Jimmy Carter Enters Hospice Care at Home {Edit: Rosalynn Carter has passed (11/19/2023)} (1 Viewer)

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gummbo70114 said:
It’s sad how common sense isn’t that common
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That's because the real world has never been so easy to figure out and is massively complex, nuanced, at times extremely complicated as much as it might seem or appear to seem simple, easy, workable or amendable to many others in life or facing different personal or professional issues in life.

Sometimes, and this is a lesson many Americans have discovered over past 50 years or so is that what seems like "common sense" solutions to issues that are way more complicated and complex then saying or arguing these solutions would apply or work.

Maybe a better analogy is that some of what we've long perceived to be "common sense" is really more difficult process to figure out. Maybe we, as a society, need to re-examine or re-evaluate some of what common sense means or what it looks like.
 
Optimus Prime said:
You can debate who the best president was but I don’t think you can debate who the best ex president was

Jimmy Carter hands down
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As an ex-President, he could just be himself and do productive, helpful humanitarian work with Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity, hes living his own life and can dictate the terms better for himself and his family and help re-define how the American public or the wider world views him.

In the vicious, nasty, bitter world of post-Nixonian/Watergate partisan politics, where even if you have good intentions, good ideas or policies that might be beneficial 25-30 years from now, what you do here and now and how much tangible progress you make or achieve that positively affects the lives of most Americans lives in the short-run is what matters most. Carter inherited a struggling, weak, immediate post-Vietnam War peace time economy that had stagflation, massive huge interest rates that were 3x times higher then what Biden's facing now, OPEC oil shocks that were intruding and disrupting the daily lives of millions of Americans, the price of commercial goods, wages and salaries stagnated. Plus, the Cold War was still ongoing and IMHO, Carter was a bit naive or not completely in tune to the reality of Soviets true intentions and that more then likely, they werent being totally 100% sincere or honest about respecting human rights worldwide (Helsinki Accords), they were cynically using detente or SALT missile reduction treaties negotiated by Nixon and Ford as a way to gain a tactical/logistical advantage. I'm also not entirely sure if Carter even realized that during his presidency, just how badly Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev's cognitive decline truly was and how badly his personal health had worsened. (KGB did a good job obscuring that fact for a long time from Western intelligence services, by late 1970's, Brezhnev's speeches had to be type-written to the largest font possible.) Then the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and any possible deal or reducing tensions for Carter just vanished into smoke by December 1979.

Then the Iranian hostage crisis began and that, rightfully, was "unending screw" that cost Carter a likely second term. He didnt cause nor was he responsible for the conditions that lead to the massive upheaval that overthrew the Shah, nor saw the rise of a Islamic fundamentalist regime led by a medieval autocrat, but he didn't make the overall situation much better or more stable by ignoring his VP and NSA's pleas to not allow the sick, cancer-ridden Shah into the U.S. for medical treatment because it might lead to a backlash where our embassy staff are taken hostage, and their worst fears were realized.
 
Still the most honorable man who's been President in my lifetime. From my study of history, I would say the first honorable one since Teddy. The problems of the 70s overwhelmed him as President; he just didn't have the skill set to deal with what he was dealt, but he retained his decency throughout and became the greatest ex-President probably in our country's entire history.
 
tenordas said:
Still the most honorable man who's been President in my lifetime. From my study of history, I would say the first honorable one since Teddy. The problems of the 70s overwhelmed him as President; he just didn't have the skill set to deal with what he was dealt, but he retained his decency throughout and became the greatest ex-President probably in our country's entire history.
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Yeah, he never let his Presidency define him. Always respected the man regardless of his politics.
 
tenordas said:
Still the most honorable man who's been President in my lifetime. From my study of history, I would say the first honorable one since Teddy. The problems of the 70s overwhelmed him as President; he just didn't have the skill set to deal with what he was dealt, but he retained his decency throughout and became the greatest ex-President probably in our country's entire history.
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Some of his biggest mistakes made or even said during his Presidency were, IMHO, avoidable if he had maybe listened to some on his cabinet, like his VP, and NSA, CIA intellegence services who told him that their was a significant chance of blowback where if we allow Shah to receive medical treatment at John Hopkins, there's a situation where Iranian student radicals might storm our embassy and take our staff in Tehran hostage and then Carter's problems would become even more systemic.

Even though he hadnt been the most effective President in terms of domestic policy up until that point and he unwittingly allowed MSM outlets and reporters to turn him into a caricaturized Southern wimpish buffoon (Camp David rabbit incident), his "Malaise" speech, while it makes perfect sense now, it came across as self-righteous, egotistical, holier-than-thou and a POTUS trying to pass the blame for his failures on to the American people for not working hard enough like we used to to solve problems.

Carter's greatest policy successes came due to his deregulation policies and monetary system that his successor greatly enhanced. The stagflation of the late 70's was so expansive and deep plus U.S. was slowly moving away from a heavy industry-based economy to a service-based economy it has now meant that any relief was going to be seen and palpable by the early-to-mid 80's. His pushing of a more "clean energy" policy due to the OPEC shocks seemed unusual and odd from the perspective of the late 70's, but it was actually under Carter, believe it or not, IIRC, in the summer of 1979, that climatogists first discovered and then showed a very small hole in our ozone layer and deduced it was by created by man-made carbon resources (oil and natural gas consumption).

I think if the Iranian hostage situation and his complete, boondoggle of a rescue mission (Operation Eagle Claw) hadn't been hastily rushed, assembled, and more meticulously planned and succeeded, Carter likely wins a close, re-election bid in 1980. Every day of those 14 months that Iranian fundamentalist regime held our embassy staff hostage from November 1979 to January 1981 where mock executions in the basement were held in Farsi, physically, psychological, and sexual torture took place, that one issue united Americans from all backgrounds not seen since McCarthyism, and part of that resentment, rage was eventually aimed at Carter for continually failing to obtain the release of those 53 hostages.
 
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