, most people have no idea of what the world is really like. They make their decisions on whatever the latest loud voice tells them, and with those in the trumpy bubble, so much of those social media comments are lies. Easier to simply believe and go back to watching a favorite idiot tv program.
Why do you think a ceasefire in Gaza occurred shortly after Nov. 5, 2024? Just as conservative Washington insiders set up release of hostages on Reagan’s inauguration so did the same conniving, lying cloned conservatives arrange a ceasefire AFTER Election Day; a thank you gift to America for voting in the convict. That is the fatal flaw; not seeing the entire Palestinian genocide was manufactured by Netanyahu (and other shady suspects) to influence the US election. Innocent lives were brutally incinerated by a power monger who resented and ignored Biden’s constant reproach to spare civilian lives in a collective effort to manipulate the US election outcome. And how perfect to stage campus riots by outsiders to further that manipulation? Biden simply followed a post WWII agreement to protect the sole democracy in the Middle East. But of course, just as you do, Biden is unfairly blamed as an accessory for a genocide prolonged and horrifically implemented by Israel’s cold hearted authoritarian leader. I have come to abhor politics as now the truth becomes buried ever deeper while the orange jester, aided by billionaires, dismantle our democracy.
Let’s not forget who elected Hamas.
Alas more than one. His instincts seem to be good: warning Netanyahu, condemning Russia's latest invasion of Ukraine and resuming American participation in the Paris Climate Accords. But in all three cases the words were not followed by decisive action. Biden appears great thanks largely to the despicability of his predecessor and successor.
I do believe there was a lot more going on then Biden’s “bland”
public statements. I admire his powerfully quiet diplomacy.
Indeed. Continued shipments of bombs to Israel, not a single F16 to Ukraine, the two largest ever oil leases (Alaska and Gulf), just for three. How many pardons for environmental activists? Zero.
So Deidre we meet again. His quiet and impotent diplomacy has created a vacuum of power in the world and that is why Russia decided to attack Ukraine and the Middle East is out of control again and China is now threatening with a show of military might.
Let’s see how many of you give Trump credit if he’s all able to quickly or as quickly as possible and the Russia, Ukraine conflict.
And in any resolution of wars, land may be the cost of the agreement, but land is a cheap price to pay compared to human lives, and suffering.
Israel's encroaching on land outside of their country is so reminiscent of the Russian policy. We do n9ot support Russian so why should we support Israel? There is no way they will get rid of Hamas or any terrorist groups. Look at the Taliban. How many countries in Afghanistan? The Taliban is as strong as ever.
But Eva, it is not just or so much those that may or seem to be brainwashed, as there is a gigantic number of those who just do not care to participate in the American form of government - our democratic process of educating themselves and voting - at least once every 4 years, if not once every 2 years!
So let me see if I understand what you’re saying… the people that voted for Trump eight years ago were not educated, became incredibly educated proceeding Bidens election, and then became uneducated during Trump’s reelection? Do I have that correct? What happened to those 13 million votes that old Biden got that Obama didn’t get?
Yes they will. Unfortunately, if they come out during the next four years, Trump and the GOP will claim credit for them.
Sorry on this I disagree. Biden made a major set of errors in his career, any one of which can be considered to have a serious negative effect on the country, starting with his support of the nomination and confirmation of Clarence Thomas, an almost inherently unqualified judge, to the Supreme Court of the US. That alone takes Biden out of any "top ten president list" I might try to construct. Biden did many good things but his negative were just too great to ignore. His failure to clearly communicate in a regular basis with the country during his Presidency is another issue I have with him, and his recent decision to pardon his son, regardless of my sympathy with him for having to make that decision is another.
He did many good things as I mentioned, but for me it just doesn't help enough to offset his major failings.
Your attitude and insistence on a perfect alignment with your values for every step of yours and his life is why we lost this election. For you, a man is judged by every day of his life not by the wisdom his life taught him. Every misstep he took blots his copy book and nothing he can do removes the stain. I wouldn't have let them sentence my son to prison either. And he did communicate clearly with the people during his presidency. Just not the way you wanted. He went out among the people but spoke to the press using a spokesperson. Why you ask? Because Americans require perfection in speech. Every time he spoke there was criticism not about what he said but about his stutter. When he came out there was no decorum from the press just a barrage of sound coming from every direction all at once. Nobody likes that. Did no one replace Helen? I thought about it like a feeding frenzy of piranha. I wouldn't have been able to understand anything anyone said.
You have a right to disagree with me although i expect you are misunderstanding. I supported Biden strongly in 2020 despite my misgivings because politics is NOT about perfection, it is about what is possible.
I did not support Biden in 2024 NOT because of his speech issues but because of his age,
because he promised to be a one term transition President and reneged on that and because he was in a terrible pit in the polls which I felt would take him down and all of us along with him. On that i think I was sadly correct. I don't think any amount of support would have changed that result either. Had he gotten out of the race earlier or kept his promise to not run again, MAYBE things might have been different.
And believe me my objections to Biden Have NOTHING to do with his speech impediment. His support of Clarence Thomas in the face of the outrageous conduct he committed against Anita Hill was absolutely disqualifying for me. And yet i STILL voted for him because I am not an idiot and Biden's failings pale in comparison to Trump.
Hope that helps clarify things a little.
I was very unhappy that Anita Hill was not treated as a credible witness and that Thomas's behavior was not disqualifing. But that's the way some men treat women, look at our incoming president. Look at Giselle's husband in France. But Biden became a better person. Look at his cabinet, his VP, the women he added to the judiciary, and the very diversity of women he elevated. Look at what he has done to atone for some of the wrongs to the indigenous by returning sacred places, apologizing for the irreparable damage the boarding schools did to their cultures, and some of the treaty violations against the tribes. Not enough, but not nothing. The water is a big thing and they did get water rights on their reservations.
Right. The original comment said he was a decent man and president, as was Jimmy Carter. To me, that refers to character, not necessarily politics.
Oops big typing error. They didn't get water rights.
Didnt get water rights
Again, his speech impediment is from his Catholic school when the nuns turned him from left hand to Right hand. His mother held him back a year because of the developed speech impediment. We learned in nursing school that switching the hands causes a speech impediment. Obama was born left hand also. He was in a school run by nuns who did not switch his hands. He is still left handed.
Where his speech impediment came from is irrelevant to me. I could see him struggle at times to bring forth a particular word and then switching to another that might have been easier for his to say. The rhythm of his speech would become halting until he could return to his thought. He was a terrible public speaker most times, but at others he hit his stride and spoke brilliantly. Especially that last State of the Union Address after the heckling, his quick mind saw an opening and he took it. Well done Joe!
In my catholic school, St. Joes, 4th grade teacher Mrs Henigan put me under her desk for talking in class and I hadn’t been that close to you know what since mommyhood. And it never made me stutter at all.
They tried so hard to make my mother (born in 1924), right handed, too. It seemed to make her stronger though in her resistance, and live with a life long opposition to inflicting the same on anyone else. My brother did very well as a left handed person and I've long been observant of successful left handed people like Barack Obama.
Your comment about Biden's source of stuttering, though, lit the little light bulb in my head about others like my brother-in-law who were needlessly traumatized for years, with substantial lasting negative affects.
