Jimmy Carter is the most unfairly treated President in American history

[Ardent15]

He was ahead of the curve on environmental issues, conservation, and energy. And his appointment of Paul Volcker as Fed Chief helped turn the economy around from stagflation, not Reagan's (robbing of the middle class to give to the wealthy) tax-cuts.

Yet so many people say he was a horrible President, which is just not true, especially compared to the people who came after him.

[DURHAM D]

1. How old were you when he was President? nt

[Ardent15]

3. Wasn't born yet

But I have read a lot of history and have come to my own conclusions.

[harkadog]

73. Wasn't born yet? That says alot.

[Zen Democrat]

86. I was around and definitely agree he was most underrated.

Reagan got credit for the economy because of Volcker, and it was Carter who deserves the credit for Volcker.

Carter got the Watergate-backlash ... MUST RUIN A DEMOCRAT. He wasn't perfect, but he was honest and about 10,000 times better than Reagan. Reagan got the media push even though he was a dumbass who couldn't tell the difference between real life and a movie script.

Walter Cronkite famously said that Jimmy Carter was the most intelligent man who ever sat in the White House.

I remember the Carter Administration in detail.

[harkadog]

120. Your history is a little distorted.

Carter probably got elected because of Watergate. People were disgusted with Republicans and with Ford for pardoning Nixon. During the Carter years we had super high inflation and interest rates. That combination killed off the industry I was working in -- the steel industry. It also knocked the shit out of the auto industry. Whether it was Volcker or Carter it happened in those years. I don't agree with those who try and compare Democratic presidents with Republicans. "At least he wasn't Reagan" "He is doing so much better than Bush" "What would McClain have done?" My standards are higher than that.

He may have been the most intelligent man in the WH but that says nothing about leadership and management skills.

[Bette Noir]

130. I was around. Times were tough, but it wasn't because of Carter.

He couldn't get a handle on the economy, which had been bad ever since Nixon. Then there was that little hostage situation with Iran, which Reagan engineered to get him elected. I was in my twenties, and remember it well.

[harkadog]

135. Reagan caused Iran to take hostages?

Was he also responsible for the botched attempt to rescue them? I have no use for Reagan but my tin foil is not on that tight.

[Chemical Bill]

142. No, Reagan didn't cause Iran to take hostages...

he just made a deal to sell Iran guns in exchange for them not releasing those hostages before the election. Ollie North was responsible for the botched rescue.

Bill

[harkadog]

156. I was replying to the poster who said Reagan "engineered"

the hostage takeover. North may be many things but this is the first I heard North was CIC during Desert One.

[Alameda]

199. You are twisting his words...that is not what was said....

[harkadog]

207. His/Her quote

"Then there was that little hostage situation with Iran, which Reagan engineered to get him elected."

[donheld]

210. What Reagan engineered was the release of the hostages

Do a little research on reagan's october surprise

[harkadog]

243. As much as I would like to blame that on Reagan I will go with the experts

as opposed to internet conspiracy lovers. http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/13/us/house-inquiry-finds-no-evidence-of-deal-on-hostages-in-1980.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all Note we controlled the House when this investigation was conducted.

[Chemical Bill]

254. Does the NY Times' record of lying mean nothing to you?

Does the name Judith Miller ring a bell?

Bill

[harkadog]

256. Let's see

Are you saying that the Times lied about the fact their was even an investigation? Congress never investigated this? If so why did no one in Congress call them on that? Or are you saying that the conclusions by Congress were falsely reported? Again why did no one in Congress call them on that?

[Chemical Bill]

257. I'm saying that ,,,

the NY Times will print what the government wants you to read. I'm saying that the Tower Commission, with it's mandate to investigate Iran-Contra, was told to not examine any arms sales to Iran before 1985. I'm saying that Congress is not a reliable source either. See "Tonkin Gulf Incident". Is all of this new to you? Is the concept that someone in government or the media might lie to you something that you don't consider to be a possibility? Just askin'....

Bill

[1monster]

143. That inflation was already high when Ford was in office. Or have you forgotten his cute little

button with the letters W.I.N. written on it?

It stood for Whip Inflation Now.

[harkadog]

161. When Carter left office interest rates and inflation

were "at near record levels" That is from the WH's own webpage. http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/jimmycarter

[Art_from_Ark]

172. I remember those buttons

You are right about inflation already being high when Ford was in office. Basically, inflation started getting into high gear when the last bit of precious metal was removed from circulating coins, and Nixon abolished the last remnants of the Gold Standard, committing the US to a truly fiat currency (both happened in 1971). That little matter called the "oil crisis" in 1973-74 added fuel to the fire, so to speak, and by 1974 it seemed like prices at the grocery store and gas pump (and elsewhere) were rising every week.

[G_j]

195. thanks for the memory

completely forgot about that, pretty lame..

[Cary]

171. He definitely got elected because of Watergate but. . .

that doesn't justify any of your conclusions. What it does say is that Carter didn't have the political allies because he did an end run around the establishment. However that doesn't account for the economic situation that he inherited from Nixon and Ford.

It's kind of harsh to blame him for cost push inflation that followed stagflation. It's not like he had any control over oil price shocks, or could have exerted any leadership to have prevented any of that. It's not like he wasn't the successor to erratic economic policies of the Nixon administration including the miserable failure that was price controls. Nor did he have any responsibility for poor management decisions in the auto and steel industries, where auto makers essentially were selling the same vehicles they sold since WWII and our steel industry was sitting on a 50 year old capital base.

Where I do fault Carter was in that huge gaffe he made in the debates. I forget what that was but he looked pretty damn stupid, and that was hard to do when juxtaposed to Reagan's folksy "Now there you go again" nonsense and his "voodoo economics."

On the whole though Carter gets a bad rap.

[happyslug]

218. High Inflation do to Carter????

First remember the main way to handle High Unemployment is to increase inflation, the main way to handle high Inflation is to increase unemployment. The problem in the 1970s was you had BOTH high inflation and high Unemployment. Which one do you attack first?

The Inflation of the 1970s started high under LBJ (In the late 1960s) when LBJ increased Military spending to pay for Vietnam. Now LBJ balanced the Budget in his last year of office, given Nixon a balanced Budget during the remaining time of the 1960 boom (Ending in the 1971 Recession) but Nixon had a choice for his true first budget, July 1969 to June 1970. Nixon could have asked Congress to re-new LBJ's temporary Income Tax increase for the June 1968-June 1969 Budget OR just run a Deficient. Nixon decided to run a deficit (The US has since gone to a October 1st to September 30 Budget year but that was NOT the case in 1969-1970).

Because Nixon decided NOT to raise Income Tax (Or more precisely to renew the Temporary Tax increase of LBJ) inflation increased during the next two years. This was compounded by the Increase of the price of Gasoline, which went from 25 cents a Gallon to 35 Cents a Gallon when Nixon was President. No one knew why the increase in prices (I should say no one was asking the people who knew, for they did not like the answers) but this price increased was noted and was BEFORE the oil embargo of 1973. With the 1973 Oil Embargo inflation went through the roof (as far as the US was concerned, going beyond 4% which was the highest it had been since the US Civil War). Nixon tried to use "Wage and Price" Controls to keep prices and wages down, but they failed for he was NOT about to restrict Profits NOR cut out Military spending, including the War in Vietnam. In fact from the 1930s till 1971 the US had maintain the Dollar at $35 an ounce of Gold. In 1971, Nixon decided to leave the Dollar float rather then keep it at $35 an ounce of Gold. Nixon did have a choice, but he did NOT want to Balance the Budget especially if that required cut back in Military spending, thus he preferred the Dollar to "Float", thus avoiding finding the money to keep it $35 an ounce (This increase in the price of Gold help hide some of the inflation during Nixon's and Ford's Presidency, another factor for the decision).

Nixon was impeached for Watergate and succeeded by Ford who proposed his "WIN" (Wipe Inflation Now) program, but Inflation continued. The main reason is Congress decided that they had two problems caused by the High Inflation do to excessive Military spending (The switch to an All-Volunteer Army was expensive) AND the desire to keep unemployment low. Unemployment was high for the simple reason the baby boomer's were entering the Job market. The peak year for birth of Baby Boomer's was 1957, add 18 that is 1975. By 1975 Congress had supplied enough support to Education and Job Creation that, while the total unemployment rate stayed high, you had a high turn over in who was unemployed (Average time Unemployed for an 18-22 year old entering the Job Market in the mid-1970 was about 18 months, i.e. took an average of 18 months for people to be hired AFTER they started to look for a job). Given the riots of the 1960s a concern of the 1970s was that if you had a large long term group of unemployed that could lead to riots and other unrest since the unemployed had no jobs.

This was the situation that Carter inherited. His first two years of his Presidency went well, then a recession hit AND the Shah lost control of Iran (Which lead to another huge increase in the price of fuel and that huge increase in the price of oil was the main reason inflation went to 18%). By 1980 Carter had developed polices to deal with these three problems, High Inflation, High Unemployment, and high oil prices. When Reagan became President, the first thing did was implement Carter's plan (Without the safe guards Carter had proposed, such as increased length of time on Unemployment AND higher Welfare payments). That plan was first to cause a Recession to get Inflation under control. The Second was to permit unemployment to raise to levels previously unacceptable, nut Acceptable by the early 1980s for you had a DROP in the number of people entering the Job Market, the baby boom ended in 1964, 1965 was the first year of the Baby Bust. 1964 plus 18 is 1982, thus you had less people entering the job market each year then you had in the 1970s and thus Reagan could do what Carter could NOT, concentrate on Inflation and ignore unemployment, which Reagan did but Reagan NEVER had an inflation rate less then 6%, which would have been unacceptable to Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ and Nixon (Kennedy and LBJ used deficients to get the economy going, but acceptable the fact that after a while you had to balance the budget).

The problem started with Nixon, Nixon knew that a Balance Budget WEAKENED the Presidency. While the Constitution says CONGRESS sets the balance, since the late 1800s Congress has delegated the first proposal for a budget to the President. Till FDR, Budgets were balanced. The President would propose a budget, but Congress could always change it to reflect what Congress preferred as long as it stayed Balanced (Except during WWI and WWII and the Great Depression). During the Great Depression FDR proposed small deficients to get the Economy going (And did well after the 1938 Recession) but turned once again to deficients during WWII. Truman returned to Balanced Budgets (Except to avoid a Post War Recession, do to Truman's handling of the Economy WWII is noted for NOT having any post war Recession, unlike WWI when the US went through a fairly harsh depression in 1919-1921). Under Nixon, the GOP found that it had more power if the President proposed a Deficient Budget. If Congress added thing to it, the President could blame the Congress to the bad affects of Deficients, if Congress tried to cut the Deficient, Congress would have to take the heat from the people affected by the Cuts. To Nixon that meant with a Deficient he had a win-win situation. Lobbyists would lobby the White House (And provide Campaign Revenues) to make sure what they wanted was in the Budget. Congress would then add more things that people had left out for various reason (the Classic situation was the Air Force, after looking for programs to cut, would cut the A-10 Air Support Aircraft, knowing the Army would campaign for it to be added back by Congress). The President could get the benefits of the Lobbying getting what they wanted, and Congress (Then Democratic) taking the blame for adding on to the Budget.

