The Carters’ marriage is separate and apart from his time as President, the effects of his policies and his demonstrated attitudes since then. WRT his marriage, good for them if they have been are happy. If his wife could overlook or deal with his “lust in my heart” statement and all it implies, who am I to second guess that?
That said, I have lots to criticize about his public persona. His utterly disastrous appeasement policies emboldened the Soviet Union to be aggressive beyond their borders and accelerate a military buildup that cost this country hundreds of billions of dollars to counter. Tens to hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives, and many mire had their lives destroyed, as a result - and the moral implications of that are on him. His incredible weakness and hatred of this country’s influence in the Mideast led directly to the fall of the Shah of Iran and the bringing to power of the mad mullahs. We are STILL dealing with the effects of that, more than 40 years later. Israel in particular is still having to deal with it and faces the potential of a nuclear attack by Iran, only 75 years after the Holocaust.
His weakness (or hatred of this country’s strength, take your pick) led directly to the1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (that would never have occurred had the Shah or his son been running Iran), which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Afghans - and our involvement, which itself led to the radicalization and arming of people like Osama Bin Laden...and we all knew where that led. Much of the death and misery resulting from this are on his head.
His continuing baseless criticism of, and obvious hatred of, Israel and it’s right to exist as a secure nation is a deep stain on his soul and legacy. To me, it ties in quite clearly and directly with his Baptist faith, as Baptists officially (and not individually, of course) have been in the forefront of trying to convert Jews to Christianity - put simply, if the Baptist church could, it would literally wipe out the Jews as a separate people.
His public tolerance for abortion and gay issues is, IMHO, a clear contradiction with his self-avowed “Christian morality.”
His support for Clinton and Obama after their natures were revealed speak to his false claims of being incredibly moral.
His purposeful misleading of the American public about his supposed humility was a lie, and mocks God. I speak here specifically of his penchant for carrying supposedly full suitcases to Marine One to or from the White House, which is in complete contradiction to what really happened (according to Secret Service agents who were there and know better), which is that those suitcases were empty and the real ones were taken care of by others. I don’t particularly care if a President uses federal employees to help with personal tasks while they are President, but I do care if the hypocritical bastards lie about it to appear as if they are some kind of super-moral being.
The only good thing that he did as a politician, IMHO, was to arrange peace between Israel and Egypt, though I also believe that such would have occurred anyway at some point because it was in the interest of both countries. To be fair, he deserves credit for getting them to sign a deal sooner than would have occurred otherwise.
In summary, congratulations to the hypocritical, weak, America- and Jew-hating bastard and his wife on their 75th anniversary.
Well said.