Posted on 12/29/2024 4:08:18 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Jimmy Carter’s melancholy fate was to be a largely derivative figure: He was a reaction against his elected predecessor and the precursor of his successor. Richard Nixon made Carter tempting; Carter made Ronald Reagan necessary.
The deceits and crimes of Nixon’s imperial presidency bred Carter’s pompous crusade against pomp. Carter proclaimed “I’ll never lie to you” while claiming that he was a “nuclear physicist.” He denied saying what a tape proved he said about Lyndon Johnson’s “lying, cheating and distorting the truth.”
Carter’s signature achievement, peace between Israel and Egypt, diminished the threat of another conventional Middle East war. In his post-presidency interventions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, however, his hostility toward Israel was proportional to his admiration for the terrorist Yasser Arafat. Here Carter was mostly harmless because the “peace process” was mostly chimeric.
But for President Gerald Ford’s debate blunder in 1976 — “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe” — Carter probably would not have become president. He won 50.1 percent of the vote, lost the vote outside the South, and a switch of a total of 18,000 votes in Ohio — home of many of Eastern European origins — and Hawaii would have elected Ford (disregarding a faithless elector in Washington state).
Carter was the first non-incumbent elected from the South since the Civil War and the most conservative Democratic president since Grover Cleveland, which is why the liberal post-Watergate congressional Democrats would have despised him even if he had disguised his contempt for them. With airlines, he began the deregulation project inimical to progressives and excellent for the nation.
Candidate Carter proclaimed himself “optimistic about America’s third century” and promised “a government as good as the people.” As president,...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Didn’t he put the brakes on nuclear power?
Carter on his own in his first 2 years decimated the military. After that, Congress forced him to sign 2 large budget increases. BTW, even those budget increases were small compared to Reagan’s.
Look on page 1 of the following report: Carter drove the budget from 5.4% of GDP to 5.1% until Congress ramped it up a bit; Reagan took it to 6.6% of a larger economy. https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1987/08/art1full.pdf
Will should stick to baseball.
L
Good riddance is the nicest thing I can say.
Surprisingly good column from George Will, a robust takedown of the Carter Presidency before his body is cold. Good job George Will.
A number of times, George Will has described his rejection of the Republican Party as a Libertarian journey.
I never saw it that way.
George Will publicly endorsed Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024.
Seeing a pattern, here 😏
LBJ, Nixon and Ford had their part in it as well.
And they were also all controlled.
???
Tell me about afghanistan...
I was floating around the med when the iran debacle unfolded, I was floating around cuba when that unfolded, but never heard a damn thing about afghanistan...
…just as 0bama and Biden made Donald Trump necessary..
“Barrack Obama is the President who made Carter the Second Worst President in history, and then Obama’s 4th term with Biden pushed Carter to 3d place for worst all time president, just ahead of Jefferson Davis.“
Absolutely!!!
Everyone seems to be forgetting about Barry’s destruction of this country - which we are now having to deal with…
That was my point - Carter handled Afghanistan PERFECTLY. His responses were to lower oil prices by drilling and starting the build-up of our military (continued by Reagan, then, sadly, aborted too by Reagan - remember 600 ship navy, never got there).
BTTT!
He also literally gave away the Panama Canal for $1.00.
i guess so....
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