This continued under Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton (through he did propose a "Balance Budget" just before the Dot.Com Crash) and Bush II. Carter made the mistake of trying to CUT the Budget (Especially Defense, AKA the B-1 Bomber) and was hated for it. Clinton did cut Defense Spending, but mostly on the Army which saw a drastic drop in the number of Troops in the US Army WHILE seeing increase spending on Military Equipment (Even during the Gulf War, most troops still did NOT have body armor, that changed by the time the US invaded Iraq).

My point was Carter was trying to deal with both High Unemployment and High Inflation. Reagan came into office and decided that High Unemployment was acceptable (Given that the drop in people entering the Work Force by most Baby Boomer's being in the Work Force by 1982). Reagan also was willing to permit Union Busting to end cost of Living increase in wages. Most Union Contracts had such terms in the 1970s, but then Reagan showed the Country he would NOT support any union demands when he broke the Air Traffic Controllers Union. Nixon had tried to do that with the Letter Carriers in 1970s, but failed for no one was willing to do the Job of the Carriers for the wages they were earning AT the level the Carriers were doing the Job (And Business could NOT afford to have mail service interrupted the 3-6 months it would take for the new employees to do the job IF such workers could be found to do the Job in New York City, which was the heart of the Strike). With the Air Traffic Controllers Reagan could bail out the Airline Industry (Then Suffering from the first wave of deregulation) by restricting new flights and having Military Controllers do the Job of the Civilian Controllers. Once the Air Traffic Controller Union was broke, then he let the US Steel Industry self-destruct (As it had been predicted to do since the early 1970s unless the Steel Industry received Federal Aid and Reagan was NOT about to provide any such aid, through Carter would have). This one two punch to labor lead to almost every labor contract afterward NOT to have a cost of living clause, which started the rapid decline of Labor in this Country.

Reagan was also willing to accept what prior to 1970 would have been unacceptably high Inflation (and that 5-6+ inflation would continue till Clinton Balanced the Budget in the 1990s). The overall inflation of the 1980s compared to the 1970s is about the same. The only difference is that wage inflation, one of the heart of the 1970s inflation, died out early under Reagan (i.e. Working Class people LOST wages in the 1980s while they had held onto their wages in the 1970s with Cost of Living Increases). Reagan was a little bit luckily, three huge non-OPEC oil fields had come on line in the mid 1970s, but really started to produce after the high prices of 1979-1980. This dropped the price of Oil, in real terms NOT inflated dollars terms throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. Even with this general decline in the price of oil, inflation stayed HIGH under Reagan and Bush I for neither wanted to balance the budget, in the case of Bush even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and any real justification for most of the US's Military Expenditures.

My point is, yes Carter had 18% inflation but he had constantly lower Unemployment rates during his Presidency (As the Baby Boomer's were entering the Work Force in huge numbers), but Reagan accepted Volcker's reduction in the Inflation rate even at the cost of High Unemployment but Reagan refused to make any real attempt to balance the Budget NOR reduce Unemployment. It is easy to accept the GOP's Spin on Carter's Presidency, but that requires ignoring unemployment AND accepting that Reagan's increase in Defense spending did in the Soviet Union. Even the Russian's deny the later, for they admit they were in trouble BEFORE Carter was President. That huge oil field they opened in the 1970s kept the Soviet Union alive till it started to drop in production about 1987. With that drop in revenue the Soviet Union could NOT survive and the Former Soviet Union entered the 1990s in a horrible state caused more by the drop in Oil Revenue then anything the US did.

[harkadog]

244. You are wrong about the steel industry

We (I was working at a mill in Chicago and was a local union official) got hit in 79 and 80. Carter was President then. This occurred across the country with mill shutdowns and mass layoffs. I don't blame Carter for all that just as I don't blame any President for every economic woe. That is just plain foolish.

[happyslug]

251. And it was well known by the mid 1960s that that will happen

The Steel workers and the Steel Industry had a nasty strike in 1957, but by the mid 1960s US Steel companies had already seen the writing on the wall, that given the huge increase in Steel production capacity in the Third world AND Europe's policy of protecting its steel industry something had to give by the late 1970s early 1980s. I read articles as early as 1972 that the US Steel industry could NOT survive another ten years without Government intervention (yes by 1972). The No Strike agreement the USW worked out in the 1960s and 1970s was to permit the steel plants to be run at maximum speed so to milk as much profit as could be milked before the coming Collapse. Nixon and Ford Refused to do anything. Carter had his hands full with a Democratic Congress controlled by Southern Democrats (Soon or on they way to becoming Republics) and Tip O'Neill and his fantasy of getting Ted Kennedy elected in 1980. Thus by the late 1970s there was not much that could be done with steel till the collapse had fully run its course. The problem was it did not run its course till 1982-1983 and by that time Reagan was in charge and he refused to help the steel industry. Carter was in that middle period, to late to nationalized and avoid the whole debacle and to early to pick up the pieces and fix the problem.

What had been needed was intervention in the early 1970s to avoid the whole debacle and if that did not occur to pick up the pieces of the collapsed industry and rebuild. Carter was to late for one and to early for the other. Nixon refused to do the first and Reagan refused to do the second. Carter can not go away clean from that debacle but the greater harm was done by Nixon and Reagan.

[harkadog]

252. What I don't understand is how every other President had power

except Carter. The posters say Johnson did this, Nixon did this, Ford did this, Reagan did this and Carter couldn't do anything in his term. Doesn't make sense to me. I believe Carter had all the power every President has. Carter has never said he didn't and he has written several books about his time in office.

[Rhiannon12866]

258. I remember him well, too.

Reagan was also given credit for the fall of the USSR, when Carter's grain embargo was largely responsible. :patriot:

[Ardent15]

93. Oh, so you have contempt fo young people too... nt

[harkadog]

121. Not as a group just some of them.

Particularly those who say the Carter years were so good when they weren't even alive then. Or those who have to put up straw men in their arguments like Ford or Reagan.

[Bjorn Against]

139. I have heard a lot of people tell me that Lincoln was a good President

But I have yet to meet a single person who was actually alive during Lincoln's Presidency. Do you believe that everyone should stop commenting on Lincoln or do you acknowledge that people can have an understanding of a Presidency even if they did not live through it?

[harkadog]

154. I didn't post that

Please read again. I don't care who comments on what but when someone who wasn't alive tells someone who was alive that times were good that is not too realistic.

[Bjorn Against]

159. Well there are other people in this thread who were alive that agree with the OP

I read what you posted and my comment still stands, people comment on Presidencies that they did not live through all the time. People also comment on Presidencies that they did live through and have vastly different opinions of that Presidency, it is not as if everyone who was alive during that time period has the same view. I don't think it is fair to dismiss a person's opinion based purely on their age.

[Dan]

200. agreed...

Also remember the bills were coming for the adventure in Vietnam...

[WileEcoyote]

224. BINGO

Took a while for someone to come up with the correct answer.

Slow slow board tonight.

[gtar100]

219. Post++

Hard to believe you have to explain that but evidently you do. Very well put.

[Celtic Merlin]

182. What are your thoughts on FDR?

Or, do you not permit yourself to comment on FDR as you didn't live through his entire presidency? Were you even born while he was alive? Is your opinion of the man's presidency at all valid even though you weren't ever old enough to vote for him?

::eye roll::

Celtic Merlin
Carlinist

[harkadog]

193. I wouldn't tell people alive then the Great Depression was a good time.

[Bjorn Against]

205. I wouldn't either, but of course the OP said nothing even remotely like that.

[Celtic Merlin]

247. Nobody would.

Now would you answer the questions that I actually asked or are you gonna obfuscate some more?

[harkadog]

249. My thoughts on FDR?

Sorry those would go for several pages at least. Not going to take time to do that. I thought this thread was about Carter. My mistake.

[Celtic Merlin]

263. Alright then, that's one vote for "Obfuscation". Got it. Thank you.

[Sanity Claws]

165. He never said that the Carter years were so good

A lot of the chickens from prior administrations came home to roost on Carter's watch.
However, I don't hold him responsible for those chickens. At least he had the foresight to create an energy plan that was more creative and sustainable than "drill, baby, drill."
Carter has been underrated and blamed for things that were not his fault.

[harkadog]

168. The OP said Carter turned back stagflation

That is wrong. The stagflation number was at a record higher when Carter left office.

[Sanity Claws]

173. Carter is not responsible for stagflation of the 1970s

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/the-stagflation-myth/

[donheld]

215. Show me a post where someone said the Carter years were good

There are plenty saying Carter got blamed for things that came before his time and Reagan's shit, but nobody said the Carter years were good.

[harkadog]

250. See the OP

"And his appointment of Paul Volcker as Fed Chief helped turn the economy around from stagflation," That is from the OP. That would be good if true. It is not true.

[Caliman73]

232. The OP never said that either

Read the post again. It says that Carter was not treated fairly and blamed for many things he did not have control over. Also his legacy of environmental awareness was scrapped by the greedy Republican presidencies that followed. I was only a child during the '70s and I do not remember them as the best of times, but that is not what the OP was talking about anyway. Don't let your personal grudge against Carter for losing your job, get in the way of an objective look back at his presidency without the Republican propaganda as your guide.

[1monster]

140. I was in my early twenties. Even though I was angry at him at the time because his

energy policy hurt tourism (in which I worked at the time), I must concede that he was right, and that had his policies continued, this country and the world would be in much better condition than it is today.

But instead of his forward looking policies, we got Saint Ronnie Reagan and "Mourning in America."

[Celtic Merlin]

178. I was 18 years old the day Carter took office.

I remember his administration QUITE well. And while, like every president, he had his good moments and his bad ones - you could tell that the guy genuinely gave a damn about the country as a whole and not just the rich or the powerful or any specific special interest group.

Had he had another 4 years, we'd be alot better off today than we are now. For Reaganomics was a load of shit and Carter had much better economic policies.

Carter has been much maligned in the 30 years since he left office. He was a much better president than the conservatives will ever admit, and they are his biggest detractors. I've been around since Eisenhower was in the Oval Office. I've lived under Ike, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and now Obama. Yes, Obama is my 11th president. I'd rank Carter as a better president than Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and both Bushies. While he was unable to accomplish as many social goods as Johnson, Johnson also escalated the Viet Nam war beyond all reason. This, in my mind, puts Carter on par with Johnson but not quite the presidents that we had with Kennedy and Clinton.

Dumping on Carter has become a fun "pile-on" for alot of people, including many on the left. He was a better president than alot of folks give him credit for being. He was a Helluva lot more honest than any of the Republican presidents that I've lived under - excluding Ike of course.

If you don't agree with the OP's opinion of Carter, I certainly have no problem with that. You're entitled to your position on his administration as much as I am entitled to mine. And one of the greatest joys of this country is the freedom to express one's opinion on governmental topics. Intellectual debate of the finer points of these things is about as good a discussion as one can have on these websites.

HOWEVER . . .

