[beckett]

You've got to be kidding. Jimmy "Malaise" Carter appointed Volker in 1979 after three years of disastrous policies by his own administration, exacerbated by the tax-and-spend practices of a Democratic Congress which had had a hammerlock on Washington for decades. Those policies and practices led to runaway inflation and mile long lines at gas pumps.

It was sheer dumb luck that Carter chose in Volker someone who had the guts to implement at the Fed the painful fiscal and monetary policies that brought inflation under control.

Jimmy Carter was a failed President --- no part of his record shows otherwise, including the Begin-Sadat agreements that he ostentatiously mentions twice in the column above.