I’m just wondering how many of you know that Joe Biden actually got on his hands on the streets of Boston, protesting, racial integration and Busing? His quote was something like I don’t want to have to my children get educated in a racial jungle. His words
Jon-Do you feel the same way about Bush who nominated Clarence Thomas and all of the others who voted for him? Biden did not single handedly put Thomas on the bench. Thomas is also not the only Supreme Court justice who has accepted bribes and disrespected women and others.
Gaza is another story-I agree there’s no way the U.S. should be supporting Netanyahu’s genocide. October 7th was horrific but what Israel has done is an affront to humanity.
Gina,
The comparison is to Carter, not Bush, and a fair qualifier for Biden's legacy. He made deals, votes and, more importantly, didn't do things that Carter would do as a matter of conscience and morality (Gaza speaks to that, and is your point well made.) Biden is an insider and lifetime Washingtonian. Supreme Court votes are a legacy that can't be shirked with piecemeal credit/blame. They are which side are you on statements.
Biden doesn't hold a candle to Carter, and that is not a horrible reflection on Biden. Carter is a tough compare for any human being, more so than I realized even after reading HCR's letter.
Tim
Well I certainly feel the same way about Bush!!! That's an easy one. Not sure about ALL the Senators who voted to confirm Thomas as voting on a confirmation involves lots of variables and it is sometimes difficult to weigh the poses and minuses but I don't hold that Senate from 1991 in very high esteem generally.
Biden however was in charge of the judiciary committee at that time and more or less controlled the process. His decision to support the nomination given the clear negatives was shameful and to me still is given the disaster that Thomas being on the court has proven to be. It is probably the single worst nomination since the Reagan era and there have been some doozies. His elevation to the SCOTUS was the start in the destruction of what the court had become since Eisenhower put Warren on the court as Chief Justice.
John McKinley, one of my Grandfathers held the title of worst Supreme Justice until now. Like Thomas, Mckinley never wrote an opinion, etc. He just held the seat.
When did President Biden say he will be a one term President? Do you have any link?
https://www.usnews.com/news/elections/articles/2019-12-11/joe-biden-suggests-he-would-only-serve-one-term-if-elected-president
Biden understood his age was a serious issue for voters (he was already the oldest person who ever ran for President) in 2019.
He said “transitional “
Based on his current mental condition, do you actually think that he could manage to be president of United States now?
But you said yourself his failure to communicate was a problem.
He communicated, but not clearly and stridently. And not often enough, and his speech issues I think made it difficult for him as he aged. But he has been one of the greats.
That his legacy will be attributed to the imbecile trump is too galling.
Just as Carters was given to the idiot Reagan.
I fear you're right, Jen.
What the Democrats have failed to do, IMO, is to take some pages from Thomas Frank's book, "What's the Matter with Kansas," and launch a barrage of attacks on the wealthy and their Republican politicians who have stolen the Middle Class lifestyle and security from ordinary Americans. They are the ones to blame as they enjoy their billions and billions of dollars while dumping an unconscionable Federal debt onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. The idea of "going high when they go low" is BS. It doesn't work.
Richard-You’ve mentioned Timothy Eagan’s book-A Fever in the Heartland-many times. Black people have survived in America because when White people have gone “low” by burning, castrating, buying and selling people, separating Black bodies, massacring Black neighborhoods etc. Black people went “high” by transcending their physical situation and relying on spirit to keep the faith for future generations. I think this is where Michelle Obama is coming from with that expression.
If we all go “low” we’re going down a hole that we’ll never be able to dig ourselves out of-especially since Americans have re-elected people who only know how to go low. As Egan said, “a vein of hatred was always there for the tapping. It’s there still, and explains much of the madness threatening American life…”.
The wealthy and too many politicians have been successful because they can always use racism to keep us divided. It wasn’t the price of eggs that tipped this election in the Rs favor.
Do you think the Rs would have won if they didn’t have brown people “invading” the border or Haitians eating pets? Hate is winning-not the love, hard work and joy Kamala tried to inject into the election.
It’s unfortunate but most Americans don’t see how dividing people by skin color allows those who want to profit from our labor and control us “go low”. It’s been a time tested strategy (e.g. southern strategy) that always works.
If we “go high” by keeping the faith, loving humanity and working hard to combat racism (and other isms) one day we the people (all of us) will get to the “promised land”.
Jimmy Carter was a good example of someone who loved humanity, worked hard and kept the faith. He lived to be 100 years old and contributed greatly to our world. His example is something we can build on instead of erecting walls (that even Mexico won’t pay for).
Don't become the monster you are fighting. If everyone fights as dirty as they can nobody wins.
Richard, sadly, I think you are correct in your statement. I hate the thought of pulling dirty tricks but I also think it might be the only way to reach much of the voters. They went for Trump, in spite of their better interests, because they like the entertainment value.
My son (white) ran a stop sign and had to go to court. I went with him to court. I'll never forget the big burly black man who came up to me and advised "Don't let your son go to jail." He did not get jail time.
Paula, I am giving you a like especially for your mention of “ Helen” who o assume is Helen Thomas who for years sat in the front row of presidential press conferences until George W Bush punished her by removing her. ( think I am correct on this). Ms. Thomas was one of the few who was critical of the Bush administration’s policies that violated civil liberties and his invasion of Iraq. When she criticized Israel’s actions in the.
West Bank, she was condemned by liberal pundits as being anti semitic. I wonder how that label affected her personally and professionally. I did not know she died until a few years after her passing. I called her at her office once expecting to just leave a message of support. I was surprised when she answered her phone. We had a nice conversation about civil liberties and her concern that the press was not doing a good enough job of addressing these civil liberties abuses .
Yes, I was referring to Helen Thomas. I admired her greatly. A very strong forthright person.
My father’s parents immigrated from Lebanon. Ms Thomas was Lebanese American Christian. I read her columns in our local newspaper. I never thought for a moment that she was antisemitic. Ironically Arabic people are often considered semites. The Jewish people in my hometown treated my father and my family like their own. Ms Thomas spoke at a local college and my wife and I attended. She was so warm and kind and passionate and inspiring. I miss her.
Despite the people’s here acknowledgment of the fact that every single Republican and every right thinking conservative KNEW that Biden was going to pardon his son, and had no problem with it. Made total sense.
Biden created his own problem by stating in public on two occasions, without hesitation, that he would not pardon him. And then he lied, and therein lied the problem.
I don't think Biden would have pardoned Hunter if the Dems won the election; however, with the MAGA administration coming in, Biden knew Hunter would be the victim of trump's revenge. Good for him for getting him out of the way of that.
Absolutely right DebbieM!!!!
Chris Murphy, Kamala Harris and Andy Besher. I think those would be good overall candidates. The others no for various reasons.
Another huge mistake of President Buden that put this country to its greatest danger was to appoint Garland as AG and not firing him after 6 months.
I also agree this was a major mistake. Not putting in a special counsel to prosecute Trump within a few months was a huge Garland blunder that should have cost him his job. As they say actions (or failures to act) have consequences.
An act of omission is as bad as an act of commission in some instances. This is one of them.
I just read today Biden regrets that choice. Too late now.
