Jimmy Carter, the 39th President, finally died at the age of 100 in, of course, Plains, Georgia, which no one ever heard of before he arrived on the national scene. Ethics Alarms last discussed Carter here, in the fifth chapter of its inquiry to name the Worst President Ever. Carter made the final field that was announced this month, along with Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and, last but not least, Joe Biden.
I doubt there are many strong arguments that can be made to assert that Carter doesn’t belong there, just as there is little doubt that he doesn’t deserve the booby prize. Carter’s Presidency stands as testimony to the foolishness of the belief that good intentions mitigate failure. Carter supporters’ argument for his Presidency ultimate devolves into rationalizations such as #3A, The Road To Hell, or “I meant well,” #14, Self-validating Virtue, #38, The Miscreant’s Mulligan or “Give him/her/them/me a break!,” #18, Hamm’s Excuse, or “It wasn’t my fault,”and the dreaded #22, Comparative Virtue, or “It’s not the worst thing.” Given its crippling leftward bias, the mainstream media is tying itself into knots today to make Carter out to be something he was not, an effective President.
It is telling that one of the New York Times’s purest liberals, Nicholas Kristof, in a Carter eulogy today called “Jimmy Carter Deserved Our Thanks and Respect, Not Our Sneers,” keeps defaulting to aspects of Carter’s life that have nothing to do with his Presidency. Many U.S. Presidents were more effective and accomplished out of the Presidency than in it, including John Adams, James Madison, William Howard Taft and Herbert Hoover; they were great men, but not-so-great Presidents. On a macro level, anyone who takes on the killing and nearly impossible job of President of the United States deserves the thanks and respect of Americans even if they fail, but that’s the lowest of low bars to clear.
Carter is over-rated by progressives because he championed so many bad progressive ideas and principles that continued to metastasize after he had left office, including throwing money and government bureaucracies at problems (his Departments of Energy and Education), urging Americans to lower expectations and reject American exceptionalism (his infamous “malaise” speech), and his weenie approach to national power. Kristof: “Carter could have responded to the hostage crisis with an ultimatum and missiles fired at Iran; some aides thought that was the proper course, and he said he probably would have been re-elected if he had bombed Tehran. But countless innocent Iranians would have died, and the hostages perhaps would then have been executed as well. So Carter resisted that course…” Nick does not note that the hostages were released when Ronald Reagan was elected because Iran’s rulers knew that he would not hesitate to rain missiles on their nation and those innocents who supported their regime.
Similarly, Kristof applauds Carter for appointing “more women and people of color than all previous Presidents put together”(Exit question: how good a job did they do?) and “put[ting] solar panels on the White House roof.” The Kristoffs past and present also admire Carter for his mass pardon of Vietnam war draft-dodgers.
It is Carter’s post Presidency legacy that dominates the post mortem accolades, and that is as it should be. He didn’t cash in, like Ford, the Clintons and the Obamas; he did use his name, accumulated prestige and influence to do important work in the U.S. and around the world. On the minus side, he helped shatter the “democratic norm” of former Presidents not criticizing successors from the sidelines, a particularly annoying practice coming from someone who wasn’t very good at the job himself.
Our 39th President deserves honor and respect as he leaves our company just as all our Presidents do. But lets not get carried away.
ADDED: Conservative blogger Ace of Spades posted a link to a ten-part Carter indictment as the worst President in our history.
Ethics Alarms 
Not to blow my own trumpet, but I said all I had to say here: Presidents Day Hangover, Jimmy Carter Edition: A Popeye, A KABOOM! And An Epic Comment Of The Day. Part II, Comment Of The Day On The Carter Presidency | Ethics Alarms
I started to write that article as a counter-response to a certain cartoonist’s anti-eulogy of Ronald Reagan, which I found offensive, but as I wrote, I realized that I would be doing myself and whoever might read my writing a disservice by throwing too much snark and insults, so I switched (mostly) to substantive criticism, there was more than enough of that.