To dismiss the OP's opinion with, "Wasn't born yet? That says alot." is utter bullshit. Should I discredit anything that YOU have to say because of your age? Are you too OLD and FEEBLE to have a valid opinion? Please. Show yourself to be more intelligent than to have to stoop to that level. Either rebut the opinion with reason and brain power or don't rebut at all. You should feel shame and embarrassment over that. I already feel that way a little in your stead. Curmudgeonly comments are NOT required when one reaches a certain age.

Engage brain THEN type.

Celtic Merlin
Carlinist

[Alameda]

198. I was around too....and I agree he did not get proper credit.....

[HowHasItComeToThis]

138. I WAS THIRTY SOMETHING

[LWolf]

240. 17 when he was elected,

and he's the only president in my conscious lifetime I have any respect at all for.

[Lil Missy]

2. most underrated maybe. most unfairly treated has to be Clinton.

[Yupster]

23. I'd vote for Hoover for most unfairly treated

He actually intervened in the economy more than any oresident before him (RFC). Since FDR went much further, Hoover became the guy who did nothing which was not at all true.

He also may be the very best human being to ever be elected president.

[Jennicut]

52. Hoover actually wanted to spend money on some programs

"Hoover economics" is a term that needs to be put out to pasture. It doesn't mean what many people think it means.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

71. Unless you were one of the Mexican Americans he deported as part of Repatriation

Then sucks for you.

[lumberjack_jeff]

102. Hoover's treasury secretary was Andrew Mellon

"liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people."

That was his solution to the great depression. No, I think history has judged Hoover about right.

He's actually the creator of "the southern strategy" too.

[Hippo_Tron]

202. He created a micro souhtern strategy

And it was mostly by exploiting anti-Catholic sentiment in the south against Al Smith, nothing to do with civil rights. I don't think the people who actually created Nixon's southern strategy really trace it back to Hoover.

[lumberjack_jeff]

242. Nixon's people were reinventing the wheel.

Hoover kicked blacks out of the southern Republican party precincts for the purpose of attracting whites, and it was largely successful because he was the first Republican to win much of the south.

[Bette Noir]

128. Are you insane?

[pocoloco]

92. Has everybody forgot Kennedy?

[pattmarty]

113. My opinion he was overrated as was "Bobby". Now his VP who later............

............became President, LBJ is in my opinion, grossly underrated. He would have been considered another FDR if it wasn't for his huge fuckup of Viet Nam.

[upi402]

229. I agree

There was that ballot box 13 stuffing issue to grab a senate seat, and many other Texas politics issues -which were carried over into the Executive Branch. But he pushed through many a wonderful legacy. How do I counterweight the dead young soldiers with that though? I dunno.

The Turner Joy/Gulf of Tonkin baloney says a lot to me about that man, in the end.

[DutchLiberal]

183. Talk about 'overrated'...

People just idealize him because of the assassination. He accomplished little.

[pattmarty]

187. Correct. The Cuban missile thing was probably his most remembered...........

.............accomplishment.

[DutchLiberal]

194. Kennedy unnecessarily provoked Castro and Krushchev...

Castro was no ally of the Soviet Union until the Bay of Pigs invasion, which happened under Kennedy. That drove Castro into the Soviet´s arms. Then Kennedy unnecessarily humiliated Khrushchev by publicly daring him to break the US blockade of Cuba. He put the world in danger only for the glory of the US.

[1monster]

248. While I agree with the overrated tag on JFK, I have to call you on the Bay of Pigs. That was

planned under the Eisenhower by the more than somewhat rogue CIA.

JFK was reluctantly approved the action, but was not prepared to go as far as the CIA took it. Neither JFK nor the CIA ever trusted the other again.

[DutchLiberal]

253. Still, JFK approved the action, reluctantly or not. He made the call.

Therefore he's politically responsible.

[Captain Hilts]

212. He's really over-rated. nt

[mdmc]

136. why do you think Clinton was treated unfairly?

is it because of the bj impeachment?

[pattmarty]

189. I really never liked Clinton all that much. A really smart guy with a.........

..........magnetic personality that could have been better than he was. As far as him being treated unfairly I agree with that assessment. The RW and their media lapdogs were all over him from the get go with Whitewater and then his zipper problems. They accused him in covering up a murder over the suicide of Vince Foster, accused him of smuggling cocaine out of some small airfield in Arkansas and all sort of other nonsense. The impeachment was just the icing on the cake finale. It never should have happened over lying about a BJ. There was plenty to pound him like NAFTA for instance and his stupid handling of the Healthcare thing for just a couple.

[mdmc]

209. thanks for the reply

:toast:

[Captain Hilts]

213. Right. And Dems wouldn't vote for his first budget or gays in the military. So, it was open season

on Bubba. He had no honeymoon with the Congress or press at all.

[dysfunctional press]

260. "unfairly treated" HAS to go to reagan...

too many people treat him with actual respect.

[RufusTFirefly]

4. I'll say this: He's certainly the best ex-president we've ever had

It seems apparent that after Johnson (and perhaps before) the Republicans concluded that they were entitled to the White House and tried a number of techniques to intimidate those Democrats who had the audacity of taking over their home. Carter marked the first successful non-violent approach to this Republican "problem."

[Ardent15]

6. Yep.

He puts all the other ex-presidents to shame.

[Bette Noir]

131. Yes. Heckuva fine human being.

[wroberts189]

5. And he commanded a nuclear sub. ..yet we were all led to believe he was a wuss.

I remember the gas lines and how "it was all Carter's fault"

[RufusTFirefly]

11. What about that wimp McGovern?

A decorated World War II bomber pilot?

In a world where an AWOL drunk can be whisked into the White House no questions asked while his opponent, a genuine war hero (John Kerry) can be put on the defensive, we know just how fair the assessment of political candidates actually is. The game is fixed. Successes can be painted as failures. Heroes can be turned into cowards.

[Enthusiast]

70. LOL,

Before I read your post I wrote one on McGovern.

This propaganda we endure is our greatest problem. We don't have a problem with reality, we have problem with the imaginary reality the GOP insist we inhabit.

[niceypoo]

14. The 'gas lines' of 73 lasted six months

I dont remember any gas lines while Carter was president, I just hear republicans whine about them endlessly.

[Ishoutandscream2]

38. 1979. There were gas lines alright

I was sitting in them. We had certain days we could buy on. I can't remember how it worked. But it was a pain. I wasn't driving in 1973, but I believe the older farts can probably attest that it was worse then than in 79.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

60. There were gas lines alright

I'm an "old fart", but don't smell that way, at least to me. :)

How it worked was on the even days of the week, if you had an even number ending your license plate, it was your day.
Of course if it was an odd day and odd number ending your plate that was your day.
Not a real biggie, it just took a little pre-planning.
Now that concept was in New York, I was stationed there, in beautiful Geneva, NY.
It may have been a little different elsewhere.

We learned very quickly who our friends were. C'mon we switched plates all the time if we really needed gas.

[drdtroit]

227. In Michigan it was based on the last digit of your license plate ...

Odd number could buy on odd number days alternating with even numbers on even numbered days.
It was estimated that we wasted 150,000 barrels per day waiting in line!
On April 5, 1979 the average price of crude oil was US $15.85 per barrel (42 US gallons). Over the next 12 months the price of crude oil rose to $39.50 per barrel (its all time highest real price until March 7, 2008.)

[ThomWV]

39. Not really. I don't think I waited in line for gas more than about twice (Miami, FL)

[Mojorabbit]

46. I did here in Orlando

many times and in very long lines.

[EFerrari]

62. We had them in the Bay Area. I was at school 90 miles away

and we had to be really careful on weekend visits back home or we'd be stuck. There was a beef shortage, too, iirc.

[KonaKane]

26. I love Jimmy Carter, but these nuke sub command stories are false, folks

Jimmy Carter never commanded a nuclear sub. He never even served on one. He served on diesel subs and surface ships and qualified for command of diesel-electric subs, which he never got. He also trained to be a an engineering officer on the USS Seawolf, but he resigned his commission before he had a chance to see that one materialize.

Again this is no slight to him, I have the highest respect for him and think he is most moral person in my lifetime to occupy the oval office. But we have to have to be truthful about history so the wingnuts don't pants us over it.

[wroberts189]

75. I cannot remember where I read that ..if false sorry. nt

[krkaufman]

112. Like the sig...

... but would suggest "Let the Hangover Commence" as a subheading. ;)

[mdmc]

141. I have to check my books on this one too

I remember Jimmy Carter talking about nuclear subs in his writings.. I thought he served on one but it may have been a very different type of sub..

I will check it out and post back..

[Thothmes]

35. Dont think Carter commanded a nuclear Submarine

He resigned his commission in the U.S. Navy in October of 1953. The first nuclear submarine was not placed into commission until January 1955.

[backtomn]

51. Thank You

We need to quit trying to resurrect this guy. This is another example of how people are stretching to make him look good. Enough. Let him do that. This is not a debate that we want to start.....Please.

There are MUCH bigger issues.

[Bette Noir]

133. He doesn't need to be resurrected. He's still alive.

[ElboRuum]

186. pa-zing!

[backtomn]

221. Brilliant !!

I am certain that is the best you have.

[Name removed]

180. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[G_j]

203. omg

you must be kidding

[wizstars]

100. Actually, for four years.....

...he commanded ALL of 'em! :D

(and he did a DAMN-sight better job of it than reagan or either bush!)

[Thothmes]

149. But that is much different than having command of a ship.

which he never had.

[DeadEyeDyck]

57. Not correct

Carter only reached Lt. in the USN. Lt. do not command anything. He surrendered his commission prior to the launching of the USS Nautilus, SSN-571 being commissioned.

[deaniac21]

68. untrue

Naval career
Carter served on surface ships and on diesel-electric submarines in the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. As a junior officer, he completed qualification for command of a diesel-electric submarine. He applied for the US Navy's fledgling nuclear submarine program run by then Captain Hyman G. Rickover. Rickover's demands on his men and machines were legendary, and Carter later said that, next to his parents, Rickover had the greatest influence on him.

Carter has said that he loved the Navy, and had planned to make it his career. His ultimate goal was to become Chief of Naval Operations. Carter felt the best route for promotion was with submarine duty since he felt that nuclear power would be increasingly used in submarines. During service on the diesel-electric submarine USS Pomfret, Carter was almost washed overboard.<10> After six years of military service, Carter trained for the position of engineering officer in submarine USS Seawolf, then under construction.<11> Carter completed a non-credit introductory course in nuclear reactor power at Union College starting in March 1953. This followed Carter's first-hand experience as part of a group of American and Canadian servicemen who took part in cleaning up after a partial nuclear meltdown at Canada's Chalk River Laboratories reactor in 1952.<12><13>

Upon the death of his father, James Earl Carter, Sr., in July 1953, Lieutenant Carter immediately resigned his commission, and he was discharged from the Navy on October 9, 1953.<14><15> This cut short his nuclear powerplant operator training, and he was never able to serve on a nuclear submarine, since the first boat of that fleet, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), was launched on January 17, 1955, over a year after his discharge from the Navy.<16>

[wroberts189]

87. Sorry ..guess I got confused a bit on something I read ..he did get one named after him though..

http://www.navysite.de/ssn/ssn23.htm

USS JIMMY CARTER is the third and final SEAWOLF - class nuclear-powered attack submarine and the first ship in the Navy to honor the 39th president of the United States and the only U.S. president to qualify in submarines.