Purobi, as I have opined here and other places, Garland's appointment as AG was indeed a mistake, but it was •forced• error provoked by Mitch McConnell. With Garland's methodical approach and obsession with appearing nonpartisan, he was the perfect candidate for a seat on the supreme bench. He was denied that seat by McConnell.
I think Biden's appointment of Garland as AG was a well-intentioned "consolation prize." Perhaps no one could have anticipated what a failed AG Garland would be. The mistake not to fire Garland was another forced error. Biden was intent on being the opposite of his predecessor and therefore, did not meddle with the DOJ.
Mistakes were made, but lay the blame where it belongs.
Shouldn't the buck stop where it should? President is the boss. I would give him credit where credit is due but mistakes were his too. Consolation prize so that one person's feelings do not get hurt and the country be damned???? I respect President Biden immensely but "mistakes were made" is not something I would buy.
Again for me, his age seemed to me to slow him down.
It is inspiring to reflect on President Carter’s character and actions during his presidency and post-presidency, but more amazing when viewed in the perspective of today’s politics, and what apparently qualifies one to be president. May he and Rosalynn rest in peace and enjoy the well-deserved fruits of their labors.
Every person I have met. Every leader I have heard of. And me. We all have or had "major failings".
Biden: The Thomas hearings, "Tough on Crime Laws" and not stepping back to be the "transitional" president he should have been. But Joe Biden accomplished more with razor slim support than any previous president in modern history. And he was decent and empathetic. My kind of person.
Carter: A little arrogant, his faith (meh), his support for nuclear power - all negatives for me. But his accomplishments and core values as described by Heather can't be beat. And he knew how to build homes for the poor. He was decent and empathetic. My kind of person.
Jefferson: Treated his slave as a concubine and indulged in luxuries only the super rich could afford while the humans around him... But he was brilliant and we wouldn't be living the way we are today without him.
Washington: In the face of certain defeat, his men losing appendages to frostbite, he turned the tide and led us to independence. But he never freed HIS slaves. How should we feel about George?
Me? My list of failings and failures is quite long. But I'm still in the game trying to be of some help to family, friends, neighbors and a few readers.
When you find the perfect leader that we all can agree on who has no flaws, no mistakes and will engender complete support from all quarters, please post your example. I am looking forward to it. Here is a recent Guardian article about potential presidential candidates for 2028. Got a favorite? I see "major flaws" in all of them. But I really like most of them as well.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/26/democratic-party-leaders?utm_term=676d53510ed3aff20ea527a2be737f1a&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUS_email
Bill-great reminder that none of us are perfect.
Josh, Andy or Pete. These are my picks!
If he doesn’t commute the sentence of Native Indian activist Leonard Peltier, then I will fully agree with you. I think he had no choice pardoning his son given the political circumstances. 100% on Thomas. And he did nothing at the border for the first part of his administration. He should have instituted a parlor talk or fireside chat reminiscent of FDR but he instead remained behind the scenes and thereby lost passing the baton.
I didn’t vote for Carter the first time because I was young and stupid. But I did vote for him the second time. Sometime in the 1990s, he came to Hartford’s Trinity College to give the commencement. Being my hometown, I arrived early with his photo so to get it autographed. I found him by himself over on the quad near his security agent. As I approached, I stopped. I suddenly had felt that I shouldn’t approach him and I always regretted it. Today, I have the images of two presidents on the walls of my house; Lincoln’s original Emancipation Proclamation engraving and an unsigned photo of Jimmy Carter.
I’m not sure that the Palestinian people would put Biden on any top ten list.
But the Palestinian issue have virtually NOTHING to do with my feelings on Biden. I am a strong supporter of Israel (although not of Netanyahu). I wish Biden had done some things d differently on Israel but I expect most of what happened would still have happened regardless of Biden's decisions. My problems with Biden have to do with his flaws as a political "animal". I don't find him very trustworthy although he has done better recently after finally giving up his hope to run again.
Maybe he should have done that earlier.
Agreed.
My comment Jon was in reference to decency. On the other hand, when you have a long political career you normally carry a long list of mistakes. I still would give president Biden a place among the 10 top president list.
I approve of President Biden 's decision to pardoned his son Hunter. It's clear to me (and I think many others) that the incoming administration will at the least attempt to persecute Trump's critics by winning up spurious charges of corruption, etc.
For Biden to expose his only surviving son to such behavwould have been incomprehensible
You are misinformed. Biden did not support Clarence Thomas. He did not vote to confirm Clarence Thomas. He chaired the confirmation hearings. That’s what he did. You are damning an entire lifetime of excellent (but not perfect) public service based on one thing which didn’t even happen.
He was the chair of the committee. He could have allowed other testimony. The hearings and the treatment of Anita Hill were appalling. I don't care if he didn't vote for Thomas.
Yes indeed. But all these people are saying they don’t forgive him for voting for Thomas, which he didn’t do.
Jon, I think most of the historians and other informed people who rate presidents consider only the time period the men (yes, they've all been men) were actually in office. If that is the criteria, then Biden will likely be in the top ten.
To penalize him for a mistake he made a long time ago is an unfair factor in rating his presidency. His was not the only vote to confirm Thomas. None of us has a functioning crystal ball. Consider the possibility that Biden's interest in making SCOTUS more diverse (a noble motive) caused him to give less weight to Anita Hill's complaint. Maybe it was a matter of doing the wrong thing for the right reason. In any event, his confirmation vote was not a presidential act.
Surely you are not the same man you were 20 years ago. At least I hope not. I know that I'm not. Experience and exposure have taught me that some of my previous positions were erroneous. In many cases, I've modified my positions and in a few, I've reversed them. This doesn't make me a flip-flopper; it makes me enlightened. I expect the same of our leaders.
Other mistakes Biden has made were, as I've stated elsewhere, forced errors. Even a powerful U.S. president can be "boxed in" by uncontrollable circumstances or unscrupulous opponents, and there is no "clean" way out.
He did not vote to confirm Clarence Thomas. Let’s stop blaming him for something that never happened.
While I agree that the Thomas confirmation was a mistake, it hardly merits such a complete condemnation of Joe Biden. And hindsight, as my father was fond of saying is always 20-20.
The greatest Presidential communicator (IMO) was Abraham Lincoln, but even his mastery was not enough to end the scourge of prejudice and violence against black people nor, finally, could he save us from ourselves as our history has made abundantly clear.
The problem is not Joe Biden’s mistakes, who I believe did about the best he could under very difficult and divisive circumstances. While I do fault him for his hubris in deciding to run for a second term, the fact remains that it was that half of American voters who appeared to completely misunderstand, ignore, or worse still agree with Donald Trump’s distorted version of America who put him back in the White House. It was his consummate skill in communicating that distorted version as somehow valid which got him re-elected.
The real problem, as once so succinctly stated by the comic strip character Pogo, is “We have met the enemy, and they is us.”
The real problem is that far too many of us simply do not understand what we were designed to be. Yes, the design itself was flawed, most egregiously by the retention of slavery, but it is the extraordinary promise behind the design that needs to be far better understood if we are to maintain this, the most extraordinary, the most crucial, and the riskiest experiment in human government ever attempted. Lincoln understood that as well as any American who ever lived, and far better than most. We need to listen to him far more than many of us do.
“Four score and seven......."
