# The legacy of Jimmy Carter **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 25, 2006, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886 "2006-03-25T21:43:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/41 "2006-03-28T05:09:32Z")
Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/42 "2006-03-28T05:43:51Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Jimmy Carter is a favorite whipping boy for Republicans, who love to point to his presidency as a colossal failure. Jokes abound. But I have to say that if any president, present or past, can even halfway match the legacy that he is leaving, he will have accomplished something terrific. > > Anyone who has had even the faintest association with Africa is well aware of the scourge of Guinea worm disease. It’s a plague and a horror, an excruciatingly painful malady that is easily prevented by the simplest of measures. Yet nobody has had the will or tenacity to take it on. Until [now](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/international/africa/26worm.html?hp&ex=1143349200&en=5851475b059fc8ea&ei=5094&partner=homepage). In 20 years, cases in Nigeria alone have been reduced from 650,000 to 121. It’s on the verge of extinction, ending suffering on a scale you can’t even imagine. > > For this work alone, Jimmy Carter and the Carter Center should be canonized. It’s the one quasi-religious organization on the planet that I admire. Good Man. Mediocre President. Impressive retiree. I think that about sums him up, no? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/43 "2006-03-28T14:19:50Z")
> [@Renob](#): > > He may be a good man, and some of his post-presidency work is quite commendable, but there was little about his presidency to celebrate. Apart from the Camp David Accords and airline deregulation (that happened under him, right?), he was a complete and total failure as president. Everyone remembers the Carter years for inflation, but he inherited that problem from the previous administrations. Carter appointed Paul Volcker as head of the Federal Reserve – a man who was willing to make the hard choices, to tighten the money supply even at the cost of economic recession in the short term. Could the prosperity of the Reagan years have been possible without that? What else should Carter have done about inflation? Follow Ford’s example and print “WIN” buttons? :rolleyes: The energy crisis, likewise, was something that happened on Carter’s watch. At least he tried to do something about it, creating a Department of Energy, exploring the possibility of alternative fuels, and making a lot of symbolic gestures like putting solar panels on the White House roof. (The latter two were contemptuously discarded by Reagan.) What more could he have done, in a single term? Maybe if he had had a second, “alternative fuels” would not be new and controversial issue today, and we would not be so dependent on foreign oil that that dependence warps our foreign and military policy. Perhaps he might have done something to prevent the Iranian revolution or the hostage crisis.\* But, once the hostages were taken, what could Carter have done that he did not do? At the time he appeared vacillating and ineffectual. But now we’ve seen what an aggressive response to foreign provocation can get us into. The post-9/11 events might have gone much, much better if Carter or someone like him had been in the White House. (See this thread. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=364633](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=364633)) Carter enacted strong environmental-protection legislation, and appointed record numbers of women and minorities to government positions. In foreign policy, Carter moved human rights to the forefront, initiated detente with the Soviet Union, and began nuclear disarmament talks, and continued to form better relations with China. No, not a “complete and total failure as president.” Not at all. I think history will be kind to him. BTW, we’ve debated the legacy of the Carter Administration before: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=342650](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=342650) \*But I can’t imagine what. That was a case what goes around coming around. The U.S. fucked up Iran with Operation Ajax in 1953, deposing an elected prime minister and restoring the Shah to absolute power. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation\_ajax](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_ajax) Once again, a problem Carter inherited from his predecessors. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/44 "2006-03-28T14:23:38Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > That’s just nuts. Inflation was out of control under Carter until Volcker was put in charge, and I will give Carter credit for putting him in. That doesn’t change the fact that Carter had to do more than just that to get things under control, and he did not do it. Like what? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/45 "2006-03-28T14:26:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Perhaps he might have done something to prevent the Iranian revolution or the hostage crisis.\* But, once the hostages were taken, what could Carter have done that he did not do? At the time he appeared vacillating and ineffectual. But now we’ve seen what an aggressive response to foreign provocation can get us into. The post-9/11 events might have gone much, much better if Carter or someone like him had been in the White House. (See this thread. [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...ad.php?t=364633](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb...ad.php?t=364633)) I agree with **Brain Glutton** about Carter – I think he’s still getting a raw deal, and that history will treat him better. Even BG , in this instance, isn’t being as fair as Carter deserves. People seem to have forgotten that he _sent a rescue mission in after the hostages_. It failed because of mechanical failure of the helicopters due to (IIRC) a sandstorm. Carter definitely didn’t sit idly by. I often wonder how he would be viewed if that mechanical SNAFU hadn’t aborted the mission, and the hoastages had been freed. One other thing I’ve heard from friends overseas – Carter was viewed as one of the few US presidents who viewed other nations as allies, and wasn’t arrogant about American power. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/46 "2006-03-28T14:53:50Z")
