# Why is Jimmy Carter considered such a great president now? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 27, 2017, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822 "2017-08-27T06:23:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/41 "2017-08-28T00:01:52Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > A mediocre President but one of the greatest Ex-Presidents. > > He also put his money where his mouth was. Not a hypocrite. > > Promoted past his level, sadly. I’ll second that. As POTUSes go he was less that good but far from terrible. But as a man, as an example to others after he left office, he may have reached the level of greatness we attribute to him. And with him I can say that I am 99% sure it wasn’t an act; I got to meet him and spend some time with him and his wife in a casual setting (fishing) and found no differences from their public persona. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/42 "2017-08-28T00:40:33Z")
\*\*Why is Jimmy Carter considered such a great president now? \*\* He’s not. Until Obama was elected, he was the most incompetent President we had ever had. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/43 "2017-08-28T00:47:08Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > \*\*Why is Jimmy Carter considered such a great president now? > \*\* > He’s not. Until Obama was elected, he was the most incompetent President we had ever had. And there we go. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/44 "2017-08-28T01:54:51Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > \*\*Why is Jimmy Carter considered such a great president now? > \*\* > He’s not. Until Obama was elected, he was the most incompetent President we had ever had. Really? Worse than William Henry Harrison? ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/45 "2017-08-28T02:07:58Z")
The **Clothy** and **Starvy** history tour never gets old. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/46 "2017-08-28T05:13:49Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > He’s not. Until Obama was elected, he was the most incompetent President we had ever had. I have to disagree. Buchanan was clearly the most incompetent President we ever had. No other President lost part of the country. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/47 "2017-08-28T05:48:25Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Well, that depends. In general they mostly report negative stuff about Republicans and positive stuff about Democrats, while in reality positive and negative exist with both. > > Nixon first earned the enmity of the press (unsurprisingly) by being an anti-commie in the 40s, and for going after Alger Hiss. They hounded him relentlessly and did everything they could to cast him in a negative light throughout the rest of his career. Once Watergate began to develop they smelled blood and went after him and pounded him day after day after day for two years, eventually managing to erode his support among Congress and the public. I have not the slightest doubt that had any Democrat president been guilty of the same (attempting to cover up relatively minor illegal misdeeds perpetrated on his behalf but not at his direction) we’d never had heard a peep. > > More nuanced than you my friend. You make it sound as though Nixon’s entire problem with the press existed only throughout the Watergate affair, when in reality their enmity toward him and their efforts to bring him down had been going on for decades. Perhaps you aren’t old enough or educated enough to have been aware of his “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore…” comment to the press during his gubernatorial concession speech in 1962 in regard to a kicking around that had been going on for 15 years or more even at that time. I somehow missed this earlier. People like you just absolutely cannot believe people on the other side of the aisle can arrive at their own conclusions unaided by the miscreant of the day, can you? 100% of my cognizance of media bias toward Nixon was based not on on a single thing Nixon said, but upon my own observation of the press’s behavior toward him (and to a lesser extent, other Republican politicians) from the time I was old enough to begin paying attention to politics. And after almost two decades of hostile and negative national press attention, the fact that a few newspapers in California endorsed him (as they would any Republican candidate) is meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/48 "2017-08-28T06:51:35Z")
He was attacked by a killer rabbit and lived. NEVAR FORGET ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/49 "2017-08-28T11:55:33Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > Let’s not forget, that in many ways he was sabotaged by the leading Dems. If he had been better supported by Tip O’Neill & Ted Kennedy he may have gotten more done and been better regarded. Carters relationship with Congressional leadership was doomed to fail from the start. He was conservative, they were liberal, he didn’t know how to compromise, and they were all about dealmaking, his entire campaign was about how Washington was corrupt and he was the only one who could fix it, and they were part of official Washington, and he was arrogant and didn’t see any need to work with them or care about what they wanted. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/50 "2017-08-28T12:01:05Z")
He was the same way as governor, btw. His relationship with the Georgia legislature was really bad. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/51 "2017-08-28T12:34:42Z")