I would count the confirmation of Thomas as a major mistake. He and Ds did fail to communicate the good, but in part I blame the media for that and their constant harping on inflation and then attention to death star. I am also troubled by our sending of weapons and bombs to Israel. Given what was going to happen if Hunter was not pardoned, I think it was OK to pardon his son. He would not have if death star had lost.
Joe Biden did not vote for Clarence Thomas, even though he did preside over the hearings with Anita Hill and could have perhaps done a better job showing he believed her accusations.
I watched the hearing. It was a pathetic appalling performance by all the Senators on the committee. As chair of the committee Biden could have allowed other testimony. He didn't. The whole thing still makes me sick.
I think Biden's unqualified support of Israeli genocide of Palestinians knocks him out of any "top 10 presidents" list, but you're gonna have to explain to me how something Biden did as a U.S. senator 33 years before he was elected president disqualifies him from being a good president. Yeah, his support of Thomas was awful, but it wasn't a presidential act, not within decades of being one.
We are not the worst thing we ever did. Anyone in power will make mistakes the question is, will the good outweigh the bad?
His career? Yes. But not as many as his predecessor did in just 4 yrs….
I too, believe Biden in his core, is decent. However, pandering to the likes of Bibi Netanyahu puts the unmistakable hair in the eye of those who like him for his national policies, but wonder uncontrollably about his efficacy in Middle East understanding. As decent as he may be, he is far less decent in acknowledging the murderous capabilities of the Israeli government. On that score, he unfortunately has much for which to make up.
Riad, If you keep looking the situation in the Middle East though the eye of a needle you'll miss a lot of collateral consequences. Lebanon, since Israel decimated the militia in the south, well armed and organized, might return to normality after decades of turmoil and civil war. In Gaza, very painful for the civilians, Hamas is a spent force and the West Bank Palestinian Authority might be able to take control of Gaza. In Syria, Israel destroyed most if not all the arsenal accumulated for years and noe there's a chance for at least a moderate government that would stop the transit of weapons from Iran to Lebanon. Iran lost its 2 proxies armies in the region and is economically broken. Only the Hutis remains in Yemen but they have their days counted.
So, maybe, due to the bloody attack on Israel October 7th last year, a rearrangement, positive in my view, is occurring. Peace is a possibility now.
Regarding what I think is your main concern, the civilian casualties in Gaza, I share your concern deeply but is not enough or fair to blame Israel. Hamas should have known that by launching a progrom Israel would react forcefully to prevent a repetition of that massacre. They know they lost and they keep hiding behind the civilians. Just surrender, return the surviving hostages, spare the population left with nowhere to go and face the consequences. Hope this comment helps you as your helped me.
- Pulled Quote -
''...We are all Americans together, and we must not forget that the common good is our common interest and our individual responsibility.”'' - Jimmy Carter
Sleep well, sir.
"Our common vision of a free and just society”.....
Unfortunately we don't have a common vision of what "free" looks like (freedom to v. freedom from) and what "just" looks like (white supremacy v. DEI).
An important point and I agree, becky estill. @heathercoxrichardson makes the same point often enough that I can now remember this split is still a live issue in our country (not a great achievement for me, I admit). I appreciate that you have reminded us about it because it’s one of those facts that help us all to better understand “What is happening right now?”
Excellent points!
Yeah .. that quote so perfectly describes where we are now. Also how predictable it was that we’d eventually get here.
The assoholic gnashing of teeth.. the absence of the common good in our public policy decisions, our politics of spectacle.
It’s up to us to put the idea back in the public sphere.
Mike, thanks for the new word!! It is so descriptive. My brain first tried pronouncing it "assholeolic" but I realised that wasn't the word.
I’d love to take credit for it, but it’s actually the name of a song by a Canadian band from British Columbia, 54/40.. great song, great band.
The song "God on Our Side" looms as I hold words of that quote and lyrics of that song in my heart-mind.
Carter deserved far more credit than has ever been given to him by our society and the press. The one thing he was not was a slick TV personality, and Reagan was. Owing to the degree that TV and it's equivalents now shapes our culture, stagecraft regularly tr*mps statecraft. It has not served us.
J L, an excellent read on Carter's life is by Jonathan Alter called 'His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life'. Heather Cox, as usual, has provided a terrific summary of his life and work.
As most significant figures are, he was complex. He was prickly (while working on homes for Habitat for Humanity he had no interest in setting his hammer down to speak with visitors: he was there to work, dammit, and would shrug them off) and ambitious, courageous (while in the Navy he led an emergency mission to Canada to stabilize a nuclear reactor which had become dangerous, and was part of the team that successfully rendered it safe by working in very short shifts to minimize exposure.) He was self-confident that he could fix things, damn the political consequences, and he paid a price in 1980.
But he was an honorable man who led a humble life after the presidency, shunning the trappings and wealth of an ex-president in service to his fellow man both in Plains as well as around the globe.
He was the first president I was eligible to vote for in 1976, and I did. Rest in Peace, Jimmy.
I cannot forget that being in the Silent Service he was influenced by and taught by Hymen G. Rickover. Whatever one might say about Rickover, his commitment to excellence and safety were paramount. As a student and candidate of his, Carter had that commitment to excellence and doing the right thing no matter the cost.
Hyman Rickover was against civilian nuclear power because he knew they would never do it to his safety standards. Though many in the field still live up to his standards the best they can, they need the top level support from those in position to make sure the standards are met well past the time we no longer need any active nuclear use, but do need to manage the waste forever.
I’ve been reading the front page articles about Jimmy Carter, with long overdue praise. What will be P-E Bone Spurs epitaph? “Finally!” would be my guess. Can you imagine a DJT administration negotiation the release of hostages in a similar situation to the one faced in Iran? Joe Biden was left with a mess in Afghanistan: In addition to my reply to Doug: As he was leaving office, then Pres. Bone Spurs announced that “We are leaving Afghanistan”, left immediately to play golf, and Biden was left to pick up the pieces (well, Ok, execute the withdrawal!). Meanwhile, the Taliban wasn’t sitting idly by…
Lee, I don't know what his epitaph will be, but I can't wait to find out. He's the polar opposite of Carter, and doesn't deserve even to be mentioned in the same breath as Jimmy.
Same here, Doug.
Agreed on tv and its ability to pummel on a point, in this case Carter took the heat over the Iran hostage affair which plummeted his ratings, though it was his team which finally negotiated the hostages' release. I could never take Reagan and his "evil empire" rhetoric then "star wars" which was inherently provocative. Biden lost his net positive rating with the rushed exit from Afghanistan and the ISIS suicide bomber which no one could likely have stopped, MAGA went crazy dumping on that.
Like you I was a teen in '76 - under voting age - but I SO yearned to elect Jimmy Carter. I can't find words to describe my admiration and appreciation for all he and Rosalynn gave to our country and the world.
The 26th Amendment arrived in time for me to vote in the election of 1976. I voted for Jimmy Carter. I did not vote for the person who was elected president again until 2008. (in the elections of 1980 and 1984, the election was called before the polls closed on the west coast, and I cast my vote for the Independent candidates both of those years. I did not vote for Bill Clinton either time he ran, believing he was "Republican Lite".
So glad you changed your mind on that. I always felt Carter tried to be too much of a "micro manager" but I also always felt he had one of the most sincere and honest outlooks on how to run this country, far superior to most Presidents before him and certainly all after him.
