Let’s cut Jimmy Carter a break. I’m thinking about him because 1) he recently turned 90 and is still out there doing good deeds; 2) we just saw the movie Killing the Messenger, a story about Gary Webb, the Phoenix Mercury journalist who stumbled on the truth of what turned out to be the Iran/Contra scandal. This sleazy operation began in the Ronald Reagan era, with Oliver North and Elliott Abrams flitting like bats around it. Who knows if President Reagan knew about it, or understood the terrible things — including Contra death squads and massive drug trafficking — that happened, but my first thought was that this would never have happened under President Carter.
And 3), the 2014 midterm Democratic debacle was similar to the crushing of Carter by Reagan. People in the know (e.g.; Nate Silver, though he missed on the Scott vs. Crist cliffhanger) saw it coming for a long time, reminding us of 1980, when the Republicans first nominated a handsome mediocre actor named Ronald Reagan. “An actor?” we said. “Are you serious?” A friend of ours, Faye Joyce, the first female political editor of the then-St. Petersburg Times, shook her head. “Just wait a few minutes,” Faye said. “You’re going to be real surprised.” Carter was the victim of bad timing (the failed Iranian hostage rescue attempt) and bad luck (a bad economy), neither his fault. Also, Reagan had a better voice and a (somewhat canned) sense of humor.
Carter won his election in 1976 because he was a committed Christian instead of a committed felon. He’d been a decent governor of Georgia, the country was sick over Watergate, and his preachy religiosity pulled in a lot of voters the Democrats would eventually lose to the Tea Party. To an upset country, his opponent, President Ford, was the incumbent who pardoned the disgraced President Nixon.
Carter actually did fine as a president, returning Panama to its rightful owners, and getting closer to a Middle East peace than anyone else with the 1978 Camp David Accords (still in effect today), signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. By all accounts, although Sadat and Begin went on to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it was Carter’ s gentle but unrelenting persistence that got those two lifelong antagonists together.
But in his post-presidency years, Carter has come into his own (and his own Nobel Peace Prize, in 2002). After leaving their presidencies, Nixon returned to politics; Ford played golf; Reagan admired his library; Bush I beams at his progenies’ political success; Clinton alternates between doing good and doing well; and Bush II churns out oil paintings. But Jimmy Carter has walked the walk of a good Christian, working tirelessly to help humankind, especially the poor and oppressed. Through the Carter Center, he’s nearly eliminated river blindness from Africa and elsewhere, delivering over 200 million doses of Mectizan (donated by Merck). He’s monitored 90+ elections in shaky countries, and travels the world promoting democracy and waging peace. Somehow, he (and Rosalynn with him) still find time to help build houses with Habitats for Humanity, and teach Sunday school in his hometown of Plains, Georgia. He often speaks truth to power, irritating many misbehaving governments, including Israel and America.
Both idealistic and practical, Jimmy Carter’s trying to make the world a safer and healthier place. He not only chose James Dickey to write an inaugural poem, but has taken the poem to heart, and is living it. Happy Thanksgiving, Jimmy!
—from “The Strength of Fields,” by James Dickey (1923-1997), composed for and read at President Carter’s Inaugural Ball,
Jan. 20, 1977.
This article appears in Nov 20-26, 2014.