Carter compared to Obama (interview, middle east, ethical, thought)

[Caleb Longstreet]

Despite what we all think of either, I think it's fair to say that although Carter was a less-than-stellar President he did carry himself with more dignity than Obama. I served under Carter and I want to paint a picture for you. At that time, the F4 Fantom, A4 were still heavily relied on for the front line fighters of our day. The M60 Patton tank was still our go to tank and when the hostages were taken, I was in Hawaii preparing our MATCU (marine air-traffic control unit) ready to deploy to the middle east. I was actually repairing radars built in 1940 and 1960 respectively).

Meanwhile, the university of Hawaii students were being interviewed as to what we should do about the hostages completely oblivious to exactly how weak our military was back then. Despite extremely low re-enlistment rates due to the incredibly low morale at the time, president Carter was not nearly despised as much as Obama. In fact, Jimmy Carter didn't really get to enjoy his poor reputation until almost 30 years later.

Why do I bring this up? Simple, times were......myopic in the late 70's. Carter was....well...weak in every sense of the word but, he was an ethical man. Just not qualified to be a president. And while we didn't receive raises for 2 of the 4 years I was in, despite rampant inflation, I never hated him. I made whopping $151 take home every twice a month in 1978. Laughable then hilarious now. Again, I never hated him....even on payday..... I just thought he was a dud. Weak on the world stage but I would never think to hurl the insults on him as we see today. We had a horrible economy, low military morale (think post Vietnam a few years hence), gas climbing, feeble economics. But again, he was a civil man and I respect him for that. Can't mistake efforts for results though nor should we forget that today.

Now, we have divided union that rivals the divisions of the civil war that is being run by a president who has consistently run his life with the sneer of a schoolyard bully. Despite the way higher than normal morale of the military today, most I believe probably do not care for him despite the fortunes we have spent, and rightfully so, arming them with equipment I couldn't have dreamed of just 31 years ago.

Both were poor economic producers but no one hated Carter nearly as much as Obama. I lived through both. Carter got us to double digit inflation and mortgage interest rates as high as 16%......no Shiite. He inflamed the Muslim world with a botched rescue attempt and the birth of the Islamic revolution was born. He was such a weak president that the ayatollah kept the hostage 444 days until an hour after Regan was sworn in. To my knowledge, Regan never kissed an Arab ass and was viewed as a true, credible threat and was spending the billions arming us to prove it. He blew it in Beirut when 283 unarmed marines were killed in a suicide bomb because the guards were carrying empty M-16's by order......and most of America still loved and forgave him.

Now? We have probably the least popular president I can remember who rose our dept roughly 50% in 4 years. Man, do I long for Cronkite who reported the news accurately. He along with Brinkley and others exuded a certain level of civility that is simply lost and perhaps forever in today's news crews festooned with models with breast augmentations....both sides of the aisle.

Bottom line? Things change. And while I do NOT like our president, I wish we could get back to a more carteresque time where we were vocal, truly, but did not become virulent to a point where we are just a hair away from screaming at the candidates with a fusillade of insults and curses that would make Alabama fans blush at an auburn-Bama football game.

I'm not sure I can blame our "fans". People do not like this guy and it's visceral. You can taste it. I'm in it as well. Probably not good for my blood pressure. However, I wonder if it's more due to the media treatment or quite simply the candidates.

Comparing them draws me to one conclusion. He's not liked because he is a chameleon. His old videos prove it. Bush couldn't even draw this much hatred and god knows the media did its level best to do so.

No, this guy is no Carter and that is a low, low bar to cross. How did we get here? What say you? And let me preface this that the reactions to this thread are going to be very......vocal, to say the least. Fire away.

[nick is rulz]

[banjomike]

There was plenty of venomous hatred of Carter back then.

We are all living in less civil times. Reagan and the Republicans were hard on Carter's policies, but they weren't hard on Carter himself.

Contrast that to reading this forum. How many derogatory nicknames do we see daily in reference to our President? How many of us use the honorary term Mr. when writing about any of the candidates for President this year?

Nickname ridicule has always been a part of politics, but were once only used by the least able to express themselves in polite conversation. Nowadays, being polite to each other in disagreement has been thrown in the garbage; there is some sort of mysterious belief that who is most able to insult the other wins something.

What it is that is won, if anything, doesn't seem to matter. Being casually disrespectful is coarsening us all, and is de-civilizing all of us.

What we write and what we say aloud is what we become. If America is truly the greatest nation on earth, then why are we so eager to appear to be nothing but a bunch of louts to the rest of the world?

[Boompa]

I tripled my worth while Carter was President and have doubled it under Obama, so far. It's better than the super rich getting richer

[hogstooth]

there's a difference

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