Philoctetes - "As a young adolescent male in his teens I loathed Carter and loved Reagan"
There are some things that never change in American politics.....
It's always "loathe and love"
Calmer and boring have their merits indeed. Upstaging rhetoric has a way of unhinging people and thus it continues to be.
Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucrior.
Catullus
It's not a matter of US politics; it is inherent in the human condition.
Very true Philoctetes.
But the binary nature of politics in the US foments this.
Panem et circenses.
Perhaps the administrative running of a country should be a little less of a circus.
Like a bit more "peanut farmer" and a little less clown 🙂
You and I were caught in the same misguided trap. I was enthralled with the glamour of the Reagans and "the shining city upon the hill". He had great speech writers, and she had great designers. But I too, learned my lesson quickly and have regretted my choices ever since. The beast was let out and we have been paying for it ever since.
Ray-gun got the credit for freeing the hostages on Inauguration Day. Donthecon promises to end the war against Ukraine his first day in office but we know he blames Zelenskyy for all his troubles because Zelenskyy refused to grant him that simple favor of telling a lie. I wish that the Inauguration Day surprise will be Donnie’s arrest. Is that too much to ask??🙏🏼
I an agree totally that he was our most decent and best President. And, he saw what was coming and well, here we are....mired in Trumpian Hell...
Amazing that a reply to this comment about Biden also being a good and decent man turned this—the most liked posting—into an argument about Biden with scarcely a mention of Carter.
I still esteem the two candidates of the 1976 election -- President Ford and President Carter -- to be the two best of my lifetime, with President Ford, for whom I did not vote being number-1 and President Carter, for whom I voted, as number-2.
Why was Ford a great president when he pardoned Nixon, setting the stage for more unlawfulness by POTUS (President of the United States)?
With 20/20 hindsight it is true the pardon set a standard of unaccountability. However, in Ford's defense, he was a man of his time and never fathomed the rise of Trumpism in 21st century America.
And yet I worried from day one that it would set a terrible precedent, both because it was really a grant of immunity, not what I think of as a pardon to right an error of justice, and because it established the president as above the law. Nor, so far as I could see, did the social healing it was supposed to ease take place. It saved us the very difficult job of wrestling with justice and reconciliation, but at great cost. I never dreamed that the rough beast now slouching toward the oval office was even a possibility, but surely departure from equal justice and protection could be recognized as hazardous in principle.
To his dying day, Ford kept in his wallet this quote from a Supreme Court decision: "...[a pardon] carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it..." Burdick v. US (1915)
I wish I could LIKE this comment 100 times! When history is written about this era, the Nixon pardon will loom large in the background as to how our political destiny was determined.
Yes Jon Rosen, the Nixon pardon opened up a deep fissure in the Rule of Law & put ankle bracelets on Justice.
Well said J L Graham.
And therein lies the reason Ford was mediocre at best. He had no vision, no great integrity--look more closely into his career. A handy distraction from the disgrace of Agnew.
No great man in any sense.
And that is why he lost the election to Carter.
Ironically, Dr Cox Richardson and I started out on opposite sides reversed our view over time and remained on opposite sides.
At the time, Dr Cox has said, she supported the pardon but has come to believe that it was one of the worst decisions because it gave people an expectation of skating around accountability through pardons.
At the time, I opposed the pardon, at least in timing. Instead President Nixon should have been convicted in a court of law and then pardoned. Over time, I have come to the belief that President Ford was right.
There is no precedent value here. President made an independent decision to prevent the nation from being ripped asunder by a long drawn out court battle in an unsettled public who knew President Nixon was guilty.
As far as later bureaucrats abusing power in expectation of a pardon, I simply do not believe these officials think this way, at least until Trump drumpfed the republican machinery
I think by not holding Nixon criminally accountable, it made it possible for us to deteriorate to the point where we could have an open crook like Trump in office. I don’t think self-government will survive Trump.
Ned, a point of order: Cox is Heather Richardson's middle name; her last name is Richardson. I do acknowledge your use of her title (Dr. in your sentence, I prefer "Professor" but both are proper honorifics.)
I had assumed that "Cox" was Dr Richardson's middle name. She earned a Ph.D.; I will show that respect.
EDITING P.S.: thank you, Ally, for letting me know I had gotten Dr Richardson's name wrong. 🤝😊✌🏽
Trump made two gracious remarks about President Carter.
"I just heard of the news about the passing of President Jimmy Carter. Those of us who have been fortunate to have served as President understand this is a very exclusive club, and only we can relate to the enormous responsibility of leading the Greatest Nation in History.
"The challenges Jimmy faced as President came at a pivotal time for our country and he did everything in his power to improve the lives of all Americans. For that, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.
"Melania and I are thinking warmly of the Carter Family and their loved ones during this difficult time. We urge everyone to keep them in their hearts and prayers."
+++ 😲
"President Jimmy Carter is dead at 100 years of age. While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realized that he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for. He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect. He was a truly good man and, of course, will be greatly missed. He was also very consequential, far more than most Presidents, after he left the Oval Office. Warmest condolences from Melania and I to his wonderful family!"
💔
Trump caught flak from his base over the first remark for he had deprecated President Carter during his campaign, which elevated me to Russian nobility as Count Pistov. So, Trump made the second statement; while seeking to assuage his base, Trump did not back down on his high opinion of President. That is impressive to me.
You were born too late, Eisenhower, the last legitimate Republican president, was a great one.
Ford -- I vehemently disagree.
Now that none of us have changed any minds, we can move on. 😊
I agree - a completely decent man
Trump and Carter are polar opposites. I just want you to know when I say this, I am not being resentful.
That is EXACTLY how I changed, as "a young adolescent male," at that moment in time. Exactly the same. Thank you, Philoctetes.
You are correct!
I’ll never forget a moment in the mid 1980s - I was a high school social studies teacher working on a curriculum project at the Carter Center in Atlanta. It was lunchtime, and I found myself sitting alone, enjoying a brief pause in the day. Suddenly, from over my shoulder, a gentle voice asked, “Mind if we join you?” I turned around and found myself face-to-face with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. To my astonishment, they sat down and chatted with me for about half an hour.
Their kindness and genuine interest in our conversation left an indelible mark on me. It wasn’t just their warmth but the profound humility of a man who had once led the free world and yet made time to engage so personally and meaningfully.
As we mourn his passing, I’m reminded that Jimmy Carter wasn’t just a statesman or a humanitarian—he was a man of extraordinary grace who believed deeply in the power of connection. Rest in peace, Mr. President. Your light will continue to guide us.
Thank you for sharing this, Peter. I believe that one of the greatest gifts that Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter possessed was their ability to connect with other human beings. 🌺
I am baffled by why people vote for trustifarians like Donald Trump who has never missed a meal or had to figure out how to make something out of spare parts because they couldn't afford it any other way.
What is most lacking in the entire Republican Party at all levels is creativity. They are not and never have been the party of creativity. As we witnessed in Trump's 1st term, he got many of his ridiculous ideas from watching the bozos on Fox News. And we know they aren't the greatest problem solvers.
It's already happening again, and Trump has surrounded himself with other billionaires who only care about dying with the most toys.