As the most advanced submarine in the SEAWOLF - class, the JIMMY CARTER has built-in flexibility and an array of new warfighting features that enable her to prevail in any scenario and against any threat – from beneath Artic ice to shallow water. Differentiating the JIMMY CARTER from all previous undersea vessels is its Multi-Mission Platform (MMP), which includes a 100-foot hull extension to enhance payload capability. The MMP enables JIMMY CARTER to accommodate the advanced technology required to develop and test new generation of weapons, sensors and undersea vehicles for naval special warfare, tactical surveillance and mine-warfare operations.

[mdmc]

144. thanks for the info..

[Demoiselle]

148. Thank you for this!

This kind of information is what I love best about DU.
My first child was born in 1976 so I certainly lived through the Carter years. But I never knew about his navy career in this kind of detail.
Carter was clearly very bright and able. Also horribly unlucky. Also the victim of the Reagan cohort's treason (imo) vis a vis Iran. And. speaking of another gentleman, LBJ was a brilliant power broker. What a tragedy that he was so wrong about Viet Nam.
And as long as we're examining past presidents, I believe, in hindsight,, (as a fervent life-long Dem, by the way) that poor old Richard Nixon's policies were not so terrible, especially when compared with Reagan and Dubya. Tricky Dick actually created the EPA, among other things. And, if memory serves, he really didn't try to eviscerate the New Deal/Fair Deal Democratic progress that preceded him. Too bad he was paranoid. If he'd been a more generous soul, maybe he could have broken the right wing continuum between Joe McCarthy and the teabaggers. (Yes, I'm old enough, just barely, to remember McCarthy too.)
One more comment:
My husband was born in England and remembers well the Blitz and hideous rationing and no heat and more rationing and the Blitz. (He's considerably older than I am, and he's been an American citizen for a long time.)
But anyway...
Somehow the idea of having to wait in line to fill up the car gas tank has never really bothered him all that much.
Are we really that delicate in this country?

[deaniac21]

164. Wage and price controls....opening dialog with China....

hardly neocon.

[Enthusiast]

69. Again, this is how the GOP

co-opted the Carter image and replaced it with the one they wanted-pure propaganda.

They did exactly the same with presidential candidate and WWII Bomber pilot George McGovern. Because McGovern was against the wrong headed Vietnam War he was vilified much as Carter was.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern#Military_service

[Rebubula]

74. Though I agree he was maligned...

...he never actually served on a nuclear sub....much less commanded one.

He was and IS a fine, upstanding man that can still teach all of us what it is to be human.

[Joe Chi Minh]

91. Our low-life, UK media loved to tag him as 'former peanut-farmer, President Jimmy Carter!'

[surrealAmerican]

111. He identified himself that way in many cases.

Because watergate created so much distrust of political "insiders" in this country, in order to be identified as a "man of the people", he needed to show that he was not a politician, but a "regular guy".

Most presidents in this country make some attempt to do this. Carter had more credibility than many in that respect.

[Joe Chi Minh]

245. That may be so, but you can be sure you that our media didn't dub him

thus out of a desire to enhance his credibility.

[pattmarty]

115. Joe, you still live in the UK? Compare our MSM to your if you would.

[LeftishBrit]

124. The British MSM? Well, the BBC is much better than Fox News, BUT...

the British Press is another matter and is very influential. Our widest-circulation newspaper is the Sun, a Murdoch-owned hard-right hard-stupid tabloid, best known for its 'Page Three girls' and for such notorious headlines as 'FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER' and 'GOTCHA!' (the latter was their comment on the sinking of the General Belgrano in the Falkland War). The next-biggest is the Daily Mail (or Hate-Mail), slightly more literate, but also viciously RW and sensational. (If Rush Limbaugh's talk-show was a British newspaper, it would be the Daily Mail.) The Daily Express is out of the same stable. All of these papers hate immigrants, gays and other social minorities, and anything that came into existence after the 1950s, with the exception of the reign of the blessed St Margaret Thatcher! The Mirror is not RW, but is also unreliable and sensational. The broadsheets are better but flawed (and much less well read). The Daily Telegraph is called 'The Torygraph' for good reason. The Times, over 200 years old and once our most respected paper, has taken a sad tumble in attitudes and accuracy since being taken over by Murdoch in the 80s. The Independent is rather better, but on its last legs. The Guardian is the best of our papers, but noted for its typos and inaccuracies in detail (sometimes called The Grauniad) and has a very small readership compared with the tabloids.

Moral: never trust anything that you see in a British tabloid newspaper, and be cautious about the rest of our press.

[DutchLiberal]

184. Reads like an account of the Dutch press...

It seems to be going on in all of the Western world. Keep dumbing down the public...

[pattmarty]

185. It sounds a lot worse than most of our papers.

[Joe Chi Minh]

129. In terms of right-wing propaganda, there doesn't seem to be a lot in it.

The Daily Mail's coverage of Haiti, for instance, was obscenely defamatory of the Haitians. They also thought Hitler and Mussolini were the cat's whiskers. On the other hand, they have a lot of human interest stories, and bizarrely, they understand that our society really is broken, a significant part of it due to its secularisation, although, of course they see no politico-socio-economic connection, which has also played a key part.

Fox News sounds like our Sun newspaper - both owned by Murdoch. There's a surprise. But TV generally in the UK is right-wing. Of course, like your Republicans re their 'liberal media', our Tories complain bitterly of any more truthful 'take' the BBC, in particular evince, as it is publicly-funded. The Guardian, as I'm sure you know, has some great articles on geo-politics, the economy, science, the latest shenanigans of Big Business, politicians, etc, and also occasionally has interesting articles on different faiths.

I believe all the black-tops have interesting articles from time to time. There was a great interview with Nassim Nicholas Taleb on the Times Online a while back.

The Scottish Sunday Post is right-wing, though not as overtly rabid as the Mail, and has terrific 'human interest' content. The Daily Mirror used to be greatly-respeced left-wing, national daily, but is now more or less a comic for youngsters. Under Maxwell, it helped Bair come to power and has since assisted NuLab(c) to destroy what tey are pleased to call, Old Labour. Still, NuLab(c) are at least more subtle than the Tory knuckle-draggers. The Mirror still helps with its NuLab(c) political tub-thumping, so it's not all bad. Though we deserately need proportional representation.

Sorry my info's a bit of a hotch-potch.

[pattmarty]

239. Thx. Myself like most Americans, don't get a chance to travel...........

...........around the world to see different societies. The Americans that do are either well off or with the US government. I think it is one of our many problems over here. I am going to say that a "majority" of US citizens STILL believe that the US is number uno in everything. About the only things we actually are number one in nowadays is military spending and the number of people in prisons. Hows about that for the "home of the free".

[RufusTFirefly]

166. Carter actually gave out little packets of peanuts at early campaign appearances

I know because I got some at a candidates forum in Towson, MD.
At the time, however, I thought he had absolutely no chance. He just seemed to be one of the also-rans, just one step above the dude who was putting up his own campaign posters.

By the way, the dude with the campaign posters was none other than George Roden, who went on to become the head of the Branch Davidians and ultimately was institutionalized after being found not guilty of murdering his roommate by reason of insanity. If I remember correctly, Roden's major campaign promise was that if elected president he was going to raise the speed limit.

[Bette Noir]

132. The gas lines were during the Nixon administration.

Of course, since Obama is being blamed for the current recession, it'd be typical Republican behavior to blame them on the Democrat who followed.

[backtomn]

220. So what??

You don't see any repubs defending Nixon. Give it up. Next issue.

[gelinas]

151. he might have commanded a nuclear sub...

if he stayed in the Navy....from Wikipedia:

Upon the death of his father, James Earl Carter, Sr., in July 1953, Lieutenant Carter immediately resigned his commission, and he was discharged from the Navy on October 9, 1953.<14><15> This cut short his nuclear powerplant operator training, and he was never able to serve on a nuclear submarine, since the first boat of that fleet, the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), was launched on January 17, 1955, over a year after his discharge from the Navy.<16>

[Captain Hilts]

211. NO, he never commanded a sub, nor was stationed on one for any extended period of time. nt

[Webster Green]

7. If we had followed his advice, we would be far less dependent on foreign energy sources.

He was way ahead of the curve on alternate energy.

I was doing very well during that period of time. Jobs were plentiful. It was great.

Then came Reagan. :-(

[david_vincent]

42. So true

When Carter took office, the U.S. led the world in alternative energy R&D. He put up solar panels on the White House lawn. The very first thing Reagan did was to have the solar panels taken down -- it's like he walked in the door and said, "Take those damn solar panels down." What an asshat. And guess who isn't number one in alternative energy research anymore... ?

[pattmarty]

116. Or much of anything else, for that matter. Oops, I forgot about prisoners.

[BrklynLiberal]

98. He was a victim of the Neocons. One of the first steps in their plan to take over.

We would all be much better off today if he had been re-elected, and we followed his policies.

[Flying Dream Blues]

106. Follow the money on that one, right? (Alternative energy sources). nt

[liberalpragmatist]

8. Carter had a terrible climate and a hostile Congress, but he made self-inflicted wounds

I agree with your general premise that Carter is underrated. In foreign policy, he pulled off the Panama Canal Zone Treaty (a huge controversy at the time), opened relations with China, and negotiated the Israeli-Egyptian peace accord. In domestic policy his job creation record was actually quite sound and he did appoint Paul Volcker, who really was the person who ended Stagflation (not Reagan), as you noted. His energy policies were extremely far-sighted, too, as were many of his environmental policies.

However, Carter came into office with huge Democratic congressional majorities - far larger than today - and yet had very few major domestic policy achievements. Much of this was the fault of Congress. The Democratic majority was fat, lazy, and extremely fractious, spanning the spectrum from the New Left, left-liberals, old school New Deal Democrats, and several extremely conservative Southern Dixiecrats. And they HATED Carter - almost to a person. They viewed him as a pretentious upstart and shredded all his initiatives.

That, however, doesn't absolve Carter completely. He made several self-inflicted mistakes, such as picking needless fights with Congress in his first year (thereby contributing the alienation), and running an extremely disorganized and mismanaged White House that had no idea how to work the legislative process. His superb appointment of Volcker was really a correction for his appointment of G. William Miller to be Fed Chair. Miller proved to be a disaster and arguably lengthened and deepened stagflation considerably.

Carter also has no one to blame but himself for dropping his own campaign's comprehensive health care reform proposal and shelving it until some future, vague point. That, more than anything, was what turned Ted Kennedy against Carter and it was really a lost opportunity. After all, Nixon had nearly passed universal health care, there were huge Democratic majorities, and there were consensus bills in Congress that would have reformed the system in a much more progressive way than either Clinton's or Obama's proposals would have. Yet Carter completely ignored the issue, and let it die.

