Hodding Carter III, State Department spokesman during Iran hostage crisis, dies at 88

The Associated Press ^ | May 12, 2023

[ConservativeStatement]

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Hodding Carter III, a Mississippi journalist and civil rights activist who as U.S. State Department spokesman informed Americans about the Iran hostage crisis and later won awards for his televised documentaries, has died. He was 88.

His daughter, Catherine Carter Sullivan, confirmed that he died Thursday in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he taught leadership and public policy.

[lightman]

444 days of shame.

Presidential weakness emboldens our enemies.

Too bad that Hodding shared the same surname as Mister Peanut POTUS

[ConservativeStatement]

And it grew from here...

[lightman]

Critical thinking held hostage.

[SamAdams76]

I remember that Nightline show "America Held Hostage" very well from that period. It used to come on after the 11PM local news show. It was a nightly drumbeat of negativity that helped to seal the doom of the Carter presidency and thus propel Ronald Reagan to the White House in a landslide.

In retrospect, it seems odd that a liberal network would do that. Perhaps they did not realize at the time they were hurting the Carter Administration more than helping it.

[HandBasketHell]

In retrospect, it seems odd that a liberal network would do that. Perhaps they did not realize at the time they were hurting the Carter Administration more than helping it.

They wanted Ted Kennedy ('Swimmer' as Rush used to call him) to be the nominee, and when he lost the nomination, he never gave a proper endorsement to Carter.

[ClearCase_guy]

The formula of “Government = Media” was evident all the way back then. And earlier.

Yet many sheep out there still think that the “independent press” helps us keep the government “honest”.

[SamAdams76]

Being in the Boston area at the time, I remember the boomlet for Ted Kennedy at the time (1980). The local news anchors were bubbling with excitement, especially Chet and Natalie from channel 5 with that light-in-the-loafers Dick Albert doing the weather.

I believe the Roger Mudd interview did Teddy in.

[rlmorel]

You are right that they were inadvertently hurting the Carter Administration. I doubt that was intentional, as you say.

However, that nightly Ted Koppel schtick drove me crazy. It wasn’t bad enough that the the Carter Administration was incompetent in all matters, they were weak too.

Evil people are deficient in many ways, but one thing they are very skilled at is spotting weakness.

Every day it would be “Good Evening. It is day 261 of the Iran Hostage Crisis...” and underneath the speaker, there was a giant red headline font saying just that.

The next day it was absolutely the same intro, just incremented by one.

I hated being reminded of it in that fashion. Every single night.

But that was back when I would watch the news on occasion. I totally stopped in the mid-late Nineties.

[rlmorel]

My eyes were opened to the fallacy of the “independent press” and that sheep-like trust in me was shattered during the Nixon Administration culminating in Watergate.

The Media’s enthusiasm, energy and joy they showed at the pursuit and downfall of Nixon really showed me that they made their choice to be partisan.

[MrLucky1966]

I remember that Nightline show "America Held Hostage" very well from that period. It used to come on after the 11PM local news show. It was a nightly drumbeat of negativity that helped to seal the doom of the Carter presidency and thus propel Ronald Reagan to the White House in a landslide.

In retrospect, it seems odd that a liberal network would do that. Perhaps they did not realize at the time they were hurting the Carter Administration more than helping it.

I remember that too, Ted Koppel came on that night and every night thereafter, I was 13 and in 7th Grade. Earlier that year, 1979, in September, I missed the first week of school because I was over my paternal grandmother's place for the weekend and I ended up there for the week because Mom needed gas for the car to get to work and we had the gas crisis. I remember we did some gardening, go down to Pittsburgh on the bus and trolley cars, etc, we did have fun. I also got my shortwave radio the previous Christmas and remember picking up Iran and others on it too, again my grandmother got me into that and police scanning and I have a ham radio license.