The Republicans have ceased to believe in government of, for and by the people. They worship concentrated wealth that is destroying us.
Aside from Margaret Chase Smith, Ike, and Gerald Ford, Republican support of the Republic has been questionable since the election of FDR and rescue of our government by his administration.
I know I have ....that... O-ring.........here......somewhere........
I keep waiting for Trump to lose it because of all the attention Carter is getting. Sooner or later, he will need to lash out and get the focus back on himself.
Your first paragraph applies to Musk as well.
They were so natural. Something we long for now.
He was a man of extraordinary grace and extraordinary character, something that is sadly lacking in so many of our leaders today.
One might argue that Trump is also a man of "extraordinary character." Unfortunately for us all of his attributes are undesirable. This morning Simon Biles said that character doesn't matter to Americans any more. I couldn't disagree more.
Most Trump voters and supporters may not care about positive attributes like integrity, empathy, caring, unselfishness etc., but I cannot agree that it is all Americans.
Jon, how wonderful to see those two words linked, ‘grace and character’ plus ‘extraordinary’. I cannot agree more. Sadly very few voters apparently know the immense value of them. I immensely fortunate, had a Father with them as well who spent his life creating nonprofit opportunities for people for better health, housing and jobs. I spent my growing years listening to my parents talk about raising money ideas for organizations. As a child, I’d inwardly groan. Thank you for your sparking reply to Heather’s superb and moving letter today.
Thank You Peter Pappas for this sweet remembrance of a good and decent man. I am moved by his words on our Voyager space craft out in deep space.“This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problem we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe.”
-- Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, the White House, June 16, 1977
I just saw a replica of his Voyager statement. Amazing
What a beautiful memory. We’ve lost an American treasure.
Thank you for this blessed memory, Peter!
❣️🙏👏💔🥺 Thanks for sharing ❣️ THIS is what a legacy looks like 👏🙏👏🙏👏
Peter, thank you for sharing this story. I, too, was a social studies teacher.
I graduated from college in 1976 and proudly cast my vote for President Carter, doing so again in 1980.
What decent folks the Carters were.
Funny story. The National Council for the Social Studies put out a call for 12 teachers to serve as "Curriculum Consultants" at the Carter Center for a big international arms control session with big names from all over the world. I applied - no pay - but free trip for a week to Atlanta.
After a few days, I asked our handler how tough it was to sort through all the application and choose only 12. She replied with a sly grin: "Only 15 applied." After that, I applied for everything I saw. Ended up getting loads of grants and fellowships. Lesson learned.
What an extraordinary gift.
Wow
Lucky you Peter Pappas!
Carter paved the way for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. We can honor Carter’s memory by urging Biden to take action on the now fully ratified ERA as a tribute to Carter.
Please please, the ERA is not fully ratified and the continuing question looms as to whether the original 7 year restriction and is extension in fact limit the ability to ratify the amendment. That case had not been decided and until it is there can be no ratification. I am writing this as a 50 year active supporter of the ERA (I once had a CA license plate that read ERA2DAY) but I am also a supporter of the Constitution and the ERA is sadly still potentially flawed.
Publish the ERA and let it be litigated. Then the Constitutionality of the time limit can be argued. Until then, women will remain second class citizens before the law and sexual misconduct by men will remain socially allowed and women will not regain bodily autonomy. Without the ERA, the law remains in Genesis.
Sadly a response from a man who will deny women equal rights when nobody but the most self-righteous is playing by the rules. Why are women and people of color subjected to rules that have never restrained white men?
That is highly presumptuous and a typical albeit sad response when you have NO idea who I am or what I have done.
In the 70s, I fought heavily for the ERA, and for almost 2 years during the final years of ratification, I made periodic trips to other states to lobby the state legislatures to ratify it. That said, I am also a strong supporter of legal interpretations of the constitution and I have never been satisfied that the Congress in the 70s didn't make a major mistake by including the 7-year term of ratification, which was extended once for 2 more years. The intent was to try to push states to ratify quickly. Instead, after Reagan won the 1980 election, it worked against us by giving states a reason to drag their heels in the hope that the clock would run out.
Now, of course, people who would like to get one more "thing" done by the Biden administration are encouraging non-justifiable actions like attempting to get ratification enshrined when it is still being litigated in the courts. As someone who believes strongly in favor of using our system properly, I think that is wrong. If the courts decide that the 7 year limit and its extension were not legal in the first place that it is possible that they will declare the ERA ratified OR they might declare it completely invalid as its provisions were unconstitutional. I expect neither of those outcomes, but rather that they will decide that Congress had the right to impose that limit and thus the time clock has already expired and it will be required to pass the ERA again, something which is tragically unlikely at least for 4 years at a minimum.
It is difficult to have been a 50+ year long supporter of equal rights for women and then to be accused by someone who doesn't even know me at all except from what I post on this forum of being a womans' rights denier. You should be ashamed of yourself for making such a comment without even having the courtesy to ask me about my background and activities.
Very typical these days, sadly, when people are quick to judge but slow to investigate and learn.
Sigh...
https://www.bidenpublishtheera.org/
We moved to Springfield, IL in 1984 and found a home in a small neighborhood of about 100 homes. Never to shy away from controversy, my wife would speak her mind at neighborhood meetings. She became known as the "IRA" lady in the community.
Of course, what they meant to call her was the "ERA" lady, but these weren't the brightest bulbs in the tree.
The Illinois Secretary of State lived in our neighborhood. Each workday, a limo would arrive at his home to drive him the 5 or so miles to his office. Like Jimmy Carter, he was also a decent man and became a two term Illinois governor in the 1990's.
YES!
"Carter echoed the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights established by the United Nations, promising he would promote “human freedom” while protecting “the individual from the arbitrary power of the state.” Since I learned about the UDHR, I have often wondered why this hasn't been the philosophical cornerstone of every administration, both nationally and internationally.
Instead of learning from WWII atrocities and respecting the work lead by Eleanor Roosevelt to craft this declaration, we now must experience a regime of noodniks, who lack both experience in national governance and civics, and seem intent on creating world instability with childish and exploitive pronouncements. What a disappointment.
Seems that humans are evolving in a downward, more base direction rather than an upward, more compassionate direction. Yes, truly disappointing.
Don’t let democracy die on our watch.
January 3-5, Washington, D.C. Details coming soon
https://nowmarch.org/join-the-movement/
https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5055171-constitution-insurrection-trump-disqualification/
I loved voting for President Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980.
History is revealing how much of Reagans accomplishments were actually achieved by Carter, initiated by Carter and came to be because of Carter.
RIP good man
I agree Doug. It's also true of the Bushes, Nixon and Trump. EVERY Democrat President has had to bail us out of a Republican caused recession.
And the timing of the bailout has always been received by the public as positive for the Republicans.
We have the internet and social media now. Dems need to increase their communication with the general public, let them know where things are as they happen. Don't leave discovery of their accomplishments solely to the historians. Otherwise we're permanently caught in a cycle of 2 steps forward, 3 steps backward, and will never advance our great democracy.
I agree that the timing of the bailouts have always been received by voters as positive for Republicans.
Regarding communication with the general public, we've got to deal with news deserts and not just the messaging. How do you get information to people who live in them?
USPS, billboards, fliers. Dems should use the USPS to announce that they're bringing internet to these news deserts.