It's also worth pointing out that conservatives' hate for Carter makes little sense. Throughout his presidency, it was the liberal base of the Democratic Party that hated Carter, because Carter was, at heart, a fairly conservative naval officer. Many of Reagan's "achievements" were foreshadowed by Carter. Carter de-regulated the trucking and airline industries. Carter instituted tax cuts and planned more. Carter cut off detente, first ordered the military buildup against the Soviet Union and supported the Afghan Mujahideen. The air traffic controllers endorsed Reagan in 1980 because Carter had planned to fire them.

So while Carter's presidency was more accomplished - and more prescient - than most believe today, many of the criticisms are true. He really was a terrible manager and despite large majorities, his legislative achievements were fairly thin.

[Ardent15]

9. This is all true.

There are many sides to every story.

Like you said, Carter is to blame for some of what went wrong. But he really is underrated and unfairly maligned.

[opihimoimoi]

13. Re Pres Carter....I love the man....he was and is COUNTRY FIRST. Altruistic, generous, intuitive

[RufusTFirefly]

15. I'm an atheist, but Carter is one of my all-time favorite Christians

I admire those who demonstrate their faith by deed instead of by word. Carter is the real deal.

[kath]

17. Same here, Rufus.

I could have written your post, word for word.
Atheist, think Carter is a TRUE Christian, in that he practices the social teachings of Christ as presented in the New Testament. Admire the heck out of the guy.

Also give money to both of his charities -- Habitat and The Carter Center.

[phasma ex machina]

181. I'm a Christian who recently stumbled across this history of strange bedfellows.

Why I Am Not a Puritan

(10) The innocence of much of America had been seemingly violated, the nation was shaken (and I might add, showed how fragile America really is--how little negative truth we can really handle), and there was yearning among many for a Presidential leader who embodied integrity. Such a leader emerged in the person of the Southern Baptist Sunday School teacher, Jimmy Carter, who promised never to lie. Pat Robertson later said, “Carter was the one who activated me and a lot of others. We had great hopes… was like our champion.”

(11) However, Carter didn't promised never to betray. Not only did he not appoint any fellow evangelicals to key positions, but, more importantly, one cannot overestimate the sense of betrayal that American evangelicals who voted for Carter (I was one of those) felt when he was soft on abortion rights and allowed for the redefinition of the family to include homosexual couples. A last-ditch effort by President Carter to repair relations with key evangelical leaders was attempted in a breakfast meeting late in his administration which included D. James Kennedy, Charles Stanley and Jerry Falwell.

(12) It is my belief that there may be no more defining a moment in the past 50 years than the moment that Jerry Falwell decided that he could no longer handle the social-issues betrayal of a fellow Baptist from the South (on top of the regional sociological embarrassment of Carter's apparent failures and family--Billy Carter , et. al.) and decided to become politically engaged. At the moment he made that final, fateful decision, he decided to spurn his long-stated commitment to the apolitical and church/state separation heritage of Roger Williams for the sake of the gospel and (not so much from an new ideological view, but from a sense of desperation and love for America) began to support a neo-Puritan resurgence. I call his new-found posture quasi-neo-Puritan, because it never embraced the whole (particularly the postmillenialism) of Puritan theology, nor did it smack of the elitism that both New England Puritanism and anti-Puritanism still seems to sustain to this day. Falwell was never about theocracy (the Puritans were). I think it was about many other things--love of America; disgust with 1960s northern liberalism; regional pride/assertiveness; temptation of fame/power most likely being among them, none of which had really anything to do with the gospel of Christ. As I have decided to share in an upcoming mea culpa, I actually have a lot of sympathy for Falwell; I just think he was wrong.

Look beyond the marquee names to appreciate the political legacy of an irony; wrapped in a twist; inside a tangle.

[opihimoimoi]

18. As once commander of a nuke sub...he was not a dummy

[1awake]

28. But he wasn't.. just sayin n/t

[ThomThom]

45. he is a nuclear engineer

also when he took office the moneyed interested took their toys and went home at a time when the economy was not doing well even though Reagan spent all the money he got from working people for SS and then some

the high oil prices of the time were a killer

[Rebubula]

84. No dummy...

...but no commander either.

[condoleeza]

34. Me too, Rufus,

sad to think of what he could have done if he hadn't been destroyed by the Republican Party. As far as I can see he is the ONLY past POTUS who has ever gone on to live a life that made a difference to the world. Dog bless him for trying.

[Enthusiast]

72. You are right.

He is a "real" Christian, an inspiration to all, or should be.

[kristopher]

20. The Irnian Hostage Crisis and the failed rescue attempt is what did in his presidency

I agree that he was the best president we've had since FDR, and I loathe Reagan and the social foundations of selfishness and greed he validated.

Carter could have survived everything else, but his ability to retain his sanity in the face of Iran taking our embassy personnel hostage allowed the same lynchmob mentality we saw post 911 to take over the electorate.

Remember this, "Nuke'em 'til they glow and use their asses for runway lights"?

[mrcheerful]

24. Well not really, Carter wasn't going to trade weapons for hostages like

Reagan did and Carter was also dealing with a volunteer army made up of whoever the military could find to volunteer, I knew a few that joined for the drugs and booze that would not have been able to join a few years before Carter. A friend who served at the time often complained that the equipment he used was worn out and 1/2 the time he was out playing war games the APC he was assigned to would break down in a matter of an hour or two. Which was why the rescue attempt failed, helicopters crashed and broke down at the staging area so they didn't have enough helicopters running to continue the rescue attempt.

The media broke the story as Carter blundered the attempt, but then the media at the time was starting the Reagan myth machine they would become during Reagans mis running of the country. By the time Reagan was investigated for everything that he did illegally the media made Reagan seem not to know what was going on by his agencies he was supposed to be running, which was mind blowing at the time because the people never once went into an uproar about, A president wasn't able to control his government? WTF?

[Webster Green]

27. Poppy Bush made sure that the rescue mission failed.

He probably had some of his black-ops traitors pull some shit to fuck up the choppers.

His mission at the time was to get Reagan elected at any cost. He is one evil fuck, and I still think he was the cause of the failed rescue mission.

It was a BFEE strike, and the deal with the Iranians was just the icing on the cake. :grr:

[mrcheerful]

31. Yeah there was that going on to but I was just going by what could be

proved by what was written at the time.

[kristopher]

41. That is crazy talk.

We don't need to resort to conspiracies to explain the failure, it was just a case of cascading errors and weaknesses in the plan that all seemed to go wrong at the same time - mostly related to weather

[Enthusiast]

79. Nope.

No conspiracy. The most likely thing that happened was that Poppy Bush's dirty tricks squad carried it off as suggested.

You suggest errors and weakness in the plan that all seemed to go wrong at the same time. Again, emphasis on President Carter's incompetency-right wing talking points.

If we didn't know for certain, we would tend to call Iran-Contra a conspiracy theory, right? I mean, it sounds no more plausible that the above ideas on the Special Opps failure.

[Enthusiast]

77. I've always believed

the same thing. Killing American military Special Opps to achieve their ends was nothing to C.I.A. Poppy Bush.

[Rebubula]

101. -facepalm-

:crazy:

[Webster Green]

134. Oh yeah, I'm nuts..

There's no way the BFEE would go that far to achieve their goals. :sarcasm: :rofl:

[Rebubula]

238. Oh...

...they would. However, this mission was doomed and the execution was flawed.

Just because something goes wrong does not mean that someone sabotaged the plan.

In reality, too many people give the so-called BFEE too much power. They are a small cog in a big wheel. There are many other groups\families\NGOs with FAR more power and malevolent intent than our homegrown terror cell.

[Webster Green]

255. Innocent until proven guilty, no doubt about that.

I have no proof, so you win, but in my opinion, the evil old fascist murderer Poppy Bush had a hand in some nefarious shit to derail the rescue mission. :mad:

[kristopher]

40. Not sure what you mean by "not really".

Everything you say is true, but you are addressing points that were not raised. My statement was that the Iranian Hostage Crisis and the failed rescue attempt caused Carter to lose the election. It did. I don't assign blame to Carter for this, I give that blame to the same public that allowed themselves to neoconned into invading Iraq. My feeling is that Carter showed the type of leadership at the time that we needed when Shrub allowed the militarists to lead him into disaster. It would have been extremely easy for Carter to have taken an even worse path and resort to the use of nuclear weapons - at the time the public was clamoring for it.

I was in the Air Force when all this went down and a couple of years later I got to know Col. Charles Beckwith (the Army Delta Force commander on the raid) while he was waiting to retire. The points you raised about the downsizing of the military are accurate, they really weren't a factor in the problems associated with the mission's failure. They mission members were top notch and their equipment was top line (but the fact that we didn't have airlift designed for use in a desert environment was critical).

Carter is my hero. If I gave any other impression I failed to communicate my thoughts properly.

[Enthusiast]

76. This is lost on so many.

And you are exactly correct. The media was completely one-sided even then. Of course it was far more subtle than Fox News of today but the bias was clearly there.

[Captain Hilts]

214. Reagan NEVER gets blamed for dealing with kidnappers or turning tail after the Marine Barracks were

bombed. He gave in at every juncture.

[pnorman]

32. "The air traffic controllers endorsed Reagan in 1980 because Carter had planned to fire them."

I was aware that PATCO was one of the very few unions that had endorsed Reagan, since it was at the time an affiliate of my own Union (MEBA). But that Carter had planned to fire them, is brand new to me! I'll try to Google it, but I would greatly appreciate some background material on that.

[BrklynLiberal]

103. For what it is worth...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_%281968%29

<snip>
PATCO was founded in 1968 with the assistance of attorney and pilot F. Lee Bailey. On July 3, 1968, PATCO flexed its muscles by announcing "Operation Air Safety" in which all members were ordered to adhere strictly to the established (though impractical) separation standards for aircraft. The resultant large delay of air traffic was the first of many official and unofficial "slowdowns" that PATCO would initiate.

In 1969 the U.S. Civil Service Commission ruled that PATCO was no longer a professional association but in fact a trade union.<2>

On March 25, 1970, the newly designated union orchestrated a controller "sickout" to protest many of the FAA actions that they felt were unfair, over 2,000 controllers around the country did not report to work as scheduled and informed management that they were ill.<3> Controllers called in sick to circumvent the federal law against strikes by government unions. Management personnel attempted to assume many of the duties of the missing controllers but major traffic delays around the country occurred. After a few days the federal courts intervened and most controllers went back to work by order of the court, but the government was forced to the bargaining table. The sickout led officials to recognize that the ATC system was operating nearly at capacity. To alleviate some of this Congress accelerated the installation of automated systems, reopened the air traffic controller training academy in Oklahoma City, began hiring air traffic controllers at an increasing rate, and raised salaries to help attract and retain controllers.<2>

In the 1980 presidential election, PATCO (along with the Teamsters and the Air Line Pilots Association) refused to back President Jimmy Carter, instead endorsing Republican Party candidate Ronald Reagan. PATCO's refusal to endorse the Democratic Party stemmed in large part from poor labor relations with the FAA (the employer of PATCO members) under the Carter administration and Ronald Reagan's endorsement of the union and its struggle for better conditions during the 1980 election campaign.<4><5>

<snip>

so much for campaign promises!!!!