No, Carter doesn’t go to the absolute bottom of the heap of the 46 men who’ve held the office of President. THAT particular dishonor, IMHO, goes to Woodrow Wilson with Joe Biden missing by just a hair. BUT, he is a textbook example of good intentions NOT mitigating bad actions.
I remember reading that fine treatise when it posted; one of my 1st thoughts when I got yesterday’s news was EA will hear from Steve-O.
PWS
Yes, that was a splendid post, Steve.
In college, all of my poli-sci professors said that Carter was just too smart and too honest and had too much integrity to be an effective president. Yep. They said that.
jvb
I wrote a comment in the Friday Open Forum regarding a historian’s thoughts on Carter. You can look at the comment there, but here is the article I referred to:
“De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est.” “Of the dead speak nothing but good.”
–attributed to Chilon of Sparta (6th Century B.C.) by Diogenes Laertius in his Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers.
It’s an interesting dilemma. When assessing a historical figure, there needs to be a balance between decorum and bullshit.
Though I was still a youngster, I remember the Carter presidency. There were 5 noteworthy things that I remember.
1) Walking down Pennsylvania Avenue for his inauguration. While mostly symbolic and only controversial to the extent that others tried to make it so, it was his first act as President which–I think successfully–made the “Man of the People” statement.
2) His embarrassment of a brother seemed to make the news a lot, but to be fair: that’s not a knock on Jimmy himself nor should Billy ever have gotten the news and pop-culture attention he did. No one really liked “Billy Beer” as far as I know.
3) His alleged discussion of nuclear proliferation with his daughter Amy was gaffe that drew a lot of well-deserved flack, but perhaps in the end drew more than necessary. It was, after all, a “Dave Manning” lie (meaning so obviously a lie that no one SHOULD believe it) but at the same time it flew in the face of his honest every-man image.
4) The rising price of oil & gas was probably the most permanent legacy of Carter’s presidency, since to this day we’ve still never returned to less than $1/gallon, except MAYBE in a very few outlying dips and adjusted for inflation–but I seriously doubt it. The gas crisis also showed the American people that the surest way to fuck up the economy is to allow energy prices to spike because the resulting inflation will hurt everyone and never really go away. (This is, in my opinion, one way in which the Biden presidency has been eerily similar to Carter’s.)
5) Of course, the hostage crisis was the thing that dominated the news for 444 days. No, I didn’t have to read that number recently to remember it. It was part of the nightly news cycle EVERY NIGHT WITHOUT FAIL to tally up how long it had been going on. Even in my elementary school, there was a corner of the front chalkboard that was reserved for noting the number of days. Finally, after Reagan’s election when the hostages came home, the number ceased to rise and remained set at 444 for the rest of the school year.
I will give some dispensation to him for the gas crisis, since it was not a normal or natural event but an artificial shortage engineered by bad actors outside the US (OPEC). Unfortunately, his response to it (or, arguably, lack of response to it) just allowed it to go on and on and on with no end in sight. It’s no wonder people look back on the 70’s unfavorably.
But to be fair, I will say this for President Carter: as politicians go, he was as close as we’ll probably ever get to an “honest man” in the White House in the 20th/21st century, and in the wake of the Watergate scandal he stands as a hopeful example showing that the American people DO have a limit to how much corruption in government that they’ll tolerate. He was, in my opinion, every bit the “symbolic middle finger” to the Washington establishment of that time that President Trump was in 2016.
…and we NEED that from time to time.
–Dwayne
“No one really liked “Billy Beer” as far as I know.”
I recall the beer as being terrible. But, from my experience as a journalist covering the brewing industry, I can report that unopened cans of Billy Beer are extremely valuable collectables. So are the empty cans, but not to the same extent.
Well *I* was far too young to drink back then so I have no idea how it tastes.
But the cans being collectable today is understandable since you could call them “limited edition” and not being made any more.
