Illustrating once again that the cheese stands alone. For a reason.
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.
Scary to realize academicians think this way, but they do - almost all of them.
Pure, unadulterated tripe. Carter was a complete fraud and a world-class incompetent idiot.
Illustrating once again that the cheese stands alone. For a reason.
turns out there is a reason for ARGO being “’based on’ a true story”!.....Brinkley obviously didn’t do the research
"Unforgettable Gravitas" = forgettable stiffness
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.
"Global humanitarian folk hero" = someone much less well-known abroad than at home but more welcome overseas than in his own country
Carter – Mr. Clean Energy – had become the butt of innumerable jokes.
"Mr. Clean Energy" = Mr. Scared of Killer Rabbit or Mr. Obsessively Scrutinized White House Tennis Court Sign-Up Sheets
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.
"Deserves credit" = signed bills upgrading already federally protected National Monuments to National Parks which increased tourist traffic to threatened ecosystems
In my estimation, the greatest environmental speech ever delivered to Congress was Carter’s stunningly prescient May 23, 1977 message.
"Stunningly prescient" = mindnumbingly mixing banal rhetoric with billion dollar spending proposals
And Carter was the avatar of mass-transit.
"Avatar" = manifestation of a deity in bodily form on earth.
Huh?
As far as the storytelling...it was OK. But really more like TV movie quality than A-list Hollywood.
And Affleck certainly doesn't deserve a best actor award. There was no range for acting...more a tepid role really which just about anyone could have done.
In the postscript of the movie carter seemed to be taking credit for not taking credit for something he didn’t do.
Interesting.
I found it so favorable to Carter that it was nauseating, but I remember the situation and what we thought. My take on it was that Affleck found a good story and his religious ties to the religion shared by libs and Hollywood, whatever they call it, prevented him form being honest about the politics and the story’s power came through despite this.
I thought the movie was humble, but not poorly done. And I thought Affleck’s character was so well done I couldn’t recognize Affleck, the character is a very strong but anti flamboyant.
Lincoln’s Daniel Day Lewis gets it, so it’s a moot point, but I saw Argo a bunch of times and hated Lincoln.
I’m biased, but I see your point.
I thought it was strange they didn't much mention the bigger hostage crisis; it was almost like they were trying to confuse the two events and convince the ignorant that the Canadian event was the main event...my suspicion is they wanted to steal Reagan's thunder and give it to Carter.
Astute observation.
My suspicion is that Affleck wasn't as innocent as all that. His collaboration with Clooney heightens my suspicion. Both are far, far left and like to use their craft to steering the movie-going public as far left as possible.
My suspicion is that Affleck wasn't as innocent as all that. His collaboration with Clooney heightens my suspicion. Both are far, far left and like to use their craft to steering the movie-going public as far left as possible.
My suspicion is that Affleck wasn't as innocent as all that. His collaboration with Clooney heightens my suspicion. Both are far, far left and like to use their craft to steering the movie-going public as far left as possible.
It was a try, but, as usual, to the honest, it was still Jimmah, being carried along by his silly lib suppoerters. I just imagine Affleck so surprised at the success of this wonderful film and it’s strong story line after unsucessfully trying to make Jimmah look good. He should’ve talked to us who really lived through it.
Anyway, we’ve learned to overlook all of it. We dusted off our Jimmeah adoration deflectors and sat through it anyway. We know he was inept and so hated by the Iranians they let the prisoners go the day after, not his electoral defeat, but after he was out of office, after the inaugural.
The story is still very well done, sorry Ben.
Sorry...didn’t mean to be repetitive.
If Hussein is your standard for greatness in a President (we are talking Hollywood and academia, after all), then Carter is already rehabilitated.
There is simply no way to ‘rehabilitate’ Carter in the left’s view (he caused us to have 8 years of (Reagan))? Yes!!!!
On our side, he was just incompetent, and we then looked into his sad past and realized what an empty cheap suit he had worn all his life. Hie Nuclear engineering degree he was supposed to have had was tossed around with so many reasons why it wasn’t granted, he should have hired Antonio Rossi to get a PhD from Billy Bobs graduate student class available in LANR or LENR and they give you extra points to debunk the science behind it.
It’s Fake, it’s dead, it’s pining for the fjords, it has ceased to be.
Look for Dennis Lee to have more than this guy has had,
It was like “Band of Brothers” all the goodnes of the characters came though. THeir religious worship, family loyalty and grace under pressure and patriotism came through. I think this was an unintended consequence of good storytelling. WE’ll see what he does with his next movie. He should try again, but he;ll make something liberal anti patriotic and hideous if he does what his predecessors have done.
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