[pnorman]

117. Thanks for that! I never knew that.

As far as I know, PATCO came into my union (Marine Engineers Beneficial Association) at an early date, possibly at the time indicated. The head of MEBA then, was Jesse Calhoon, one of the few labor union leaders who was quite "chummy" with Nixon. On a SHORT TIME "porkchop" basis, that made some sense, and it paid off with more shipping jobs. And Nixon was (on domestic issues) still playing by New Deal rules. But Reagan, as we all know, was a different animal altogether!

But my initial query about that ""The air traffic controllers endorsed Reagan in 1980 because Carter had planned to fire them." assertion is still needing an answer.

[live love laugh]

222. Sounds revisionist since Raygun actually did fire the controllers. nt

[Lasher]

233. But during the campaign Saint Ronnie promised the unions he would support them.

I saw a letter from Raygun to the air traffic controllers, saying exactly that. Then as soon as he got into office he shitcanned them.

[Demeter]

54. Carter Had the Worst Taste in "Friends"

Burt Lance, for example.

[ooglymoogly]

64. +1. Yes Carter was a good person, but as a president he was not as good.

He wore his devout religion on his sleeve to his detriment; ok for a good person, but not ok for a president. The hostage rescue was badly botched with amateur planning under his watch. Interest rates that banks charged reached 23% during his presidency. The Panama canal was a vital interest and many believe he gave it away to an unstable dictatorship (Torrijos) to our detriment. Does that out way the good things he did, human rights, Dept. Education and energy. to name a few? History is still speaking on that; But about mediocre is the best I can say having lived through it. Just say'n

[Joe Chi Minh]

96. 'Just sayin' is exactly right. 'Having lived through it' is a truly pathetic claim to

authority.

What do you know about the planning that went into it, eh? Nothing, I'll bet. Someone on here does know what went into
it, and senior people involved. Yet you seem to think we should respect your MSM-formed conjecture?

[ooglymoogly]

216. Ah such repartee! Such rapier wit! Such construction of thought!

and what a turn of phrase. I feel the sting of these dullest of arrows most, for though they do not penetrate, they do ever so slightly, turn the stomach. What was I talking about? Oh well no matter; Twas of naught.

[misanthrope]

89. You left out his Catch-22...

...Carter was washed into office in a flood of populist anger over Watergate and Ford's pardon of Nixon. Beltway culture then wasn't too different than it is now and Carter campaigned as an outsider, a remedy to the seaminess, cronyism and intransigence of Washington DC.

Problem is, when you paint all those people as cads, it then becomes kind of hard to curry their cooperation once in office.

We saw what happened to Carter. Beltway culture hasn't changed a bit since then. Guess who the winner was there.

The losers? Well, that would be all of us poor saps.

[TacticalPeek]

10. It's an example of the RW noise machine pounding a lie until the Ds pick it up.

I agree with you.

People should also keep in mind that he came in at a time when Nixon had truly run the country almost completely off the rails, and then been pardoned by his hand-picked successor, Ford. I honestly thought that the future of constitutional democracy was in doubt. Hell, the future of constitutional democracy was in doubt.

Not only did Carter get it back on track, he set new values of international human rights and sustainable energy policies that still drive Rs up the wall, even though Raygun tried his best to undo them all.

I think he gets an A.

:kick:

[keith the dem]

56. Carter was the first victim of the modern right wing noise

machine.

It amazes me that so many people here still buy into that right wing crap.

his human rights record was amazing, even The Clash had lyrics praising him.

The Camp David accords were perhaps the most amazing foreign affairs accomplishment in the last 50 years.

[Zoeisright]

63. You're right.

And the Camp David accords will go down in history as the greatest accomplishment, you're right again.

[harun]

90. +1

[annabanana]

104. yup . . .n/t

[DutchLiberal]

188. Human rights? Not for the people of East Timor or Iran...

As Carter supported Indonesian dictator Suharto during his brutal and violent invasion of East Timor, and Carter supported the dictator of Iran, Shah Reza Mohammed Pahlavi.

[G_j]

201. one can only imagine how different it would be today

if Reagan hadn't immediately dismantled Carter's energy policies.

[B Calm]

Jimmy Carter was a good president. It was the cons making deals

with Iran that sickened me!

[apocalypsehow]

12. The Seventies were an odd time. And Jimmy didn't help. He was ill-suited to be President then,

but has turned out to be one of the best ex-Presidents this nation has ever had.

It must be said, though: his tone-deafness gave us Reagan. It's as simple as that.

[Enthusiast]

81. He was not "ill-suited"

he was portrayed as such by the RW media.

[KonaKane]

97. How was he "ill suited"?

I believe he had excellent requirements for the job. Solid rep, ex-governor, a man of vision, morals and values, and unimpeachable character. Gee, given all that I'd say he was more suited to the job than most in my lifetime.

What is your list of preequisites for the job?

[Recursion]

157. He was also a horrible micromanager

Watch the old SNL sketches about Carter in case you've forgotten his flaws. I love the man, but I find it difficult to believe people are calling him an effective leader with a straight face.

[Name removed]

107. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Loudmxr]

16. I agree.

He was a disaster at three things.

Articulating an inspiring message.
Getting along with Congress.
Not building relationships than would defend him and call attention to when he turned out to be right on energy and the economy.

Because he was right on both those issues BIG TIME.

[lunatica]

19. Only people who are ignorant of what he did criticize him

And freepers.

He was a an excellent President and he's an excellent ex-President.

[Skittles]

21. I always thought his worst crime was being too damned HONEST

[Sancho]

22. I voted for Carter, and met him while he was campaigning...

I agree, he was unfairly treated beyond all imagination. Very progressive and smart - and he didn't have the ethical issues that Clinton had. He also didn't make the NAFTA mistakes. The Clinton Tapes is an interesting book. Clinton was a better politician, but Carter was a visionary - including his international policies, understanding of science, and understanding of common workers. Clinton appeared to be a better economist, but really made some mistakes.

[liberation]

53. I would not consider Carter a progressive in the least..

... he is a great person, and a wonderful ex-president. But honestly he is also responsible for shifting the Dem party further and further to the right.

The thing is that the country after Raygun and Bush has shifted so much to the right, that the center-right policies that Carter was following during his time in office... seem now down right "progressive" but that is a common mistake. Heck, if we really analyze most of Clinton's policies during his 2 terms, one can conclude that most of them were to the right of Nixon's.


Carter was the beginning of the "milquetoasting" (sic) and neutering of the Dem party, which was still reeling from the defeat of the last actual progressive to done the Dem nomination: McGovern. Rather than figuring out that McGovern had failed because the Dems themselves failed to properly support his campaign, never mind the fact that Watergate revolved around electoral malfeasance by Nixon et al. The Dems took the easier way out: instead of putting the proper effort required to fight for liberal causes during the onslaught that was the "Goldwater revolution" which had declared open hunting season on liberalism in this country, the Dems decided to simply become GOP-lite. And Carter was at the forefront of that approach. He was a timid, and way too accommodating president to those who wanted to destroy him: the GOP. And he did so while completely undermining the traditional liberal base of the Dem party (yes, I know about the Southern Dems and what not... but for simplification purposes most of the Dem voters at that time were not interested in reviving the old Southern Dem agenda in the least). In a sense, there are some relative cautionary parallels between Carter and Obama.

[Sancho]

170. I thought that peace was progressive...

and lots of other things; women's rights, etc. so I saw him differently.

[TexasObserver]

25. Yes, he is.

Jimmy Carter failed to respond well from November of 1979 to November of 1980 to two conditions, the first being the hostage taking, and the second being the interest rate explosion. Those two problems have allowed the GOP to paint him as a bad president, when he wasn't. He was average.

[jesus_of_suburbia]

29. It doesn't matter how good of a person you are as President. It matters what you get done.

and I'm relatively young too... Al Gore was the first person I was able to vote for President.



Having said that, I wonder if Carter could have won a second term had Ted Kennedy not undermined him.

[texastoast]

61. No

Carter had inherited a terrible economy from Nixon and Ford. Nixon had put a price freeze on freaking everything in 1970-1971?. In 1972, I remember my boss at the grocery store pulling items off the shelf and I asked him what he was doing. He said, "Price increases, and this is only the beginning."

Once again, a Dem president inherited an economic shitpile from the pukes. It just amazes me that people won't give the Dems a chance to get things back in order before they start the stupid cycle all over again.

[Enthusiast]

82. Right on, texastoast. nt

[democracy1st]

30. K & R

[democrank]

33. President Carter walks the walk.

He was too decent for Washington.

[schmuls]

83. No shit, he was too moral to survive the dog eat dog culture of

Washington. The guy did what was right concerning our environment and energy, not what was popular or would get him re-elected. Don't blame him for the hostage mess. The Neo-cons played the situation for what it was worth, so it would look like Carter failed and Reagan pulled the release off. Oh that pisses me off.

[era veteran]

36. Unlucky President

I do miss me some Canal Zone though.

[TuxedoKat]

37. Agreed.

He made some mistakes but he really worked hard for peace in the middle east. I don't think any president since him has done as much towards peace there except Bill Clinton. He also brought the term and idea of "human rights" to the forefront of international consciousness too. HE was very deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize and I was so happy when he won it and got some well-deserved positive recognition at long last.

[unc70]

43. Pardon of Vietnam war resistors made many hate Carter

On his first day in office, Carter issued his far-reaching pardon and amnesty for those who had resisted the Vietnam War. It had been a position he had campaigned on, and when he was in office he followed through -- what a strange concept, actually taking direct action.

The military draw-down, begun under Ford, plus an attempt to rein in the CIA all contributed to making some powerful enemies.

The "liberal" press hated Carter, a Southern outsider that they enjoyed portraying as a goober peanut farmer, clueless hick, scared of a rabbit, etc. who forced them to spend time in Plains, GA without nothing to do but church and that damn softball game!

[HCE SuiGeneris]

44. He did not pay proper homage to the Money Overlords

He was exorcised.

[Nye Bevan]

47. Mostly because of that Wascally Wabbit!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident

[mochajava666]

48. Carter reminds me of Gore

Both were visionaries, yet not great motivational speakers, and were often ridiculed for their intelligence.

[femrap]

49. I remember Jimmy telling us

how important it was to conserve energy (resource wars), and that was the last time I ever really heard The Truth from a Prez.

The Pols saw what The Truth did to him....along comes Raygun spewing nothing but rose petals and a new happy day. Plus Jimmy got caught in OPEC's embargo.

I still keep the thermostat at 68 and wear a sweater. Hell, I go to 66 sometimes and down to 60 at night.

[SlingBlade]

50. AMEN to That. These Corporate Whores have been

attempting to minimize him for years.

But if you'll notice, When the shit hits the fan, He doesn't have to
grab the Bush Boys by the hand and play up to the camera's.

He's usually the guy in the background swinging the hammer or speaking
the Truth to Power that Power Hates.

I love President Carter. Reagan fucked him and the American people
same as Bush fucked Obama and the American people.

Difference is, Carter will tell you the truth and he really doesn't mind
Looking Backwards. :)

K & R
Great Thread and Thank You.

