Posted on 02/24/2013 12:58:25 PM PST by Rennes Templar
Only a few weeks ago, Lincoln was assumed to be the surefire winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture. Not since Gregory Peck in 1962’s To Kill a Mockingbird has an actor performed with the unforgettable gravitas of Daniel Day-Lewis playing Abraham Lincoln in the months before his assassination. But a funny thing happened when the horses turned the bend at the Golden Globe Awards.
Argo, based on a CIA-led rescue mission in 1980 that smuggled six American diplomats out of Tehran at the tail end of Carter’s presidency, suddenly has all the Oscar momentum. And, in a serendipitous way, Hollywood is according some newfound respect to the Man from Plains. It is a happy coincidence that Argo came out within months of Carter’s grandson, James Carter IV, releasing Mitt Romney’s idiotic (and now infamous) 47 percent speech in Boca Raton. This political leak, combined with the release of the film, has turned the ex-president into a new cult favorite among many Democrats who had previously been disenchanted with him over some of his recent views on Middle Eastern affairs.
While it is true that there is no such thing as a Carter Democrat, historians are starting to see our 39th president as a flawed, yet visionary leader. Everyone knows he should have won a Nobel Peace Prize back in 1979 for negotiating the historic Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. And he has received a lifetime of kudos for injecting human rights into our diplomatic parlance. His post-presidential work with the Carter Center fighting guinea-worm disease, river blindness, and other plagues has likewise turned him into a global humanitarian folk hero. But a number of other aspects of Carter’s White House tenure are starting to likewise be favorably remembered.
In both his Second Inaugural Address and his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama evoked climate change as the ultimate challenge of the 21st century. But it was Carter who first crusaded for the U.S. to wean itself off of its dependence on oil. As president, he signed into law the National Energy Act and the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (both of which championed conservation and domestic energy supply development). Long before it was trendy, Carter preached the gospel of alternative energy. He even created the U.S. Department of Energy, in part to inspire new wind-solar-fuel-cell alternatives to oil and coal. Stones were thrown his way in response. One of the first things Ronald Reagan did upon assuming the presidency in 1981 was to tear down the solar panels that Carter had installed on the White House’s roof. Carter – Mr. Clean Energy – had become the butt of innumerable jokes. But, in hindsight, he was right to worry fiercely about our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels.
What’s also making Carter’s rehabilitation interesting is the “I didn’t know that” factor. Carter, for example, almost doubled the size of the National Park Service as president. Only Theodore Roosevelt and FDR were his equal in the conservation realm. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 alone created or expanded 15 National Park Service sites, and 79.5 million protected acres. If it weren’t for Carter, wild Alaska today would be despoiled beyond recognition.
Carter also deserves credit for establishing Channel Islands National Park in Southern California, the favorite marine paradise of many in the movie industry, and for protecting the Dakota Badlands from ruin. Additionally, his Superfund law has led to the cleanup of dozens of toxic waste sites throughout the country. In my estimation, the greatest environmental speech ever delivered to Congress was Carter’s stunningly prescient May 23, 1977 message.
And Carter was the avatar of mass-transit. The railroad industry was collapsing from regulatory roadblocks, price controls and trucking lobby influence on Capital Hill when he became president. Carter's deregulation saved America's trains from bankruptcy. Perhaps, even more importantly, Carter deregulated the telecommunications world, spearheading the cable TV, cell phone and Internet revolutions.
~snip~
Douglas Brinkley is Professor of History at Rice University and CBS News Historian.
Clooney rarely makes stuff without an agenda...especially involving the CIA, politics, Middle East etc.
He's one of the furthest left in Hollywood but go ahead and believe otherwise if you like.
Forgot about that one.
Helps confirm my suspicion that Argo was made to revise history and try to create a "success" for Carter; in reality the Democratic party and Carter are responsible for the mess we have over there today.
“..historians are starting to see our 39th president as a flawed, yet visionary leader.”
Proves your point.
Because he lost to him, and then he was a terrible president. There’s a lot of reason to hate Carter from both sides, he was a serious loser, still is.
Well this time he did. There’s no agenda. If there’s an agenda it’s anti-Carter since it clearly makes him out to be am impediment to the mission. He does not look good in the movie.
Doesn’t matter what his politics are, we’re discussing THE MOVIE. and THE MOVIE does not help Carter. That’s not belief, that’s bothering to actually pay attention. Go ahead list the scenes show Carter positively. I’ve given you two that show him negatively, list the ones that show him positively. You keep insisting there’s an agenda, show the evidence, where are the scenes?
“And Bush gave us 8 years of Obama.”
Nah, it was McCain.
I don't think I will hold my breath for any movie that features Carter's 'Desert One' fiasco which was so reminiscent of LBJ's micromanaging of the Vietnam War. Every study I have ever seen of that effort showed it to be full of 'critical failure points' although I have to say that that RATO equipped C-130 was a magnificent though ultimately unsuccessful effort!
Argo is such BS. the Alan Arkin character is made up, as is most of the story
John Anderson had 5.7 million votes in 1980. Those were probably mostly cast by Democrats who couldn't stand Carter, along with some liberal Republicans.
I had the bad luck once to be at a banquet where Douglas Brinkley was the after-dinner speaker. He was then planning to write something about Carter so his talk was mostly about that and gushing about the occasion or occasions when he got to have some one-on-one interaction with Carter. I was sorely tempted to get up and walk out.
Oh...I sooooo agree!!!
Ok..this is the MOST BORING Oscar show ever! I am turning it off and will go fold laundry!
I do see your point. For me, there was a lot in it, engaging.
Carter, though, anything more than a no show in the movie such as being a complete buffoon, inept and in the way is full of agenda.
I lectured my kids on it on the way out of the theater way back in December.
While I liked the film and felt it fairly damning of Carter, the Carter voiceover at the end, by implication, gives him some credit. This voiceover was gratuitous, and indicative of Affleck’s intention to end the film giving vague kudos to the peanut farmer.
Kind of like when Oliver Stone ended his Nixon movie, by showing Clinton saying glowing words about him at his funeral.
Affleck has some sex and drug stories in his past. “They” are currently making his character so strong the stories won’t matter when he runs for senate. And he will win. Stuart Smalley won.
Affleck’s parents were and are far out lefties. They’re among the left who STILL admits they voted for Carter. And Carter was the worse president in history for his stupidity. obama is the worse present because of his hatred for America
I never heard about ARGO until the movie came out. And from what I’ve seen I think I’d find it boring.
WTF? Which historians???
Everyone knows he should have won a Nobel Peace Prize back in 1979 for negotiating the historic Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.
Of course, everyone knows that!
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