President Carter, he was a bumbler but at least he was not out to destroy the country and tried to do the right thing. He did start to take the baby steps to rebuild the military after Afghanistan but it was too little, too late and Ronald Reagan had to kick it into gear. I think another source of home is when later in February of 1980, the U.S. Hockey Team took the gold, I'll always remember that. I also remember when Kasey Kasem hosted American Top 40, he would always play the National Anthem sung by Willie Nelson, I think I might still have it on my reel-to-reel recorder somewhere.

[fieldmarshaldj]

"President Carter, he was a bumbler but at least he was not out to destroy the country and tried to do the right thing."

[MrLucky1966]

Well, I think his energy policy left much to be desired, his problem was he was too trusting and thus the world took advantage of him and us like with Iran and the Soviets in Afghanistan. He did handle the Camp David agreements well, I'll have to be fair and give him that, bot overall he was a bumbler, well meaning for the most part, but still he was very weak and did exhibit poor judgement. He did try to rescue the hostages but failed and I don't really his fault but as we all know, still a black mark om his leadership. Seeing what we have in office now, President Biden, he looks like a genius compared to him and he is no longer the worst President in recent history, albeit still would reside on the bottom end, but I think the two bottom slots would be held by Obama and Biden as #2 and #1 worst respectively and #3 would be Clinton so I'd put Jimmy Carter at #4. He did have good intentions (although the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, on the other hand and that is the hand that always gets you) for the most part, well again, we might disagree on the minutae so I'll leave it up to the readers to judge so your mileage may vary. WE could have done a lot better than electing him but just saying, there is always worse and we are seeing it now.

May we can disagree on our takes here but we have to focus on the recent past, the now and see what we can do to salvage what we can for the future and go from there. I see you posted a pic of Trump, I'm hoping to vote for him and see him back in there again. If he does not make it for some reason, maybe DeSantis, but I'm not as enthused on him and beyond that, I feel a bit lackluster and don't know. The only thing that would keep me going is to try to do my part to get the current crew out of office.

The late 1970's was a trying time, although it was a fun time to be a kid or young adult, I'll say that much.

[fieldmarshaldj]

The image you have of Carter is in opposition to what he truly is. He was not a bumbler, nor stupid. It was actually all an act. He was ruthless, cold, calculating and quite intelligent. Now one can be intelligent and still do wrong-headed and destructive things. He was also far from a trusting person, that was also an act. I remember when I communicated with his Gubernatorial predecessor in GA, the legendary Lester Maddox. Gov. Maddox sent me lots of material exposing the real Carter. A master manipulator who presented himself as a “Conservative Christian”, when he was anything but.

As with today, the media covered up his actions and sins. In 1970, while running to succeed Maddox, he ran one of the most racist primary campaigns against racial moderate ex-Gov. Carl Sanders (following the model of George Wallace in 1962). You heard almost nary a peep in 1976, just 6 short years later, about his anti-Black campaign (to add to the audacity, Martin Luther King, Sr., father of Jr., was present to give the invocation at Carter’s nomination crowning). It still didn’t prevent roughly 85% of Black voters from voting for Carter that year.

He would simply try to trick, lie and manipulate whatever group was needed in order to get power. A very ruthless politician. I would also sincerely question any Christian credentials as well. He’s a bitter anti-Semite and has little use for actual Conservatism (true Christianity) and has a deep abiding love for totalitarian leftist dictators. His deep-seated arrogance in believing he was always right and “moral” also exposed him to those who could see.

I’d even go so far as to say his “Habitat for Humanity” project is an act as well, to satisfy his vanity. It is remarkable how he managed to fool so many people, but as with today, you had a media and culture ready to help him (wait for his funeral, which will be a hilarious call by them that he was one of the greatest men to ever be in the White House). Really just another in a long line of destructive leftist Democrat Presidents beginning with the odious Socialist Woodrow Wilson. Despite claims of being “Conservative”, since after 1892, only one Democrat nominee for President has been a non-leftist, and that was John W. Davis in 1924. Every other for 28 years prior and a century after has been either sympathetic to or an outright Socialist or Communist committed to the “fundamental transformation of America.” Carter was no different.