[AngryAmish]

55. Deregulated airlines, trucking and railroads, too

[winyanstaz]

58. K & R...I agree..thank you for the post...

His was the misfortune to be one of the early victims of the Right Wing smear machine.
He is the only president that has actually rolled up his sleeves and actually worked beside his fellow citizens to actually try to do something to help the working people of America.
He did not run up mega debts or lie to us and you are absolutely correct to state that his appointment of Paul Volcker helped the economy.
Reagan on the other hand plunged this nation into mega debt which the Bush's and now Obama have kicked to staggering heights.

[Zomby Woof]

59. John Quincy Adams got a bad rap

Like Carter, a one-term president who found greater success after the presidency than during it. Both can be described as men of virtue, intellect, and prickly independence, with visionary ideas on the path America should take, but whose visions were ignored.

[barbtries]

65. i agree completely

and think he was a wonderful president.

[RedCloud]

66. How many of you know he was gifted in Spanish?

He spoke to the people of Venezuela directly in their language. I know. I was there. I saw them cry because finally someone from Gringolandia had bothered to learn how to talk to them.

[Enthusiast]

67. The Jimmy Carter is a horrible

president is another right wing generated illusion. Not much different than Reagan caused the Soviet Union to collapse and W Bush kept us safe.

[BrklynLiberal]

99. True. His politcal and character assassination was one of the first steps in the Neocon plan.

[Enthusiast]

105. They honed their skills

on the politics of personal destruction against Jimmy. Then they perfected the effort against Clinton.

The effort against Clinton was truly massive. I've always thought Lewinsky was sent to the White House specifically to get some Clinton DNA.

[BrklynLiberal]

114. That thought crossed my mind too. It would never have surprised me to find that she had been

an unwitting dupe sent there to do what she did...Sadly, they were correct in their assessment of how Clinton would respond. :(

[liberation]

163. Honestly, it takes two to tango: The GOP honed his personal assasination skills on Carter...

... but the Dems started their milquetoast stance of "Carter who?" because they were too weak to stand for him, and were just too afraid of "hurting" the sensibilities of the GOP.

In the same sense that the GOP are now masters at staying on message in a lockstep fashion. The Dems have become experts at beating all sorts of land speed records running away from any actual confrontation with the republicans. Their utter predisposition to throw the towel and roll over against the faintest sign of dissaproval by the GOP is about the only unifying characteristic/quality for most of the Dem party.

[BrklynLiberal]

217. No argument here. You have it accurately assessed..

[malaise]

78. Absolutely correct

Rec

[schmuls]

80. He's a wonderful example of what an American should be IMHO

[Blue Owl]

85. Gimme some Jimmy...

any old day!

[Fire1]

88. I'm with ya on that one! Matter of fact, he was one of the BETTER

ones! He wanted to do so much and congress cut him off at the knees. It was sickening.

[MinM]

94. Post-Watergate efforts to cleanup goverment were not appreciated...

to say the least.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=490878&mesg_id=499734

[onehandle]

95. My Governor. My President. nt

[Odin2005]

108. Fate handed a shit situation to him and he did the best he could do.

[krkaufman]

109. I'd think Kennedy, Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley ...

... were treated a bit more unfairly than Jimmy. ;)

[DirtyDawg]

110. I've often wondered...

...if my Republican friends were to be faced with the facts of a Reagan/Bush(41) admission that they had used ex-CIA chief Casey to 'negotiate' with elements in the middle-east to ensure that the hostages would be kept through the election...would it bother them? I mean, would they just say, well so what, if it meant we got RR then it was OK for them to be held another year/six months/whatever. Probably so. Of course if the roles were reversed and a Democrat had promised arms to a rogue Iran state in return for holding onto Americans you know where that would have gone.

The other thing(s) that kept Jimmy from being revered are the inside the beltway Democrats didn't like him any more than the Republicans. He was just too honest for them. He was gonna upset their sweetheart deals and they couldn't stand it - especially Teddy Kennedy...and Israel never really appreciated how he pushed Begin into that peace thing with Egypt. They just wanted to fight on - forever I guess. In fact, where do you think the first round of arms and spare parts to Iran came from - Israel. Think about how underhanded that was and how much Israel must have wanted Carter out of the picture so they wouldn't have had to make any more of those peace treaties.

[PM Martin]

122. Teddy K was

an establishment insider, most certainly.

[deutsey]

118. Walter Karp's "Liberty Under Siege" basically says that as an "outsider"

Carter was destroyed by a political establishment (both Republican and Democrat) in DC that wanted to reassert itself against egalitarian reforms in the mid-'70s after Watergate and Vietnam.

[GreenTea]

119. Carter inherited a world recession-Republicans lie & say it was his fault-Just as with Obama

the republicans are trying very hard to do the same to Obama, and will blame Obama for many years to come (say it enough times and people believe it) republicans will lie & try to change history and will say it was a republican who pulled us out (after Obama) just as they did with Carter.

Republicans still use Cater unfairly as their whipping boy and try to say it was the asshole republican, Reagan who came to the rescue....REAGAN'S BUDGET PROPOSAL THAT HE GOT WAS THE LARGEST TAX INCREASE IN HISTORY OF THE WORLD ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE (PAID FOR BY THE MIDDLE CLASS - CORPORATIONS RECEIVED TAX CUTS)- FACT - LOOK IT UP!

(Republican NEVER want to talk about Regan's tax increase and will even deny it, trying to change history).

Now they are trying to do the same thing to Obama and they'll continue to blame Obama, a democrat, for years to come they will make up (like they did with Reagan) that it was a republican who pulled us out of a recession.

Carter inherited eight years of Nixon/Ford's mess and Obama inherited eight years of Bush/Cheney's mess, just as Clinton inherited twelve years of Reagan/Bush's mess!

Republicans are liars who constantly try to change history because of their greed, corporate ideology and ineptness!

[cascadiance]

123. His human rights policies are credited by ex-Soviet officials in bringing down the Soviet Union!

Our right-wing propaganda happy Texas schoolboards certainly will make have our textbooks give Reagan all of the credit to bringing down the Soviet Union, but I remember seeing in an old videotape Nightline summary from 10-20 years ago where one of the ex-Soviet officials was interviewed that gave Jimmy Carter as much credit as Ronald Reagan in helping bringing down the Soviet Union.

He was saying that it was hard as hell for them to "win points" with other countries in their Cold War efforts when Carter was pushing so hard and successfully hard on getting other countries and groups of people persuaded that the U.S. was more for human rights than the Soviets were, and put them in just as an awkward positions in their imperialistic efforts as the brinksmanship arms race with Reagan's U.S. did.

Of course with our record on the Patriot Act, rendition, torture, and rolling back habeus corpus laws from the Bush administration, and even the Clinton and Obama administrations, an attempt to use that strategy today would seem rather hollow, and the Soviets would probably laugh at us today if that effort were attempted now. How much we've fallen since those days! Probably another reason why today's generation can't appreciate the Carter years as much.

Wish I could find that old interview. I would definitely Youtube it...

[RZM]

167. 'Ex-Soviet officials' are notorious for distorting things

But in any case, the Soviet leadership certainly didn't care for Carter at all. They couldn't fathom why he would want to jeopardize detente over the fate of a few dissidents or Afghanistan. Thus they initially welcomed the change in 1980, but it didn't take long for them to realize what kind of beast they had on their hands (they of course knew all about Reagan's anti-communism, but I think they figured he'd come around to working with them, as Nixon had).

To argue that Carter had much of a role in the collapse of the Soviet system, however, doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Many, many things contributed to the collapse of the USSR (the West, including Reagan, did have a role here, though it's often exaggerated) but ultimately the bulk of them came from within the system -- a terribly inefficient economy (particularly the agricultural sector), nationality problems, bloated military spending, 'imperial overstretch,' etc. . . the list goes on and on.

[DutchLiberal]

190. "U.S. was more for human rights than the Societs were"...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Tell that to the people of Brazil, Chile, Guetemala, Indonesia, East Timor, El Salvador, Afghanistan etc. (before and under Carter!)

[LeftishBrit]

125. A good man; sad that Reagan beat him.

[Dollface]

126. We would be in a lot better shape if we'd listened to him regarding energy.

"Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern. This difficult effort will be the "moral equivalent of war" -- except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not destroy.

I know that some of you may doubt that we face real energy shortages. The 1973 gasoline lines are gone, and our homes are warm again. But our energy problem is worse tonight than it was in 1973 or a few weeks ago in the dead of winter. It is worse because more waste has occurred, and more time has passed by without our planning for the future. And it will get worse every day until we act."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_energy.html
Full Transcript of Jimmy Carter's televised speech on April 18, 1977.

[tabasco]

127. Absolutely.

This country did not deserve Jimmy Carter.

[HowHasItComeToThis]

137. HE WAS THE FIRST TO BE DESTROYED BY THE RIGHT WING BROWN SHIRTS

[Jakes Progress]

145. I would say it was reagan.

Most of Washington and most of the media keep giving him credit for doing wonderful things. Even Obama slightly genuflects toward the reagan myth. There is no fairness in reagan getting credit for anything decent or good. Most of the crap we are dealing with now began on his watch.

[nycndp]

146. Volcker? Progressive?

He was ahead of the curve on environmental issues, conservation, and energy. And his appointment of Paul Volcker as Fed Chief helped turn the economy around from stagflation, not Reagan's (robbing of the middle class to give to the wealthy) tax-cuts.

What was progressive about Volcker?

[emsimon33]

147. I often forget to note Carter as the last true Democratic president

as far as his priorities and values matching those fundamental values of the Democratic Party.

[cadmium]

150. At the time I thought that he was not liberal enough

Now--as election cycles have gone by and I have seen what right wing in power really is--I agree that Carter was an excellent president. I supported my idol Ted Kennedy's challenge. He was undone by the left in the Democratic party as much as he was by Republicans --- Eugene friggin McCarthy supported Reagan because he was disappointed with Carter. The lesson of 1980 for me was reinforced in 2000 when Al Gore was undermined by libs that were all to willing to support Nader. When it comes down to the Super Bowl you have to pick one of two teams.

[liberation]

158. It is always easier to blame the victims...

... of course it could not have been Carter and later Gore's abysmal campaign management, right?

Yeah, that Nader guy getting a few thousand votes which "rightfully" belonged to the Dems, I mean... the gall of some people to think their voters are their own to cast!

Both Carter and Gore are wonderful human beings, or at least they seem to be (I don't know them personally). But as politicians they were fairly incompetent. In a sense, Carter initiated the hard shift to the right that Dems have been taking for the past 3 decades. So now, liberals are to blame for that too? Why would any liberal throw their support for candidates like Carter and Gore who were more interested in appeasing the right than in actually defend liberal agendas?

Seriously... I am getting tired of these memes attempting at whitewashing the incompetence of Dems, by putting forth the most antidemocratic of MOs: the entitlement to votes as a matter of fact.

What is next, having GM blame Americans for daring buying better cars and not the pieces of shit they were producing for a while? I assume it is easier to feel entitled to something, than to actually getting that something the old fashion way: by earning it

[DutchLiberal]

191. THANK YOU!

Agreed 100%.

