Jimmy Carter Enters Hospice Care at Home {Edit: Jimmy Carter has passed (12/29/2024)}
Carter is the only President in my lifetime that I truly respect as an honourable human being.
He was dealt a bad hand when he took office, largely from holdover problems that originated with Kennedy and were made worse by Johnson and Nixon, and he just didn't have the skills to deal with the problems he faced while President, but he is a great and honourable human being who has done a lot of great things for humanity in his life. My thoughts are with him and his family.
He was dealt a bad hand but he also made some pre-existing problems worse, like not recognizing that the fall of the Shah’s regime and bitter memories of Operation Ajax US-UK 1953 coup that overthrew Mossadegh and how their might be a backlash if Khomenei co-opts the nationalist fervor and feeling and points it at the USA embassy. He was told by his NSA, Zbnewski, his VP, Mondale that if they allowed a sick, ailing Pahlavi into the US for medical care, their might be a vicious reaction and 44 years ago, their was an international incident where 53 Americans were held hostage for 14 months and a badly-arranged, planned rescue attempt (Operation Eagle Claw) hurt American prestige, reputation and destroyed Carter’s chances of winning a second term.
He was a bit naive in his dealings with Brezhnev when it came to detente and thinking the Soviets were serious about nuclear missile-reduction or reducing ballistic missile stocks. I don’t think Brezhnev respected him as a statesman as he had Nixon.
He may have been dealt a bad hand, but so was Clinton in 1992 when he inherited a shaky economy and through some hard work, a lot of luck (dot com bubble), by the mid-90’s our economy was great and roaring again. A lot of Presidents have been dealt unfair bad hands, but they worked themselves through the problems, Carter made quite a few bad problems actually a bit worse like stagflation, rising interest rates, rising oil prices, and his “malaise” speech was misinterpreted as blaming most Americans for the domestic, economic issues.