I’d still rate Carter as poor, although less poor than it seemed when he left office. His domestic policies were actually pretty sound, but he was out of his depth in foreign policy and couldn’t even deal with a Democratic Congress, much less a Republican Congress had he been unfortunate enough to have one happen on his watch. It’s true that Carter is a wonderful man, but so was Herbert Hoover, and I dare say Hoover was an even better man(and worse President). ---
**Author:** ![Enter\_the\_Flagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Enter\_the\_Flagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enter_the_Flagon)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/52 "2017-08-28T14:04:20Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Carters relationship with Congressional leadership was doomed to fail from the start. He was conservative, they were liberal, he didn’t know how to compromise, and they were all about dealmaking, his entire campaign was about how Washington was corrupt and he was the only one who could fix it, and they were part of official Washington, and he was arrogant and didn’t see any need to work with them or care about what they wanted. This is close to Jack Germond’s assessment of Carter’s presidency, and Germond had access to the oval office. In essence he said that, even when Carter needed to work with Congress, he was unable to effectively wield either the carrot or the stick. ---
**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:** [August 28, 2017, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/53 "2017-08-28T15:55:01Z")
He was a very good president. The Panama Canal and Camp David agreements are huge accomplishments. He happened to preside over a time of great inflation, driven by things out of his control- primarily OPEC’s decision to dramatically raise prices which percolates through the entire economy. I give him credit for not going to war with Iran over the hostages and he freed them with zero loss of life. I know the Reagan cultists are going to say they were freed during his watch, but Ronnie was still on Capitol Hill at his inaugural when they were freed- he did nothing to achieve that. As a matter of fact, he prolonged their captivity by undermining Carter’s negotiations and convincing the mullahs that they would get a better deal with him if they kept the hostages after election day. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/54 "2017-08-28T16:06:24Z")
I thought the narrative was that he’s a really great FORMER President… ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/55 "2017-08-28T16:56:41Z")
I worked with a guy from Georgia during the run up to the election who said he really hoped Carter wouldn’t win, that he’d really screwed things up in Georgia. ---
**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:** [August 28, 2017, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/56 "2017-08-28T16:58:56Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I worked with a guy from Georgia during the run up to the election who said he really hoped Carter wouldn’t win, that he’d really screwed things up in Georgia. For every one of those, I wager there are ten from California who were tickled to be rid of Reagan. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/57 "2017-08-28T17:09:12Z")
Reagan was both elected and re-elected as governor of California, and won California for the presidency in landslides in both 1980 (52.7% to Carter’s 35.9%) and in 1984 (57.5 to Mondale’s 41.3%). [Cite](http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-pol-ca-california-voting-history/) ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/58 "2017-08-28T17:41:17Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > he was out of his depth in foreign policy Can you explain this more? His only real failure was the Iranian hostage crisis and it’s hard to see what he should have done better. Otherwise, the Camp David accords and arming the Afghans were history altering successes. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/59 "2017-08-28T18:05:01Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > . . . Her Father told her that Carter was smart, but very bad at management. He would assign tasks to members of his staff, but follow up constantly to make sure they were being done correctly. According to her Father, he had a hard time delegating and letting things be handled by others. He tried to manage the entire Presidency sometimes, which is impossible. . . . I’m trying to remember a pundit quote from during or just after Carter’s presidency. Paraphrasing, he said that, in management, some people were forest men and some people were tree men, but my God, Carter was a leaf man. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2017, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822/60 "2017-08-28T18:07:59Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I had Leonard Woodcock’s daughter(Leslie Tentler) as Professor at the University of Michigan. Her Father was the ambassador to China under Carter [Replacing Ambassador Duke](https://books.google.com/books?id=duzoPmkCy1QC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=he+doesn%27t+know+he%27s+being+replaced+by+leonard+woodcock&source=bl&ots=7-PdP6sVGG&sig=yaNxJeLpMz3qigN0cLycEeNiAkc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHzf-kwvrVAhWB6SYKHbJ8DRcQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=he%20doesn%27t%20know%20he%27s%20being%20replaced%20by%20leonard%20woodcock&f=false), of course. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-jimmy-carter-considered-such-a-great-president-now/794822.md?page=4)