I wasn’t really around then: why do people think Carter was a bad President? The only thing I’ve heard is the stagflation… but that really isn’t something under the control of the President to begin with. It’s not clear if he should really be blamed for the hostage crisis in retrospect, anymore than Regan should be credited for its end (though conspiracy theories abound…). And that story about the mutant water-rabbit turned out to be just an early practice example of nearly baseless nasty punditry. What else happened? Why do even Democrats seem to think he was a bad president: just because he lost? What other reasons?
His malaise speech (which never mentioned “malaise”). His accent and generally boring personna. His inability to unite his own party in Congress. His cartoon character family. His constant religious references. The perception that he was weak, ineffective, fatalistic, and naive.
Carter could run again if he wanted to. A president may serve two terms, unless a VP takes office 2 or more years into the term of his predecessor, in which case he may serve two more full terms after that (for a total of not more than 10 years). There has benn one Prez (Grover Cleveland) who served two non-consectecutive terms.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2321295.stm
Apparently the committee chairman was not cleared to take a swipe at Bush. I thought it unnecessary and something that may detract from Carter receiving the prize. Shame!
I loved Jimmy then, I love Jimmy now. Right on! No one is more deserving.
Diogenes the Cynic:
I didn’t blame Carter for the Taliban. In fact, I agree with you - the mujaheddin that the Reagan administration helped finance and arm were definitely the heart of the Taliban. However, I still wonder - not blame, but wonder - if Carter had been less of a pacifist, and more willing to confront the USSR (with sonething more forceful than an Olympic boycott) when they initially pushed into Afghanistan, perhaps the Soviet presence there would not have been so strong as to require the kind of mountain guerilla warfare that made the radical Islamists Reagan’s best hope for expelling them from there.
Chaim Mattis Keller
He should have been a co-winner along with Sadat and Begin. It’s about time.
The swipe at Bush was unfortunate but not unprecedented - the committee gave it to the Dalai Lama at some of the height of China’s tensions over Tibet, for instance.
I can definately see “His inability to unite his own party in Congress.” as a very bad thing. Of course, that all depends on the situation… and the party.
But oh boy: perceptions! A nutty family! I bet he wears different colored shirts sometimes! Or he plays the guitar! That means he’s crazy!
I was in high school during Carter’s administration, and I remember double-digit inflation, gas prices rising to $1.00 a gallon, the disastrous attempted helicopter rescue of the hostages in Tehran, and a godawful TV show (Carter Country–not really his fault, but Lord, it was bad)
And yeah, his freakshow of a family did him no favors.
Even if he wanted to, and I seriously doubt he did, trying to sell the American public on an invasion of Afghanistan 5 years after Saigon fell and with the economy in the toilet (not to mention it being an election year in 1980) was not something Jimmy could have done. A communicator like Reagan or Clinton, maybe, but Carter was no Ronnie or Bill in that regard.
Let the groundswell start here! Jimmy in 2004! Jimmy in 2004!
And Reagan did all he could to bring an invasion of Central America-and look at how well THAT ended up.
Carter was a statesman, and not just another politician. He really did CARE. And he took full responsibility for many things that were beyond his control. He took the brunt of the attacks about the hostages.
Apos wrote:
Did I mention Billy Beer? 
Well, in the case of Nicaragua, it worked. While we didn’t invade, if it wasn’t for the Contras, the Sandinistas would probably still be in power, and El Salvador and Guatemala would probably have socialist or communist governments.
Balderdash, sir! Tommyrot!
An election was held, and the center-right candidate won the election and the Sandanista’s handed over the reigns of government immediately, and Daniel Oretega was shown to be a man of honor and principle.
There are too few of these for them to be brushed aside lightly.
Exactly, but do you think an election would have been held if pressure hadn’t been brought against Ortega and the government?
Yes.
And do you think the Sandinistas would have lost? Because, remember, that was our goal in Central America. It wasn’t to help the Nicaraguans, or respect human rights. It was to make sure the Sandinistas were defeated and a government that would do what we wanted was installed, and also to make sure that governments unfriendly to the US weren’t established in the rest of the region.
I was too young to remember, but wasn’t it later revealed that they (bad Republicans) delayed the release of the hostages so that Carter wouldn’t look good?
Whoops! Our mistake. Some of us actually thought that great principles that this nation is said to stand for like democracy and human rights were involved. (Well, maybe we didn’t really think that for that case…But I was a little surprised to see you so freely concede the point.) So, it’s all about our own self-interest then?