# You Know What's Gonna Be Awkward? Jimmy Carter's Funeral. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 20, 2020, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176 "2020-05-20T12:59:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/21 "2020-05-20T17:27:49Z")
Carter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg just need to hang on until the next Democratic president. Period. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/22 "2020-05-20T17:55:04Z")
Carter is a good man, but he was not the POTUS that this country needed at the end of the 1970’s. He did not have the leadership skills that were needed. I wish him an even longer and fuller life, than he has already lived. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/23 "2020-05-20T18:43:00Z")
Very much this ^^^ Jimmy is far too good a man to make for a good, or even meaningfully effective, POTUS. In an ideal world, maybe, but that’s not where we live. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/24 "2020-05-20T19:05:00Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > In these uncertain times, hope can be hard to come by. But here’s hoping ol’ Jimmy outlives The Don and renders your entire premise moot. > > But seriously(er), Jimmy has been Not The President for 91 years in total, and he has only paused his quest to become a better person a couple times since then to defeat _fucking cancer_. For a man like him, President of the United States is just something he did once, a long time ago. I could see his service being held privately in Plains, but even a simple event like that reeks of ostentatious self-agrandizement in Carter Land. The Ex Presidents may organize their own thing, because it’s an opportunity for them to grandstand and virtue-signal, but a humble guy like Jimmy? No way he’d participate in that. You don’t say “goodbye” to a fellow like him, you pick up his hammer and continue his work. Wow. I agree completely. JC is arguably the finest Man ever to have been POTUS. ---
**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:** [May 20, 2020, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/25 "2020-05-20T19:59:11Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > Carters love of sending money to prop up 3rd World Anti-Commie Dictators. Huh? The usual complaint about Carter’s foreign policy is that he put too high a priority on human rights and was unwilling to tolerate dictators. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/26 "2020-05-20T21:08:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Huh? The usual complaint about Carter’s foreign policy is that he put too high a priority on human rights and was unwilling to tolerate dictators. Jimmy Carter is a mirror we all hold up to ourselves. We all agree he wasn’t much of a President but we answer “why?” in contradictory and often counterfactual ways. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/27 "2020-05-20T21:18:31Z")
I voted for Carter in both 1976 and 1980. Love the man. His funeral will not be awkward, because Chump will not be going anywhere near it. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/28 "2020-05-20T22:32:56Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > probably only dwarfed by George W Bush due to Carters love of sending money to prop up 3rd World Anti-Commie Dictators. Overlooking that whole little “Vietnam” thing. Which 3rd World Anti-Commie dictators did Carter support that Nixon/Ford and Reagan/Bush I not support? ---
**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:** [May 21, 2020, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/29 "2020-05-21T01:00:45Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > Jimmy Carter is a mirror we all hold up to ourselves. > > We all agree he wasn’t much of a President but we answer “why?” in contradictory and often counterfactual ways. But seeing as Carter was the Cold War era President who was the least willing to send money to “3rd World Anti-Commie Dictators” it seems like a strange thing to single him out for. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/30 "2020-05-21T01:20:50Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > There’s no way Jimmy will predecease Donny. From your keyboard to G-d’s screen. > [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Carter is a good man, but he was not the POTUS that this country needed at the end of the 1970’s. He did not have the leadership skills that were needed. I was alive in 1976. I was 9, but I was aware of how much people wanted to get away from Watergate and Vietnam, and celebrate the Bicentennial with a fresh start. The Dems could have nominated a black Jewish lesbian against Nixon’s VP (and the man who pardoned him) and she would have won. OK. Maybe not. But they probably could have nominated a popular Jewish woman like Gilda Radner, or a black, closeted lesbian with political savvy like Barbara Jordan. The only way the Republicans had any hope in 76 was to distance themselves from Watergate and Vietnam. I’m not sure who that could have been, but there was probably someone. Ford was the least likely person to win. Even Reagan probably would not have won in 76, because he won by rallying the religious right, which were not there to be rallied in 76, and at any rate, the “middle” was still too far left, post-Vietnam. Even most Vietnam vets were feeling betrayed, and voting Democrat in 76. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/31 "2020-05-21T01:27:30Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Overlooking that whole little “Vietnam” thing. > > Which 3rd World Anti-Commie dictators did Carter support that Nixon/Ford and Reagan/Bush I not support? I would assume the poster in question is referring to the authoritarian regime of Suharto, the dictator of Indonesia whose gradual but effective overthrow of the democratically elected Sukarno and 1975 invasion of East Timor (under the Ford Administration) was tacitly backed by the CIA and support for which was continued under the Carter Administration to the approximate tune of US$250M of weapons and aid and the deaths of an estimated 200k Timorese. It is certainly not a shining moment for the US as a whole and Carter’s shame that his administration did not end that support, but Indonesia was seen as being a strategically important relationship to the United States and while East Timor was of no strategical significance whatsoever having it go socialist under _Frente Revolucionária de Timor-Leste Independente_ would have been viewed as another “falling domino” in the region as the US was still licking its wounds over Viet Nam. I don’t think it is remotely possible to be president without getting some blood on your hands; in this case, this was a relationship that Carter inherited from not only his predecessor but administrations going back to Kennedy, and what we judge today in the rear view window of history may have had a very different appearance in the context of 1977-79 where Carter was just trying to hold the country together and deal with the various economic, social, and energy crises dumped in his lap, notwithstanding an intelligence apparatus that intentionally defied and misinformed him. Even when it comes to executive policy, a president can’t really snap his fingers and instantly pivot long established policy without doing significant damage and undermining his and the nation’s credibility. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/32 "2020-05-21T01:40:11Z")
It would sure be easy if all the world leaders would wear black hats or white hats to tell who is absolutely good and who’s absolute evil. Trump doesn’t go to Carter’s funeral. He will send Pence whom will make a boring speech with bible quotes that can appeal to both the left and right. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/33 "2020-05-21T01:55:30Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > Trump doesn’t go to Carter’s funeral. He will send Pence whom will make a boring speech with bible quotes that can appeal to both the left and right. That is actually more offensive than Trump going himself. Carter is an affirmed evangelical Southern Baptist but he never proselytizes or tries to force his beliefs on others, nor did he try to institute his beliefs as policy. Pence is…the opposite. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/34 "2020-05-21T02:00:24Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > …Even when it comes to executive policy, a president can’t really snap his fingers and instantly pivot long established policy without doing significant damage and undermining his and the nation’s credibility. > > Stranger Which we are seeing happen under trump. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/35 "2020-05-21T02:17:51Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Which we are seeing happen under trump. Well, Trump has been actively alienating close allies and courting the sort of authoritarians that we used to only talk to through covert intermediaries. Basically, he’s doing out in the open what the CIA has been doing for decades, only with even more incompetence because this is a man that can’t even successfully run a business with a statistically guaranteed gross profit margin. Basically, we [just need to have Robert DeNiro fire him](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcZHSGyos6g). Stranger ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/36 "2020-05-21T02:18:10Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > That is actually more offensive than Trump going himself. Carter is an affirmed evangelical Southern Baptist but he never proselytizes or tries to force his beliefs on others, nor did he try to institute his beliefs as policy. Pence is…the opposite. > > Stranger Carters funeral will not be a state event. Not to mention Carters faith during the service would be insulting. And Carter did institute his beliefs in his foreign policy. > **[EvangelicalPresidentialStyle.pdf](https://www.sjsu.edu/people/jennifer.rycenga/courses/RelS191F12/s1/EvangelicalPresidentialStyle.pdf)** > [@](#): > > All too often, the religion of President Carter is ignored in the scholarly literature on his presidency. Much of the Carter scholarship either entirely ignores Carter’s faith, or notes it so briefly that one gets the sense it was not that important to him, or that he separated it from his politics. Carter himself (1994, vii) once wrote that the impact of religion on politics is not “commonly recognized or easily quantified.” ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/37 "2020-05-21T02:19:44Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > From your keyboard to G-d’s screen. > I was alive in 1976. I was 9, but I was aware of how much people wanted to get away from Watergate and Vietnam, and celebrate the Bicentennial with a fresh start. The Dems could have nominated a black Jewish lesbian against Nixon’s VP (and the man who pardoned him) and she would have won. OK. Maybe not. But they probably could have nominated a popular Jewish woman like Gilda Radner, or a black, closeted lesbian with political savvy like Barbara Jordan. > > The only way the Republicans had any hope in 76 was to distance themselves from Watergate and Vietnam. I’m not sure who that could have been, but there was probably someone. Ford was the least likely person to win. > > Even Reagan probably would not have won in 76, because he won by rallying the religious right, which were not there to be rallied in 76, and at any rate, the “middle” was still too far left, post-Vietnam. Even most Vietnam vets were feeling betrayed, and voting Democrat in 76. The late Shirley Chisholm, a black woman, was a viable candidate in 1972. Anyway, chances are Carter will outlive Trump, just because he takes better care of himself. There was an old “Far Side” cartoon where people are flying around in little pods, and the marquee said, “TONIGHT: George Burns.” I could see someone doing the same thing with Betty White. ---
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/38 "2020-05-21T05:43:54Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > Further, as a decent Christian man you just know he will not specifically exclude Donald Trump from the festivities. As sitting president he will be expected to make the main eulogy. President Trump will not be able to refuse, unless he fakes a heart attack or something. Trump wasn’t invited to McCain’s funeral despite the fact they were from the same party. All healthy former presidents, including Carter, were. “Decent” and “gutless” are not the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/39 "2020-05-21T06:21:05Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > The late Shirley Chisholm, a black woman, was a viable candidate in 1972. Of course she was. She was not as radical a choice as Barbara Jordan, not being a lesbian (albeit, closeted, in the 70s, but people were speculating), as far as I know. I was just kind of blowing off steam. My parents liked Shirley Chisolm, but they were huge fans of Barbara Jordan. It was practically shiva in our house when she retired early due to her announcement that she had been diagnosed with MS. They both liked Geraldine Ferraro a lot, but they were lamenting it couldn’t have been Barbara Jordan. > [@installLSC](#): > > Trump wasn’t invited to McCain’s funeral despite the fact they were from the same party. All healthy former presidents, including Carter, were. “Decent” and “gutless” are not the same thing. Like 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2020, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176/40 "2020-05-21T09:53:10Z")
There have been presidents who died before, leaving survivors of different political persuasion. Has there ever been an awkward one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-know-whats-gonna-be-awkward-jimmy-carters-funeral/854176.md?page=3)