[cadmium]

197. If dems had pulled behind Carter and Gore they would have won.

Seriously I am getting as sick of revisionist memes that let purist backstabbers like Nader off the hook --even if they are super-progressive candidates that make you feel good about voting for them and then to complain about the right winger they assist into power. Nothing to do with GM. more to do with whiny dems vs dems

[BlueCollar]

152. true..n/t

[ooglymoogly]

153. A few thoughts on how the Carter and Reagan era effected moi

Contrary to what one might think, living through an era, does give you a ringside seat to the event you are living through and how it is affecting you and that is as it is with all of us. Few of us have been in on, or had ring side seats to the actual workings of our government in history; Though facts are facts and history is sometimes good at teaching those facts.

Folks are saying totally untrue things to bolster this good mans image and that is not helpful. I make no aspersions as to his goodness. If there are only a few honest men, he is one of them . However being fanciful is not argument, it is total folly and ignorance.

As far as how the Carter era effected moi;

I ran a corporation valued at twenty three million dollars at that time in my life; Though not huge in the over all scheme of things, it was real money, not today's, printed by the ton, monopoly money. That was before highly abnormal interest rates (23% bank interest) in the Carter years, began putting nails in the coffin of my business and though still thriving was on shaky ground by the end of the carter admin. Large payrolls, architects and engineers + construction costs needed to be met on short term and immediate basis. That business lasted well into the second term of the Reagan admin while being hammered on all sides. Reagan nailed that coffin shut with a new tax code that declared war on businesses like mine; One that destroyed the savings and loan segment of the economy; Remember it; it was called the savings and loan disaster, that weakened or wiped out or inflicted a cancer on all other segments of the economy attached by loan to it and caused a severe recession; Even putting folks like Trump on the stretcher. But mainly the businesses that were heavily into real estate, as property values halved and more over night; Just like now, the big banks, the same ones that are robbing the economy, swooped in and bought most of the prime real estate for pennies on the dollar. The Real estate segment of the economy already weakened by usurious interest rates from the Carter era, tanked when Reagan exploded onto the scene and clumsily knocked what was left to smithereens by favoring Wall st and the banksters with a few clumsy and greedy tinkers to the tax code. The business would have survived another countless years of carter but not the conniving, greedy, son of a bitch Reagan who has turned this country into the greedy, shit filled, bowels of hell. Carter unknowingly gave him the power to do that by doing the things that made him so very unpopular; The criticism; Some just, some not so just. Though he is better than many presidents on some counts, he does not rank with the best. Overall my feelings are, that we would not have had the world altering, disaster Reagan if we had not had Carter who paved the way for him by making Dems near unelectable. I guess that is one of the, not so fair criticism,

[Ken Burch]

155. Carter is a good man, and has been a better FORMER president

than anyone else in American history(anybody want to even TRY to picture Dubbikins building free homes for the poor with his own hands?)

The biggest problems of his administration were caused by his most politically and economically conservative choices

1)His insistence, despite his otherwise strong commitment to human rights, on backing the Shah of Iran to the hilt(a decision that made the embassy takeover inevitable);

2)The decision to deal with the late '70's recession by imposing austerity budgets, cutting social services(something a Democratic president is NEVER supposed to do)and his refusal to do anything to try to reduce unemployment(like push for federal jobs programs)

3)the idea to compound the folly of supporting the Shah to the bitter end by launching what he had to have known was a doomed effort to rescue hostages(an effort that would have resulted, had the U.S. helicopters not crashed in the desert, in all or almost all of the hostages being executed by their captors as soon as the Iranian air defense systems picked up the helicopters on their approach to Tehran. A hostage rescue could ONLY ever have worked had all the hostages been kept in the same location, and the CIA had to have known that they were actually scattered all around Tehran instead. The execution of the hostages would THEN have made it politically inevitable that the U.S. would have launched an all-out "scorched-earth" military campaign against Iran, a war that could never have been winnable and would only have ended up leading to an even LARGER Republican victory in the fall.

Carter had some good points, but he did have politically lethal flaws that were NOT invented by the media.

[NNadir]

160. Some of this claim would depend on how you feel about SAVAK and the Shah.

I felt he was way too cozy with the Shah when he was President.

He's been a fine ex-President, but as President, well...

His energy program, for which he is often praised today, was actually not that great. He put a lot of effort into syn-fuels based on coal, which would have hastened the destruction of earth's atmosphere as a whole.

Although oil sucks and should be banned, it is well that it was not replaced by coal.

He also hyped a lot of stuff that has proved very questionable, notably biofuels and solar PV energy.

He was not by the way, a trained nuclear engineer, although I applaud his decision to go to the Three Mile Island Reactor, an act for which he clearly gave his life since everyone in Harrisburg was killed. He never served on a nuclear submarine under Admiral Rickover.

His moralistic rationale for banning plutonium recycling was probably the worst energy decision made in the last half of the 20th century, unless one counts Eisenhower's decision to overthrow the Iranian democracy and install the Shah who would become both Carter's pal and his ultimate undoing.

[David Zephyr]

162. I enthusiastically want to K&R this O.P.

Thanks, Ardent15

[mistertrickster]

169. Damn straight. And Carter has done more good as a former pres than all the others put together. nt

[polichick]

174. President Carter is one of the few politicians I respect and admire. nt

[NBachers]

175. Read this Carter speech and weep for what might have been

President Jimmy Carter delivered this televised speech on July 15, 1979. I can remember sitting on my bed in my Miami home and watching this speech. I knew then it was significant.

Check it out for yourself.

No Carter bashing here. Some people on this post are way off base.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html

He also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Who do you think was instrumental in creating the Camp David Accords that won the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for Begin and Sadat?

Pretty heavyweight stuff to be disdaining, there.

[DutchLiberal]

192. "He also won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002"...

Yeah, so did Yasser Arafat and Henry Kissinger.

[NBachers]

231. Yeah, so did Barack Obama

Let's not leave him off the villain's list

But, don't worry, I won't disparage you when you get elected president, win the Nobel Peace Prize, or pave the way to another Nobel Peace Prize.

[DutchLiberal]

241. I'm just saying the Nobel Peace Prize means jack shit.

[grahamhgreen]

176. He reduced the deficit by 2/3's as I recall. nt

[Lasher]

234. No, Carter didn't reduce deficits.

But he did pretty much hold the line, however, in sharp contrast with the three Republican presidents to follow.

http://www.ibew.org/legislative/W080714_JustFacts.pdf

[davidwparker]

177. Yes, he was the last Democratic President that we had.

[DutchLiberal]

179. He wasn't horrible, but the wasn't good either...

Yes, people often mistakenly make him look far worse than he actually was especially compared to that walking disaster that came after him, which people seem to love so much). But he wasn't really good either. His often prized human rights policies only applied to America's enemies and not to its allies. For instance the backing of the Sjah of Iran. I'll admit most of those policies were handed down to him from previous administrations, but still... Fact was that he had to deal with a lot of crises and he didn't so successful enough. He just wasn't an effective leader. But he had good intentions and he gets a lot of shit he doesn't deserve when at the same time an evil fuck like Reagan gets all the praise.

[troubledamerican]

196. George W. Bush

Nobody has mentioned him.

The Fact:

After George W. Bush, no "conservative" radical has any rights to criticize any other president.

Case closed. Next topic.

[thread-bear]

204. Carter is the most honest and courageous president in my lifetime.

I didn't vote for him, but I grown to respect him. I doubt that banks or credit card companies take less actual money from us now than then, regardless of the rate. The oil prices were spawned by war in the middle east, which he did (and does) his best to end.

[G_j]

206. for Carter the Presidency turned out to be springboard to much greater things.

As President he was thrown off balance and very much confined as a human being with a powerful ambition to do good. But that is what gave him the credentials to do more of what his heart told him, greater things, even after Camp David and the Peace Prize.

His greatest (by far) mistake as President was Afghanistan! Very bad foreign policy on that front, repeat, BAD! (leave it to the 'cold war')
I wonder if he would agree? I don't know.

[Captain Hilts]

208. Carter's heart was in the Right Place, but he was such a bad politician he de-legitimized many

of those stances.

And he continued the swing to the Right with really getting de-regulation going.

Unfairly treated? Yes.

But he was his own worst enemy at times.

[Historic NY]

223. By tearing down Carter ,they try to make Rayguns star rise.....when

Rayguns was negotiating behind closed doors as a private citizen with the Iranians. That surely was treasonist behavior at the time...he prolonged the hostages detention.

[Divine Discontent]

226. REAGAN DESERVES GREAT BLAME FOR THE HOSTAGE CRISIS!

I don't recall ever typing in bold in a long time, but that point is very important.

[lib_wit_it]

230. LOL! I can't blame you. One of many phony, slimy Rethugs.

[wpelb]

225. Before we wax too nostalgic about Carter . . .

Let us remember that Ted Kennedy literally created a campaign commercial for the Republicans with his "No more Jimmy Carter!" speech. I don't know if it would have been enough to give Ronald Reagan with other things being the same, but if they hadn't been the same, Sen. Kennedy also wouldn't have had the speech to give. I also remember Sen. Kennedy getting off the stage as fast as he could at the '80 convention, which gave a big symbolic message to the party, if not to the entire country, that he didn't like or support Pres. Carter.

[Enthusiast]

235. Ted Kennedy was

not right about everything. No one ever is. And THAT is a fact.

[cadmium]

246. it is true. I love Ted, but this to me is a real

case study in the self - defeating nature of ideologic purity. Sometimes it helps and sometimes it's destructive. If one doesnt have the wisdom to tell the difference they should back off.

[upi402]

228. He was scapegoated. Helicopters didn't have pre-filters and went down

Anyone who rides an off road vehicle in the sand can tell you. Sand is a PIA. It needs a tacky oiled pre filter in the air intake or it gets into the carb. So the copters going down trying to rescue the Iranian hostages was not a Carter failure, as the media repeated endlessly.

Also, wasn't stagflation and inflation just the Viet Nam war bill coming due?

[era veteran]

237. Wasn't it Navy SeaKing copters the ones used?

Service rivalry played a part in the disaster.

[Horse with no Name]

236. Not only that

but Obama would rather tap GWB to help the Haitians than someone who would have done it anyway.
He has never been a member of the "Good Old Boys". That is what makes him great.

[dysfunctional press]

259. BULLSHIT!...Ronald Reagan is the most unfairly treated president in American history.

Waaaaay too many people treat him with Waaaaay too much respect.

like any.

[bhikkhu]

262. Quite right - fair would have been to laugh him out of office! n/t

[bhikkhu]

261. I was 10 when he was elected, and he made a huge impression on me

He was a great president in my book, not so much ahead of his time but right on time as far as the issues. People need to comprehend that when things are screwed up in the present, many times its because a better future was decided against in the past. This country could be so much different and so much better, and so could the world...

In any case, though he was a great president there was no shortage of rat bastards in Washington and in the media. Essentially, they broke him. Odd how things come around to the same "time" in history if you wait long enough...I think we have a choice now of a better future again, but again the media and Washington are full of rat bastards, and its difficult to tell which direction everything will fall.

[yellowwood]

264. He just didn't know how to play ball

He is a wonderful man. He just didn't didn't go along with the neocons and the corporations. An honest man doesn't stand a chance.

[Naturyl]

265. A great man, both then and now. K&R. (n/t)