Posted on 03/26/2023 6:15:43 AM PDT by Rummyfan
Despite the natural sympathy for a dying man, the revisionist attempt to erase his failures and their consequences should not prevail.
The stock of historical figures rises and falls with the changing times that follow them. That is especially true for presidents. Examples of these top leaders whose reputations have risen and fallen in succeeding generations abound. Some who exit office with low popularity ratings wind up being thought of with respect once the immediate political circumstances pass, and both historians and the public are able to judge their achievements with more dispassion.
The most outstanding example of this phenomenon is Harry Truman, who was deeply unpopular when his presidency ended due to the inconclusive and bloody Korean War, a sagging economy and the nation’s weariness with the Democrats after 20 years of their rule in Washington. But within a few decades, Truman’s reputation would soar. He would come to be appreciated for his postwar leadership against Soviet expansionism and for his plain-spoken style that at the time was judged as something of a letdown after the patrician bearing and soaring style of Franklin Roosevelt, whom he had succeeded. The most recent C-SPAN poll of historians now ranks Truman as the sixth greatest president in history—a development that few but his closest associates would have believed possible when he left the White House in 1953.
Supporters of former President Jimmy Carter are hoping that posterity will treat him in a similar treatment. And with the 39th president now in hospice at his Georgia home and the world anticipating the sad news of the end of his life, the campaign to revive his reputation is already in full swing...
(Excerpt) Read more at jns.org ...
I think if they focus on his habitat for humanity, that is a legitimate positive. Other then that, it’s rewriting history.
I voted for him twice-youthful indiscretions.
You gotta acknowledge the Republicans were dumb enough to give it to him. Smart people got him elected. Sounded good-”a government as good as the American people”. The world turned out too mean for him to handle.
Give him kudos for Camp David. Human Rights were a good crusade but it cost us Iran.
Don’t forget. He also, literally, gave away the Panama Canal.
Habitat for Humanity was not his idea, he just bought into it and gave it publicity. All after he left the presidency. See how fast the media’s Carter myth has spread. Next thing we’ll be hearing how he was a brilliant nuclear engineer. He wasn’t.
BTTT
Trump, Reagan, Lincoln and Washington are tied for #1
Thirty-eight presidents are tied for #2
Jimmy Carter is #3
Barack Obama is #4
Joe Biden is #5
Harry Truman is #6
My biography of Reagan, “Reagan: The American President” has a chapter on the period 1976 to 1980 called “Worst President Ever *” and the * says “Until Barack Obama.
Now I won’t have a chance to revise that to say “Until Barack Obama and Joe Rutabaga”
Lol. Still he literally took a hammer and used it. Plus exposure was a positive. I was in second grade when he finished his presidency so I have no idea what his attributes were. Just his after life which wasn’t wasted. Even Reagan didn’t accomplish a thing after his presidency except build a museum to himself.
The result was a series of scandals and bad decisions by the Carter Administration on economic and national security issues. Stagflation ensued, and the Soviet Union began to make major political gains and increases in military strength that could have led to the dissolution of NATO and a Soviet victory in the Cold War.
Of course, Carter's defeat by Ronald Reagan led to a dramatic change in course. By the end of Reagan's first term, his tax cuts led to a massive economic recovery, and his expansion of the military and strong negotiating stance against the Soviets soon put the US toward victory in the Cold War.
Because of Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter no longer holds the title of the worst President in US history; however he still holds the title of the worst US President in the 20th Century.
Another neo-con deep stater heard from.
Carter had his faults, but unlike 0bama and Biden, he didn’t despise the country and its people that he was elected to lead. Toobin is just PO that Carter didn’t love Israel more than the United States, which is very typical of neo-cons.
As a vicious bumper sticker said at that time.....”JIMMY CARTER! Best President Panama ever had!”
Truman is way overrated, along with every Democrat, by the Democrat industrial complex (DIC). While I agree with Tobin that Carter was a terrible president, I’d argue that Truman was much worse, since his errors in judgment led to large numbers of dead Americans, and copious expenditures on wars that could have been averted if China hadn’t fallen to Mao. The man, by not only ignoring the Wedemeyer Report, but pouring gasoline on the fire, paved the way for 100K dead GIs in Korea and Vietnam. Without China as antagonist combatant, major supplier and trainer in Korea and Vietnam, there is no way 100K Americans would have been killed there.