The hard part will be convincing these people to accept the new information. We can't convince people that ivermectin isn't a valid treatment for covid; how will we get them to believe they've been hoodwinked by their idols?
I read Steve Schmidt’s masterpiece post yesterday , Carter’s speech -I’d forgotten- but so many hated .
Sitting tall in the saddle is reserved for few notably..it led me also to realization in Revelations that: the antichrist rules for 42 months…also the time from Abraham to JC …
Initials the same lends me the warmth of Iris Dement’s line in ‘Let the Miracle Be’ which I love to sing and play “ some say you’ll rest in the arms of our Savior if in sinful ways you lack” .
Giving Thanks the day before NYE -that’s a likely for Jimmy- he was a great example for many …
Will America survive the 42 by #47 the second time around the first was a telltale whirlwind.
Enough math for me today ..I’ll be counting down the ball tomorrow night ..hopeful it’s a safe one and ‘WE’ endure .
Happy New Year Gary, comrades, y’all….
Gary,who is going to pull us out of trump's recession?
I am confused by nothing written in this post about Reagan's backchanneling w the Taliban to tank Carter's reelection. An enormous violation of international and US law for which the world and US suffered for decades.
Reprising Nixon sabotaging a potential agreement with Vietcong prior to the '68 election.
Jimmy was an avid fly fisherman, and was well acquainted with the plants and animals of rural Georgia. He was truly connected to the earth. He inspired the hatred of the worst people in our country. That's gotta mean something.
"President Carter said, 'When I was in the White House, I thought of human rights primarily in terms of political rights, such as rights to free speech and freedom from torture or unjust imprisonment. As I traveled around the world since I was president, I learned there was no way to separate the crucial rights to live in peace, to have adequate food and health care, and to have a voice in choosing one’s political leaders. These human needs and rights are inextricably linked.'"
This shows President Carter at his best. What people dismissed as flip-flopping or weakness was, in fact, the workings of an open and lively mind.
And a very compassionate human being too. A truly great man in an era when we don't have a many as we would like to think.
Yes, we live in times where compassion is not esteemed. A fatal irony is that we live with a growing surfeit of ever deadlier weapons.
He was a decent man -- and Heather's record of his actions captures that.
But what a contrast with the monster billionaires stalking America now.
How is it so many of these billionaires are going so contrary to Timothy Snyder's excellent advice -- that none ought surrender in advance to the oligarchs, autocrats, and their vulgar sycophants?
The answer is they're humanly empty. They love money. Love the trappings of money. But there's nothing personal inside. Such a contrast to all the main facts of Jimmy Carter.
How did America begin to generate so many humanly empty? In Jimmy Carter's name we can venture to ask this necessary Q. And answer it, as some have.
In Daniel Markovits’s new book, “The Meritocracy Trap,” and in a David Brooks recent piece in “The Atlantic,” both have argued the U.S. has failed its working classes by all our schools. Our elites push only the neutered superiority games as built in all standardized testing. Shelly Swearingen and Jared Hendersen have videos going into detail on these meritocracy conceits in all the tests that so contort all the schools.
In Jimmy Carter's name, let's put the human back in the schools, and never again produce so many ogres, dead souls, and other such living dead as now so rule.
Decent, intelligent, compassionate, hard-working: these are the four adjectives that encompassed him in a nut-shell, just as the four winds encompass the Earth.
"This focus on individualism distorts the nation's purpose. [...] We are all Americans together, and we must not forget that the common good is our common interest and our individual responsibility."
That says it all.
If to "We are all Americans together," we add the words "We are all human beings together," this short passage can serve as essential guidance for the future of mankind.
*
In the mid-1980s, I became aware of a deep change in the attitude of political leadership. I was working for a political organization in what was to become the European Union. With the retirement of those who had fought in the Second World War, those who had suffered under and survived the Nazi-Fascist onslaught, came a new generation. With this changing of the guard, the earthy practicality of "What's in it for US?" was replaced by "What's in it for ME?"
We are living with the results of that aberration.
We are both individual beings with individual experiences and personalities and we are social creatures. Our lives are greatly enriched and often sustained by our interaction with our society. Freedom is not just pursuit of individual happiness, it is a union, an environment that sustains that opportunity for all. I think that the necessity of base line solidarity and responsibility is vividly evident in our founding documents. We sustain our own freedom by protecting unalienable rights of one another.
John Kennedy's famous quote "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" today would be "Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what you can do for Trump. " Sigh...
Perfectly put, thank you for the comment
Phil, to accomplish what you proposed we need to survive the next four years first.
Yes, I agree, but Phil points to a huge problem before us. The tech billionaires who are so obviously stalking around in this transition between presidents have participated in the transformation of social media from a way to actually connect and stay in touch with friends and family in a way never before possible to an algorithmically driven way to push us further and further apart and make us addicted to conflict. This has really messed with our politics and has greatly harmed the human need for real social connection. The fact that it has made a lot of men billionaires makes it even worse.
Thank you, Mary Ann Brown.
Perfectly expressed, the complete updated version of Divide and Rule.
You’re welcome, Peter.
So have media outlets like Fox News. We Democrats should have set up our own media outlets years ago to reach the public, and the mainstream media outlets are hardly “liberal.” Republicans succeeded in “working the refs” to the point that MSM engages in fake balance and bothsidesism.
Most Democrats supported the principles of reporting the news without fear or favor. Fortunately, that was inadequate for contesting the well-funded sources of right-wing propaganda, and we still haven't figured out how to amplify our positions adequately. We must keep trying.
You are 💯 % right Mary. I never said is going to be easy, by the contrary, billionaires been planning taking over for a long time and have all the money needed and more to accomplish that goal. To make situation worse, they also planned to stay for a long run and it's not only locally, it's the whole world.
I know I said we need to survive the next 4 years but tha was before taking my first coffee. Thanks for your response.
Thom Hartmann wrote a piece on social media last week. There is interesting food for thought there:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thomhartmann/p/is-social-media-this-generations?r=3hlhv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
Thank you for the link, Ally!
Very interesting. It brought to mind my nephew, his wife (born in South American) and two kids visiting her family, and then salt flats (in Argentina, I believe). He was suffering from altitude sickness and was given coca leaves to chew which alleviated his headaches. I recall being alarmed to hear this at first, but then realized that as this article points out, it wasn't concentrated--just mild enough to give him relief.
The points in your Thom Hartmann here, Ally, have a corollary.
That's Robert Lustig's book, "The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science behind the Corporate Takeover of our Bodies and Brains."
100%. But that requires putting into office and positions of leadership people who also feel the same way. So much money is driving policy decisions, both top down and bottom up. The power elite have been playing the long game and have decimated the educational system on all fronts, not just basic education - which is the most fundamental problem, but also secondary education, where folks can get training in what they want to do to sustain themselves. Everything has been geared toward getting an expensive college education, at your own financial peril. Pubic underwriting has dried up, banks love to loan money that no one can repay at exorbitant interest rates - you get where I am going. Since the 1980's, the ability to be well-educated, from K-12, and beyond is now a pipe dream, and only reserved for the well-off. And that includes many of us here. Critical thinking is clearly in short supply and the goal is just to produce a basic workforce that doesn't question the status quo.