Carter also gave the Panama Canal Zone to the Panamanians. One point on which he was right and Reagan (“We bought it, we paid for it, and they can’t have it!”) was definitely wrong. Now we still get to use the canal, and we have much better relations with Panama. ---
**Author:** ![Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Carnac\_the\_Magnificent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnac_the_Magnificent)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/47 "2006-03-28T15:22:00Z")
I’m certainly no Carter fan, but regarding spiraling oil prices, what could George W Bush teach Carter about containing them? What could Carter have done about the hostage crisis, especially in light of the Iraq fiasco of recent years? Admittedly, the undersized military force Carter sent into Iran blew it, but it’s doubtful that a group of slow, noisy helicopters–evading radar or not–could have surprised the Iranian captors and spirited off even a few of living hostages. A more likely scenario is that all would have been executed and then the Carter administration would have to contemplate war. What might Reagan or Bush 43 done better? Should we have gone to war? To what end? Demand their release or flatten Tehran? How was Carter directly responsible for inflationary pressures that were mounting since Johnson’s Vietnam through Ford’s WIN era? What responsibility should Reagan take for roughly quadrupling US deficiits, after Carter had doubled them? Don’t get me wrong. Carter turned in less than a dazzling performance. He irked a lot of people with his pedantic, better-than-thou persona. But if the same harsh standards applied to Carter are applied to Ford through Bush 43, we’ve had a raft of stumblebums. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/48 "2006-03-28T15:31:55Z")
> [@Carnac the Magnificent!](#): > > I’m certainly no Carter fan, but regarding spiraling oil prices, what could George W Bush teach Carter about containing them? Carter taught Bush by negative example. Carter imposed a windfall profits tax on oil companies. That had the effect of halving domestic oil production as a proportion of our overall consumption, and sharply driving up imports. The tax collected no revenues by 1987, and was repealed, finally, in 1988. It was a very badly thought out policy. Another badly thought out policy was the Carter administration gasoline price controls, which did indeed control prices but which also led to long gas lines and gas shortages. This policy was so unpopular that it is a safe bet it won’t ever be tried again. Higher fuel prices overall are a better bargain than cheap gas that cannot be bought at all. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/49 "2006-03-28T18:46:46Z")
You folks can’t have it both ways here. Some of you are trying to argue that Carter was in fact a great president who was just screwed over by unfortunate historical events. Things just don’t work out that way. Our greatest presidents - Lincoln, Washington, FDR - also had to deal with tremendous challenges. They met adversity with imagination and foresight. They rose to the challenges of their era in a way that Carter never did. Carter can be a good man screwed over by history, or an incompetent man not up to the challenges of his era. But he cannot be a great president, because history did in fact beat him, and beat him badly. Whatever he has done before or since those four years cannot ever change that fact. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2006, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/50 "2006-03-28T23:35:33Z")
Carter was on the wrong track, all he had to do was sell weapons to Iran like Reagan and Oliver North to get the hostages released. ---
**Author:** ![eengland0880](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@eengland0880](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eengland0880)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/51 "2006-03-30T09:47:33Z")
Well every president has had problems I’m not a big fan of this one , but as I hope for the best I fear that the road we’re one is the wrong one . I’m 41 and at the time really could give a shit about reagan and ford, Carter was a man out of time . Won’t ever get his due under the current deal. e ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/52 "2006-03-30T12:50:54Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Carter taught Bush by negative example. Yes - for example, he lowered the budget deficit. Bush exploded it. I like your thinking, **Moto**. You’ve provided another backfiring compliment like your _Bewitched_ attempt to criticize Democrats for being the only ones to see the truth, whereas folks like yourself remain _Bewitched_. ---
**Author:** ![Renob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8c91f0/32.png) [@Renob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renob)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/53 "2006-03-30T13:30:14Z")
> [@Hentor the Barbarian](#): > > Yes - for example, he lowered the budget deficit. Bush exploded it. I like your thinking, **Moto**. What are you talking about? When Carter came into office the deficit was $27 billion. When he left it was $59 billion. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/54 "2006-03-30T14:48:37Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > **Kalhoun** , you will, I’m sure, criticize Bush for the military deaths under his watch, but what you might not know is that the Carter-era military was so disorganized and demoralized, and the recruits of such lower quality, that there were far more military deaths under him than under Bush, with no major hostile operations at all under his watch. > > [Link.](http://web1.whs.osd.mil/mmid/casualty/Death_Rates.pdf) With all due respect, I’d like to know more about the source of the data. There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. My suspicion is that these figures were compiled with an agenda. Where is the cause and effect? How did these soldiers die, and how can they be blamed on Carter? I’m an avid Carter fan and I think history will be very kind to him. I remember him as a peacemaker and exponent of human rights. I think his treatment of other nations as equals and the negotiations to give the Panama Canal to Panama show a foreign policy that was infinitely more morally sound than the gunboat diplomacy of Teddy Roosevelt that gave the US the Canal in the first place. Of course the crowning achievement was bringing about the Camp David accords. Perhaps it will be remembered as a step in a direction that ultimately did not result in long lasting peace, but it was a tremendous step in the right direction no matter how it plays out in the long run. I think the cyclic nature of the economy is somewhat beyond the control of the president. In that sense, Carter was the unfortunate victim of circumstance. He happened to be in place during a stagnant economic cycle. He also was a bit unlucky in that he was the only full term president in history without a chance to make a Supreme Court nomination. During the 1980 election, it seemed if Reagan stepped out in the rain, Carter got wet. He deserves credit for what he didn’t do. He didn’t go to war with Iran over the hostages. He made what I thought was the right call, a raid to rescue them. True to his luck, sandstorms and equipment failures aborted the mission. One shudders to think of what Bush would have done. He didn’t spy on the American people, he didn’t authorize and condone the use of torture. He didn’t use third parties to smear his political opposition. Looking back, I’d say the 1976 and 1980 election campaigns were the cleaner than any since. After office, he went to work to serve humanity. Contrast that to Reagan, who quickly let himself cash in on his presidency. There are a lot of people that have homes that otherwise wouldn’t, thanks to his charitable efforts. As mentioned earlier, he’s worked to help eradicate some pretty loathsome diseases in the poorer parts of the world. Carter was without doubt the most moral man to ever inhabit the White House. Perhaps not in his lifetime, but he will be remembered as one of the true giants of the late 20th century. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/55 "2006-03-30T15:07:30Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > After office, he went to work to serve humanity. Contrast that to Reagan, who quickly let himself cash in on his presidency. While I agree wholeheartedly with the rest of this post, allow me to disagree with this part, please. By the time Reagan left office, he was already showing the early effects of the Alzheimer’s that eventually killed him. Considering that you really can’t expect anyone in that condition to do the kind of things Carter has done since his “retirement”, I can’t blame Reagan for not doing those things. Not that I necessarily think that Reagan WOULD have done those things had he been in good health, just that he never really had the chance. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/56 "2006-03-30T15:20:57Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > While I agree wholeheartedly with the rest of this post, allow me to disagree with this part, please. By the time Reagan left office, he was already showing the early effects of the Alzheimer’s that eventually killed him. Considering that you really can’t expect anyone in that condition to do the kind of things Carter has done since his “retirement”, I can’t blame Reagan for not doing those things. Not that I necessarily think that Reagan WOULD have done those things had he been in good health, just that he never really had the chance. This may be true and I may be a little too hard on the old chap. His diagnosis was not made public for some time after he left office. He probably had begun to degrade while president and perhaps he felt the need to cash in while he still could. But at the time, his eagerness to turn a quick buck struck me as unseemly. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/57 "2006-03-30T15:27:25Z")
> [@Renob](#): > > What are you talking about? When Carter came into office the deficit was $27 billion. When he left it was $59 billion. I was simply recalling [this chart](http://traxel.com/deficit/deficit-percentage-50-years.png) from a previous thread. It doesn’t give the raw data, but depicts a marked drop in the deficit as a percentage of GDP from 1976 to 1977, another drop from '78 to '79, and a return to the 1977 level in 1980. Perhaps these numbers are wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/58 "2006-03-30T15:29:46Z")
> [@Renob](#): > > What are you talking about? When Carter came into office the deficit was $27 billion. When he left it was $59 billion. Well, adjusted for inflation… er, maybe that’s not an argument Carter’s advocates want to use. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/59 "2006-03-30T15:29:51Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > This may be true and I may be a little too hard on the old chap. His diagnosis was not made public for some time after he left office. He probably had begun to degrade while president and perhaps he felt the need to cash in while he still could. But at the time, his eagerness to turn a quick buck struck me as unseemly. Well, when Bill Clinton speaks to a paying audience, his fee reportedly tops $100,000. I invite you to demonstrate your evenhandedness on this point, and denounce this. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886/60 "2006-03-30T15:34:19Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > This may be true and I may be a little too hard on the old chap. His diagnosis was not made public for some time after he left office. He probably had begun to degrade while president and perhaps he felt the need to cash in while he still could. But at the time, his eagerness to turn a quick buck struck me as unseemly. Consider, also, that at his age, and with his wealth, he could not have expected that money to make much difference to his own life. What would he spend it on? He was just building up the estate for his family. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-legacy-of-jimmy-carter/349886.md?page=4)