–Dwayne
Well, you had to know that I would have to comment. Oddly, I agree in many ways with everything that has been written so far. I still like him better than almost every other U.S. president, all of whom were flawed human beings. Although it has never been proven, I do believe that Reagan’s election team “did a deal” with Iran regarding the hostages. I mean, come on! They were released mere minutes after Reagan took office. My mother believed it to her dying day at the age of almost 95 in 2013, and she furiously hated Reagan as a result. (I hated Reagan for a lot of OTHER reasons, but let’s not go down THAT rabbit hole.)
My beef with Carter has not been mentioned yet, and that’s not surprising given this group of commenters. No, my beef has to do with his ignoring the pleas from then-Archbishop (now saint) Oscar Romero to not send military aid to El Salvador and its junta government and security forces because — well, we all know why that kind of aid to El Salvador was wrong, don’t we? (Not trying to start something, but I’m pulling down the brim of my sombrero just in case.)
A seldom recalled incident that I had completely forgotten about!
What did you think of his full embrace of abortion, which I find inconsistent with devout religious beliefs generally, not only Catholicism?
Again, oddly (and you KNOW how odd I can be), I don’t care about the abortion stance for reasons I have told you already. (Another time, another blogpost, we’ll talk.) But I actually wanted to send you a link to an abortion-related article (also actually related to why I don’t care about the abortion issue) I read today as I believe it has multiples ethical issues which you ought to examine (IMNSHO).
I eagerly await the link!
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” says one adage. He indeed,a s others have said had good intentnion whcih unfortunateley resulted in to the hell feckless leader ship.
“Actions speak louder than words” would be an adage attributable to his post presidential years. His hands on work with Habitat for Humanity proved his Christian leitmotif.
However, he was also a known anti-semite in his dealings with Israel. often siding with other vicious antisemites like Arafat, who fooled the world en0ugh to be granted the Nobel peace prize.
I pray he rests in peace, but I will not wail!
Carter’s fans vociferously deny that he was anything but a freind of Israel.
I’d agree that Jimmy Carter was perhaps our worst president ever, but I will also admit that as an honest and decent human being (especially post presidency) he was head and shoulders above many of our leaders, before or since.
However, I’ve yet to see an event mentioned that I consider monumental. Remember in 1977, it was President Carter who signed the treaty with Panama that essentially gave away the Panama Canal.
Oh wait, of all places I see NPR has posted a story about that same thing today.
Someday, hopefully well after I’m long gone, this may prove detrimental to US security. At minimum, it is an asset that the US should have kept total control over – we built it after all.
Interestingly, none other than John Wayne wrote an op-ed supporting Jimmy’s decision at the time.
To be upfront and clear I have never been a fan of Jimmy Carter. While I was in grade school, I remember telling other kids what a terrible president he was. Years later I critiqued National Security Strategies and found that his administration had naive views on national security (his administration wasn’t the last).
Although, generally a terrible president, Carter was responsible for deregulation of air travel, trucking, and railroads. While Carter was not responsible for the Iranian hostage crisis (it was something that had been brewing for years) his administration was responsible for the rescue that went awry. To be fair, Carter also inherited a lot of issues with the military, including issues with pay and racism (there were race riots in the military).
Carter is an example of why being president is so difficult and that a set of qualifications for such a position does not exist and likely will never truly exist. Jimmy Carter also had blinders on when it came to certain conditions and like others fell for the rhetoric of the company he kept. The company that Carter selected for his administration and kept, deserves scrutiny, just as any modern administration does. It was the political appointees that had a greater effect on the American public than Carter himself. Carter, like a team manager, can set a path, but the individual players are the ones who determine the day-to-day performance of the team. In the end was Carter responsible, yes, yes he was, but not in the manner most people attribute to him. Rest in peace, President Carter, the American people made a poor selection and you stepped up and demonstrated how poor the decision was.