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Although he wasn't a very effective President, I've always thought that Jimmy Carter was a very good and decent person. Makes me wonder how he was ever elected President!
given the times, and given who was leaving the white house just a couple of years earlier, cater was a shoe in for president. ford was ineffective, nixon had his problems and resigned before being impeached, and here came jimmy carter. a soft spoken, honest man with integrity and morals. how could he not win the white house in 1976?
and he did have some success, he helped broker the peace deal between egypt and israel, one that has lasted since it was signed despite changes in both countries governments. he also helped broker the peace deal between israel and jordan, one that has also stood the test of time. and this makes carter a wonderful statesman.
his poor choices in running the economy, and his lack of backbone in standing up to the iranians however, sank his presidency.
Iran hostages situation was very embarrassing. He did try the rescue attempt which failed. Not his fault directly but as Pres. you take the credit and the blame. 1979 Energy Crisis. Dense pack. Panama Canal Treaty. Not a good four year term.
He was always a decent man, just way over his head with the presidency.
I wish all the best to him and his family during these trials.
I didn't like him as president, but at least he will no longer hold the title as the worst. That crown has been taken
At least he still liked this country.
The bolded comment intrigues me. The guy was a nuclear engineer. He was and is extremely intelligent. He was the unfortunate person at the helm during difficult financial times, culmination in the outright criminality of Iran-Contra scandal. I have a hard time seeing him as unfit. Certainly Reagan has stronger political skills than Carter, and would likely have beaten him in any event, but it begs the question of what is a person fit to lead.
Carter: Highly intelligent, perhaps indecisive, lacking in emotional intelligence, but of unquestionable character.
Reagan: Moderately intelligent, decisive, exceptional emotional intelligence and charisma, questionable character (assuming he knew anything about Iran Contra, and that he could do basic math (his tax policies were either outright lies or magical thinking)).
I don't see how Reagan was so far and away better, as many of the policies he set in place were fiscal nonsense, but he had the charisma to sell them in any way.
Although he wasn't a very effective President, I've always thought that Jimmy Carter was a very good and decent person. Makes me wonder how he was ever elected President!
So an ineffective President gets to enemies like Anwar el-Sadat and Menachem Begin (a former Jewish Terrorist) to sign a lasting peace between Egypt and Israel. An ineffective President also negotiates an orderly transfer of the Panama Canal and the Canal Zone to Panama before our lease on it expired in 1999. .Avoiding a insurgency and the probably loss of use of the Panama Canal in the inevitable fighting.
A weak President also hits the Soviets where they hurt the most when he got most of the Western World t boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The Soviets had a party but no body showed up.
Carter had the brains to cancel a hanger queen called the B1-A bomber and develop the cruise missile instead, put money into something out of the Skunk Works called Have Blue (The F-117 Night Hawk Stealth Fighter-bomber) and speed up the development of something called Navstar (we know it as GPS). Carter also went ahead with the deployment of the neutron bomb and the Pershing 2 IRBMs in Western Europe overcoming resistance from the British, Italian and German PMs.
Carter also stood by the Space Shuttle which had a problem filled development and the First Shuttle Columbia was rolled to Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on Dec 22, 1980 about a month before Carter left Office and 4 months before two very brave astronauts John Young and Bob Crippen took it on 3 orbits around the Earth and made a perfect landing at Edwards AFB . He also approved the Large (Hubble) Space Telescope, the Galileo probe to Jupiter, Voyagers 1 and 2 took off for Jupiter and beyond in 1977 (The Reagan administration actually toyed with the idea of shutting the Voyagers down after the Jupiter and Saturn flight-bys as a budget savings idea), and an American probe to Halley's Comet which The Reagan Administration cancelled in 1981 so the USA was the only space nation except China which did not send a probe to this comet in 1986 (The Europeans sent one, the Russians and Japanese two a piece). It was a crime the nation with the best space technology and the most experience in unmanned space flight was reduced to being a spectator as Halley made its trip around the sun not to be repeated until 2052.
Weak Jimmy Carter's best gift to he nation was the appointment of Paul Volker as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. It was Volker who squeezed out inflation from the American economy by raising interest rates to historically high levels causing a recession that was also a factor in Mr Carter going home to Plains GA four years early. Volker's task was made none the easier by Reagan's gratuitous tax cuts for the rich and historic Deficit spending (The modern way to print excess cheap money so we can continue to live on credit and have our checks for free).
Jimmy Carter did more for this nation in four years than most two term Presidents did in 8 years.
Typical liberal, disagree with someone and YOU HATE THEM. It's amazing you people don't seem to have any understanding of the vast gray area between love and hate. Jimmy Carter has done great things with Habitat for Humanity, but that doesn't change him being a poor president 35 years ago.
But don't you feel a lot of deep heart felt hatred against liberals, since you so sharply disagree with them?
Before Bush I Carter was the man. After that the United States started to fall. From my understanding Carter was the one who started the spy-program via space. While he looked like an fool to everybody he was really very smart.
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