A lot of political podcasts I listen to recently have been talking highly of him, “Carter was the only liberal President since FDR” statements and how he was the only “peaceful” President and thus one of the best in recent memory. “Best President since FDR” also gets thrown around a lot.
I know a lot of stuff happened that wasn’t exactly his fault, but he was also pretty far from peaceful with the support for numerous dictatorships and resistance movements across the globe during his tenure, along with the fact if he did have his way we most likely would have gone to war with Iran. I can’t really see how you can claim he wasn’t a warmonger when he did pretty much what every President does in terms of foreign policy.
I don’t recall Carter pushing all that hard for a war with Iran. Who do you feel was holding him back?
I also feel you’re putting Carter’s current reputation too high. His image has improved since he left office because he’s been involved in a lot of good causes. And some of the Presidents we’ve had since Carter make him look better in retrospective comparison. But I don’t see a lot of people saying he was a great President. His rise has basically been from “poor” up to “average”.
Operation Eagle Claw had it been successful would have certainly drawn us into a war with Iran, considering the plan involved attacking multiple air fields around Tehran to suppress their air forces as well as numerous offensive operations not directly related to the hostage rescue mission (but required to ensure safe passage). Even after the failure Carter still attempted to find military solutions to the problem.
Maybe you can point out where all this praise for Carter’s presidency is coming from. Do you have some examples?
As Little Nemo notes, most of the admiration that you hear for Carter these days is a product of his post-Presidential endeavors, such as his charity work and his general statesmanship. And his presidency does look a bit better in hindsight, especially in 2017. But then again, so does George W. Bush’s.
Carter was a lousy president. Inept, ineffectual, and in over his head. Everything he tried to do fell flat, whether trying to get the country to wear sweaters and keeps their thermostats set at 68, getting China to improve their human rights record by boycotting the Olympics, regaling us with how his pubescent daughter worried about “Nuclear proliferation, Daduh” (Daddy to you and me), or rescuing the hostages, not to mention his utter failure to manage the economy. I’ve never forgiven the media for driving Nixon from office and inflicting him upon the country.
I never bought into the “He’s a good man” b.s. during his presidency either, but he has worked hard and done some good and charitable things during his retirement and the enmity I had for him at the time has waned somewhat. I was actually sorry when he developed brain cancer and was pleased that it seems to have been successfully treated/gone into remission.
I doubt it. Let’s face the strategic reality; the United States is a superpower and Iran isn’t. That means, in blunt terms, that we could have attacked Iran, bombed some of their military bases, and then declared “That’s all we wanted. War’s over now.”
And Iran basically would have had to suck it up and move on. It’s not like Iran could have launched an equivalent counter-attack against the United States. If they had tried to make some kind of symbolic attack against us, we would have just hit them back a hundred times harder than they hit us.
Carter’s image has only improved considering presidents that came after him IMO. My take on him was that he was smart and principled but that he didn’t do a whole lot as President and was ineffectual at what he did try to do. Well, we didn’t go to war, so that’s a plus.
The 1980 Olympics were held in Moscow, U.S.S.R in 1980. Carter’s reason for boycotting the Olympics was because of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in January 1980. He gave the Soviets an ultimatum to withdraw their troops within a month, or we would boycott the Olympics.
Carter was a good President, but not a great President, and those mean two completely different things. Given the choice between the two, I’d choose a good President every time.
Regarding Carter’s handling of the economy: he certainly inherited some problems, the biggest of which was inflation. The monetary policies of Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker (appointed by Carter) were key to eventually bringing it down. Things like that don’t happen overnight. Reagan gets more credit for this than he should, the same way Clinton gets too much credit for the recovery that began during Bush 41’s administration.
I lived through it. He and Ford immediately before were middle-of-the-pack transitional presidents, but at the wrong time to be so. OTOH I’ve always considered the intense loathing and hate some people have for Carter as president – as if we had been going swimmingly fine as of 20Jan77 and then he himself had single-handedly brought the country to the brink of falling – as out of proportion. He was simply, as POTUS, the vessel for all the frustrations and rage over how rainbows and unicorns failed to arise once we got rid of Dick, or even as shown in a post upthread, over having got rid of Dick at all. For all I know some people may blame him for disco AND punk.
As others have mentioned, part of the “rehabilitation” of Carter in office to “just so-so” is his sterling personal conduct since leaving the presidency, and the comparison with those who have come or pretended to come after him and the realization of “crap, yes we COULD do worse”.
And yes we always blame the presidents for the bad things that hit bottom during their term, and credit them for the good things that peaked on their watch.
This is pretty much how I hear it said. I’ve never heard anyone say Carter was a great president. He has a great reputation as a human being, especially for his post presidential work, but I’m not even sure I ever heard anyone refer to him as a very good president, much less great, and I tend to hang out in crowds where his politics are friendly.
Really? First, the press did exactly what it is supposed to do. Report stuff. Even the Republicans in Congress were not supporting Nixon by the time he left.
Second if Nixon had not resigned (or been removed), the next President would have been a Democrat and almost certainly won with a bigger margin. Ford as sitting VP would have been a quite likely candidate in any case.
And yet, look at the President we’re stuck with now.
What’s wrong with that? If you want to pay more for your heating, go ahead. If you want to save money, lower your thermostat and put on a hoodie. It’s called Freedom of Choice.
Presidents who commit crimes should be removed from office. The Free Press is one of the tools we had to keep politicians honest. They were doing their job.