You said it for me. I have always felt he was the finest Man ever to be POTUS.
I think he’s talking about post presidency, years alive after leaving office. My math skills are weak but I’m pretty sure that since Carter left office before Uncle Ronnie was elected, and Ronnie is now dead, that Carter has had a longer post president life.
Good post Shodan.
See folks, he’s not that bad.
Indeed so. Both he and Gerald Ford were honest, reliable men, who wound up holding the Presidency during incredibly challenging times. While we weren’t at war during those years, that’s probably one of the few good things you could say about 1974-1980.
Those years featured the oil crises, two recessions, high inflation, skyrocketing interest rates, and the Iranian hostage crisis; it’s hard to imagine anyone having a “successful” presidential tenure in those years.
As others have already, more eloquently stated, Carter has had such a tremendous impact on society and the world in the years following his presidency, that it’s those things for which he (justifiably) will be remembered.
I have no idea why people think Carter was a poor President. He did a really great job. But the media is controlled by Reagan fans (who was an actual disaster), so history has been re-written.
I don’t think he did a great job. But as I said before there’ve been worse since. He didn’t get a grip on the economy or the energy crisis. He inherited those problems, but he wanted the job, and he didn’t do much about those issues which were foremost in the public’s mind. He didn’t handle the hostage crisis well either, he was a former Naval Officer and should have realized the rescue mission was too risky, and overall he let the situation get out of hand in the media. He couldn’t have realized initially that Ted Koppel was doing a hit job on him, but he had the opportunity to get out in the media himself to counter that. He didn’t do a terrible job under the circumstances, but that doesn’t translate to doing a great job.
He did a crap job as President, and a worse job as ex-President.
Can’t say what kind of a man he was, but, I hope he recovers from the cancer.
Congratulations! You just earned the Wrongest Post I’ve Ever Seen Award. Four swings, four misses.
Usually Democratic presidents get chided for *not *following the military leadership’s advice about military operations. But when they do, and they fail, it’s their fault anyway.
Your statements contradict each other and are so completely off the mark, I’d have to say that they’re the product of someone who can’t see past his political hatred. Carter’s foundation has eradicated the scourge of guinea worm in Africa. It’s a horrifying, excruciating and debilitating affliction. That alone is reason enough to praise the man, let alone his efforts to provide housing for people in need, regardless of political stripe. Contrast this with our Republican ex-presidents, who by and large have done nearly zip point shit for anyone but themselves.
It’s a tough job.
Carter was the last responsible president of the United States. He knew our resources were finite. Most Americans still refuse to come to terms with this, and keep swiping the credit card.
Carter doesn’t get credit for a lot of things. Most of the military equipment reforms- the ones that worked, were initiated under his administration. Reagan tended to just throw money at the Pentagon and they’d spend it on stuff that failed miserably (some of the projects had started under Carter but were strung out needlessly by the Reagan admin).
His intelligence policy reduced a lot of the seedier elements of the CIA that had been running around - oddly enough these policies had been started by Nixon (who referred to the CIA as just a bunch of newspaper readers) but Carter had a lot of really bad agents removed. Reagan gave them later work with his various Central american incidents.
He made the world safe for boaters, having vanquished the aquatic killer rabbits! 
I’ll second that.
I actually got to meet him and the Mrs some years back and they were flat-out nice people to be around. His politics and mine may not have matched but he is someone worthy of respect.
You don’t remember the recession of his tenure? 18% mortgage rates, 15% unemployment? people driving 12 year old cars because nobody could buy a new one. yes, Carter is a good and decent man, but a disaster as president.
Agreed. 1976 was a race between two men who deserved better of the public’s fickle memory.
And besides his political and post-political life, I must also give due respect to Lieutenant Carter leading his men into a malfunctioning nuclear reactor to secure it manually.
Best wishes for you, Mr. Carter, sir.
Baker, I have long suspected that that whole deal was orchestrated by the Reagan crew. I wouldn’t completely blame it all on Iran.
Agree with the others who say he may not have been our best President but has without a doubt been one of our greatest ex-Presidents.
But Carter made it many times worse-in Remember his “malaise” speech? He was blaming the American people. Instead of dropping interest rates and expanding spending, he foolishly thought that tight money was the way to go. The result was a severe depression.