That is down to Truman’s penny-wise, pound-foolish approach and perhaps a personal antagonism to Chiang Kai-shek, who was no prize, but not an enemy of these United States the way Mao was. Flawed as Carter was, nothing he did came close to the damage Truman inflicted. And the imperial designs of today’s China flow in a straight line from Mao’s self-acknowledged true inspirations - the classic Chinese novels The Water Margin and The Romance of the Three Kingdoms - which are essentially the moral equivalent of Alexander’s quest to conquer until his armies could advance no further.
Truman’s legacy was a China we will have to fight in the decades ahead. If American casualties are high enough, he should go down in history as the worst president we’ve ever had. But the odds are good that the Democrat Industrial Complex mentioned above will not only find ways to exonerate him, it will put him on a higher pedestal. That’s why historical assessments need to be taken with a grain of salt. History is written by winners among historians, and the winners aren’t always unbiased interpreters of events as they occurred.
Wedemeyer’s 1947 report painted a picture of the Chinese Civil War that was both opportune and dire. Chiang’s armies were far better-equipped than their Communist adversaries (who had not yet received weapons and training from the Soviets in Manchuria), and pushing them back on all fronts, but ammunition, fuel, and spare parts were severely lacking. These had been promised by Lend-Lease, but not delivered and still charged to Chaing’s account. Thus, while the Nationalists had over 16,000 trucks virtually all of them were rendered inoperable, forcing his troops to march on foot. Ammunition shortages were also causing Nationalist divisions to lose battles, and Chaing’s troops were forced to scavenge abandoned American dumps because no deliveries had been made. Even worse, much surplus weaponry and ammunition in the Pacific was being destroyed rather than utilized, and Chiang’s government was charged exorbitant prices for what remained. For example, bazookas were sold to Greece at $3.65 apiece, while Chiang’s government had to pay $162. For rifles, the price difference was $5.10 and $51, respectively. Ammunition cost differences were similar, China being charged $85 for 1000 rifle rounds and $95 for 1000 machine gun rounds, compared to $4.55 and $4.58 elsewhere. Wedemeyer recommended an immediate correction of these deficiencies and sending leftover equipment to China rather than blowing it up.
Lacking confidence in the Nationalist government caused by Joseph Stilwell and George Marshall’s meddling, President Harry S. Truman not only rejected the recommendations in the report but also imposed an arms embargo against the Nationalist government, thereby intensifying the bitter political debate over the role of the United States in the Chinese Civil War. While Secretary of State George C. Marshall had hoped that Wedemeyer could convince Chiang Kai-shek to institute those military, economic, and political reforms that would create a Nationalist-Communist coalition, he supported Truman’s view and suppressed publication of Wedemeyer’s report, further provoking resentment by Nationalist and communist advocates both inside and outside the US government and the armed forces.[citation needed] The report was reprinted, however, in the 1949 China White Paper.
Following completion of the report, he assumed command of the Sixth United States Army in San Francisco, California; in this capacity, Wedemeyer “thought of himself as cut off from further military policy making.”[14]
After the fall of China to Communist forces, Wedemeyer would testify before Congress that while the loss of morale was indeed a cause of the defeat of the Nationalist Chinese forces, the Truman administration’s 1947 decision to discontinue further training and modernizing of Nationalist forces, the US-imposed arms embargo, and constant anti-Nationalist sentiment expressed by Western journalists and policymakers were the primary causes of that loss of morale.[15][better source needed] In particular, Wedemeyer stressed that if the US had insisted on experienced American military advisers attached at the lower battalion and regimental levels of Nationalist armies, as it had done with Greek army forces during the Greek Civil War, the aid could have more efficiently been used. He also said that the immediate tactical assistance would have resulted in Nationalist armies performing far better in combat against the Communist Chinese.[15][better source needed]
Vice Admiral Oscar C. Badger, General Claire Chennault, and Brigadier General Francis Brink also testified that the arms embargo was a significant factor in the loss of China.[15]]
I don't give a rat's hindquarters if he's dying...he has harmed this country enormously both while in office *and* after leaving it.
Yup, I was stationed in the Canal Zone at the time, PX gas immediately went up $.50 a gallon.
But his other accomplishments include:
The Misery Index
The Iran Hostage Crisis/Desert 1 fiasco
Boycotting the Olympics
Big difference on what they did after office. Carter was healthy and in his 50’s when he left office. Reagan was almost 80 and was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. IMHO it’s way more important as to what a president accomplished in office not after.
I don’t think anybody is going to forget what a disaster Jimmy Crater was.
Re8, how Truman avoided war crimes is beyond me. Nuking 2 large Japanese cities and murderng over 100,000 civilians in an instance is beyond pale. I know the japs attached without warning and millions died in the conflagration, but ro nuke 2 cities is beyond reproach.
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