Who is this ‘Jimmy Carter’?
So last night I was watching Anderson Cooper when he announced some breaking news. An old man named Jimmy Carter had implied on NBC that some Republican who called President Obama a liar was a racist. Apparently Carter knew this because he lived in the South, and there was a lot of racism in the South, even today. And, presumably, as this Republican is from the South, then there was probably a hint of racism in what he said. But that’s not all — according to Carter there is also a lot of racism in the criticism of Obama we hear in general. Because Obama’s black and Carter comes from the South, and there’s a lot of racism in the South — or something like that.
Now never mind that this is a rather sweeping, clumsy form of racial profiling. In the end we all get old and mumble to ourselves as we soil our adult diapers — unless we die young, of course. What I didn’t get was why this old man with a fleshy face was mumbling away on my TV and why anybody bothered to report it. I mean, who is he, this ‘Jimmy Carter’? They said that he was a president, but they didn’t specify what he was the president of. The president of the AARP? Of a toy company? Of his local amateur dramatics society? I’ve no idea — and yet he must be somebody big because even the White House felt compelled to respond. Robert Gibbs, Obama’s spokesman, told CNN: “I don’t think the president believes that people are upset because of the colour of his skin.”
Now I know there was a president a long, long time ago called Jimmy Carter, but by all accounts he was totally crap at his job. I mean, I’ve never once heard anybody say anything good about him, other than that he was a nice sort of man, a kindly soul, a good neighbor no doubt- but totally naïve and utterly useless under pressure. Apparently this Carter made a total balls-up of the Iran hostage crisis, and the effects of his mishandling of that affair resonate today. He was also feeble on the economy, or so I’m told. So I know that this old duffer I saw on TV last night can’t have been that Carter because surely he’s off pottering away in his garden, out of harm’s way. I mean, nobody would take seriously a man with that kind of record.
So I ask again: who’s Jimmy Carter?
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Jimmy Carter’s only blemish in his K–12 transcript was a B in 4th-grade music. This is what I remember learning in an American school.
One way of contextualizing Carter is that many, many liberal Democrats from the Northeast Corridor and California supported Ted Kennedy in the 1980 Democratic primary.
If you go and look at earnings during the Carter Presidency, I believe that you will find out that the median working American earned more then than he or she does now… particularly if you adjust for inflation.
This “Jimmy Carter” you speak of is a media go-to guy when it comes to talking peace and race and Palestine… but not so much for peanut farming these days.
But basically, your last paragraph seems to be how the Carter Presidency is summed up by many critics, particularly by the ones who were against it before it began.
Wow, so it really is that Jimmy Carter? Outstanding! And you say that some of his critics were able to foretell the enormous balls-up he made over Iran before anyone even knew there was going to be a revolution? Now that’s real prescience.
Alex, are you giving Carter credit for higher earnings during his presidency? How about those gas prices? The earnings during Reagan presidency were also higher than today – do you like Reagan for that?
Ouch. But to clarify, I didn’t mean to imply that straight As were necessarily proof of anything or that supporting an opponent of a sitting President was proof of his failings as a leader.
I think Reagan finding compromise with House Dems (raising some taxes in fact) was a very positive thing for many Americans. Unemployment remained very high under Reagan where I lived, but many other places did well. It seems as if there was some similar compromise under Clinton that also led to some very good years. And yet in both the 1980s and 90s, many people never felt this, and I believe the number of uninsured rose fairly steadily in both decades.
My sense is that right now, regardless of which factors or Presidents are to “blame” that many more of us are feeling economic insecurity than were under either Carter or Reagan.
But back to the columnist’s (or Daniel K’s?) original question? Why is our nation so dismissive of Carter’s 4 years in office and yet very receptive to his opinions and status these days? If that was in fact the point…
Who is our nation? I’m as dismissive of his opinions today as I am of his presidency record. (I think Daniel K is, too.) You?