You might go to your edit function, Kathleen, at your text's upper right.
Or, tell us more about "pubic" underwriting.
I adored Jimmy Carter. He was never weak. Carter had strong convictions and he stood by them, never wavering. The capture of Americans under his time in office was always seen as his downfall. As Heather pointed out, the hostages came home on Reagan’s Inauguration Day thus, Ronnie was given credit. What I truly loved about the Carters was their commitment to people who needed help in our country. Rosalyn concentrated on the mental health community and Jimmy built homes, working alongside normal folks who might win that home. Habitat for Humanity wasn’t founded by Carter but he and his bride definitely put it on the map. The two of them devoted their time for Habitat’s projects for 36 years! He felt this mission was a marriage of “partnership, removing the stigma of charity” (dallasareahabitat.org). What’s not to admire?
Sad thing is, Marlene, Carter was victim to U.S. malevolence a quarter century earlier.
It was John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles who, in 1953, planned and implemented the overthrow of the recently democratically elected leader of Iran, Mossadegh.
In place of the decent Mossadegh -- and, repeat, democratically-elected -- the U.S. elite thugs (with C.I.A. money and clandestine tools) used subterfuge and deceit to get a coup going there -- to install a deeply corrupt and vicious Shah. A Shah beholden to and in the service of U.S. fossil fuel.
The U.S. also provided funds, training, and arms to Savak, the Shah's (and the U.S.'s) truly savage, remorseless, unaccountable secret police. The people of Iran hated the Shah, hated Savak.
All that hatred wasn't Jimmy Carter's fault. Due to it, though, he lost an election to another man who would be doing steady business with dictators -- arms for Contras aiming for the U.S. to continue to try to topple non-U.S.-corporate-propped-up but otherwise legit governments abroad.
For more on this sordid side of our U.S., do an online search for Smedley Butler, Major General commander of the U.S. Marines (and very good guy) nearly 100 years ago.
In the 1980 election between Carter and Reagan the Iranian hostage crisis was just one of the determining factors for Reagan winning the election. Just minutes after Reagan was inaugurated, Iran announced the release of the American hostages. This set in motion another conspiracy theory that Reagan’s team had reached a deal with Iran to delay the release until after Reagan’s inauguration.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/expert-analyzes-new-account-of-gop-deal-that-used-iran-hostage-crisis-for-gain
Apparently it was no theory. Reagan’s like Nixon’s victory over LBJ was a manufactured victory.
And I am confused why HCR did not address this in her post. This was a crucial turning point in world power.
I think she wanted to concentrate on Carter's life and legacy, not on Reagan's.
HCR's account doesn't mention the involvement of Henry Kissinger in delaying the release of the hostages as has often been reported.
GRATEFUL, I HONOR him for his KINDNESS and how his actions and policies were aligned with his positive values, and needs of the environment like solar panels on the White House and need for dialogue between countries toward peaceful agreements. Was a fantastic role model.
How times had changed....
Nearly 20 years ago I had a serendipitous opportunity to briefly meet Jimmy and Roslyn Carter at a small event in Seattle. It was really a singular experience. The man had an aura. Otherworldly - he glowed. I could feel his capacity to really care about every person on the planet - and the planet. It’s hard to put into words. My experience led me to appreciate him ever since as a truly extraordinary human being. Grateful to have had that opportunity. May his memory be for a blessing.
Wow! Thanks for sharing this, Celeste. That description now highlights my memory of Jimmy Carter.
Katie Couric of The Today Show asked him if the Nobel Peace Prize or being elected president was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him, Carter answered: “When Rosalynn said she’d marry me, I think that’s the most exciting thing.”
This is why I’ve always highly respected Jimmy Carter. He was an authentic and kind man.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were devoted to each other.
Who deeply loved and treated w respect his wife.
Mary, would be ethical to clone him?
When he campaigned for President, he stayed in ordinary people‘s homes. He practiced the Christianity he taught. He was a man of the people, like Lincoln.
How we need a person of that kind of integrity now.
Pete Buttigieg!
Yes!
Butittigieg for president Bruce for vice!!!!
Ma no grazie Ricardo, sonno troppo vecchio. Per me ho passato la vacanza per il reste de ma via.
Piu vecchio (than) trump?
nope
Older than trump?
And....everything changed with Regan 😒
Thanks for the lovely tribute to Former President Jimmy Carter. He and his wife were a class act all the way.
Earlier today my Regional leader of Democrats Abroad Germany shared a letter from Former President Carter today from 2014 that he wrote as honorary Chair of Democrats Abroad where he talks about his mother having served in the Peace Corp in India and being one of the original Democrats Abroad. He also said that he and his wife have been Democrats Abroad in a sense , having visited 145 countries in their work.
Linda, it's very touching that every article I've been reading since yesterday, there's always a mention to his inseparable wife. Together in life and in memory.
Godspeed, President Carter!
The world is a better place for the century you spent in it.
He sacrificed his Presidency for the country’s wellbeing when he brought Paul Volcker in to tackle inflation. People under the age of fifty do not understand that Bidenflation is a drop in the bucket compared to what Americans experienced almost a half century ago.
Thank you for wilderness protection.
Thank you for the Department of Education.
Thank you for the Camp David Accords.
Thank you for diversifying the judiciary.
Thank you for promoting human rights.
And so much more.
But most of all, thank you for being a good and decent man, who loved God, his wife, and his country, and who cared deeply about humanity.
This was a president who truly cared for his country and its people. While he wasn’t the most successful president, what he did with his life after the presidency was truly remarkable. He was certainly one of the finest citizens to hold that office. A remarkable man with a remarkable life.
A very fine, decent man. As the 1976 election was my first in which to participate, I worked as the Lexington area coordinator for the Carter campaign in my freshman year at W.&L. While President Carter became unpopular and I often wondered whether he was just not big enough for the job, I could never leave him.
Though I was conservative by temperament, I could not abandon him in favor of Governor Reagan, toward whom I warmed but feared would be heartless. President Carter's dedication to human rights and his determination to bring home our kidnapped countrymen without blowing Iran away are what I remember most fondly.
Two quick anecdotes. My father used to do a lot of work in D.C. and had occasion one evening to spend time in the White House. No, no BIG policies were hatched. Dad was taking up his favorite social posture: seated behind a piano in a sing-along. He found President Carter to be a real engineering type (i.e., steely), who soon departed the frivolities. Yet Dad was bewitched by Mrs Carter. As they talked behind the piano, Mrs Carter described her nightly 'paddling' (i.e., slogging) up and down the upstairs hall, occasionally annoying "Jimmy."
IT HAS BEEN FORTY YEARS, SO BE SKEPTICAL ABOUT DADDY-lore
The kidnapping of fifty-two American diplomats in November 1979, excited a taste for vengeance against Assa-hola Khomeini and his fired-up fuzzy-wuzzies. At the end of that school year, as l prepared to graduate, I was with a close friend, a dyed-in-the-wool lib. We were taking a survey on whether to attack Teheran, I admitted to my philosophy bud that, no, killing a bunch of Iranians would do no good. That was at a radical variance with my more public utterances at the fraternity house. I admitted to my intellectually more honest friend that, yes, I deeply admired President Carter for doing something I would unlikely be able to do: jamming the impulse to hit back, hard.