Nobel Peace Prize for Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter wins the Nobel Peace Prize.
Congress authorizes Bush to use force against Iraq.

Oh, the irony.

His current elevation to sainthood, complete with Demme doc, is kind of sad.

From Dennis Perrin, who is writing a book on the hypocrisies and evils of the Democrats from a leftist perspective:

Quick presidential Dem tidbit: Do you know why Jimmy Carter refused to offer Vietnam reparations for our murderous destruction of their country? Because "the destruction was mutual."

Last week I saw an old clip of Robert Gates reminding people that "thanks to President Carter" the military buildup that Reagan would accelerate really began in 1979-1980. The GOP hates him for the wrong reasons.

The GOP should be thankful for Jimmy Carter. He is the gift that keeps on giving.

I'd totally have him over for a good family dinner. He just seems like a pleasant guy to be around.

he's classic for making ilx's repressed right-wingers so furious on such a hilariously consistent basis

I like the guy! I think of him every time I put on a sweater instead of turning on the heater.

He killed many ppl as president, obv.

THE SWEATERS, MORBZ. THE SWEATERS.

srsly, what do you ppl expect carter to say? "the vietnam war was evil and we were evil for being there"?

leftists who consider "hypocrisy" a war crime = dud.

He killed many ppl as president, obv.

unlike washington, lincoln, and FDR, whose actions never led to anything worse than a few burnt scones.

Habitats for Humanity man, he's great. Just called Bush out on the terrornism. I mean, it's obvious, but not said 'nough p'raps.

JD, I wouldn't compare WW2 and the Civil War with Carter's weapons boondoggles and sponsorship of dictatorial butchers.

how 'bout an Apatow directed biopic of Billy Carter, Morbs?

sniping at american presidents for "hypocrisy" and/or "inconsistency" and/or general "centrism" is shooting great whites in a pail with a fucking machine gun

When one of those presidents is being celebrated as if he were Gandhi, it has to be done, though.

leftists who consider "hypocrisy" a war crime = dud.

More strawmen. Let's look at JC's body count, then.

Carter's projected military budgets for the early 1980s were higher than the ones Reagan presided over. Remember his plan to run MX missiles by rail around the American West?

Recall when Carter said America would not stand idly by while Nicaragua tried to set forth on a different path after the Sandinistas threw out Anastasio Somoza? Carter told them they had to retain the National Guard, which had been Somoza's elite band of US-trained psychopathic killers. The Sandinistas said no. So Carter ordered the CIA to bring up the officers and torturers running the Argentine death squads to train a force of Nicaraguan exiles in Honduras scheduled for terror missions across the border. They called them the contras.

El Salvador? In October 1979, a coup by reformist officers overthrew the repressive Romero dictatorship and pledged reforms, including land reform. But within weeks, it became clear that the reformers among the new rulers had been outmaneuvered, so they resigned en masse as the real leaders stepped up frightful repression in the countryside, killing close to 1,000 people a month. Some 10,000 were killed in 1980, most of them peasants and workers.

The Carter Administration sent millions in aid and riot equipment to the Salvadoran military, dispatched US trainers and trained Salvadoran officers in Panama. The Administration cast the conflict as one between the "extremes" of left and right, with the junta trying to steer a "moderate" course. In fact, 90 percent of the killings were carried out by the army or paramilitary death squads acting under army or government supervision. The Carter Administration continued to push this line throughout 1980, not suspending aid until the killing of four Maryknoll nuns in December. It's all coming back to you? Yes, it was the Carter Administration that restored the Khmer Rouge to military health after the Vietnamese kicked them out of power in Cambodia.

And he harked to the pain of South Korea, where students and workers were demonstrating against the military dictatorship of Chun Doo Hwan, notably in Kwangju. Carter's envoy advised the South Korean military to hit back hard, and it did on May 17, 1980, killing at least 1,000, the most horrible massacre since the Korean War. The White House instructed the local US military commander to release a South Korean force from border duty to attack the demonstrators, which they did with terrible brutality.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/Cockburn_Carter.htm

Carter was also dealing with Brezhnev not Dr. Gorbz

Morbs, do you have anything constructive to say about politics?

or JellyNY

is Gandhi responsible for any deaths, morbs?

Morbs, do you have anything constructive to say about politics?

Don't you think 'people shouldn't kill people' (at least without good reason) and 'we shouldn't celebrate people responsible for large numbers of deaths' are constructive? It seems if people took those things to heart we would be a lot better off.

I wouldn't say so much "constructive" as "facile".

Oh sure, it's that - but what do we benefit from pretending that stuff didn't happen?

What do we benefit from pointing out every mistake made by all of our leaders with no offers of how those mistakes can be rectified?

Basically, if you're going to ride on the "so-and-so sucks because of THIS," I want to know what your solution to "THIS" is; it's incredibly easy to bash any elected official for making horrific compromises or bad decisions because so many of them have to make them in order to have any chance of getting anything done. How do you get out of that cycle?

Well, we don't - but all Morbius (natural contrarian as he is) did was mention things that we all know are true. And nothing can be done to rectify those mistakes, which is why taking a life is such an enormous act. The sooner humanity stops worshiping strongmen and killers, or at best forgiving them in the warm glow of hindsight, the better off we will be.

x-post well, a lot of the things carter did, especially in south america, were not things that needed solving, unless you're a right wing cold warrior.

all morbs did was object to people with power exercising it, deeming them unwashably stained with sin for the results that followed, no matter their intentions

DO you thing they should not be held accountable, or that we have any righ to forgive them on behalf of the people that suffered?

...

Do you have a response to my question that isn't a specious ad hominem?

Um, I don't think I ad hominined anyone, but if I did I apologise.

Anyway, I'll let the Dr talk for himself - I just find the idea that people in power should be judged by a different standard of morality to be troubling.

gandhi was easily a much bigger homophobe than carter but i guess that doesnt bother morbzy

I think it's really bizarre to think that someone whose decisions directly impact the well-being of millions of people should be held to the same standard of morality as someone whose decisions directly impact tens of people, particularly when the first person is regularly put into situations where, no matter what the decision is, the end result will be negative for some subset of people numbering in the millions. If your viewpoint is that no person in power should ever be held up as an example of morality, say so. If it's not, explain why bad decisions made while President outweighs multiple good decisions made in the decades following.

How do you get out of that cycle?

With a different system. Democracy would be a good one, with modified isolationism as foreign policy. That's never gonna happen.I've said before I gave up on this goddamn country of idiots and selfish bastards at least 15 years ago, so no, I don't have anything "constructive" to say in that sense.

Contextualize Carter funding death squads all you want, just don't make him into some cuddly lifelong humanist.

and what, go sit on a chainsaw.

I think Carter was kind of a failure as a President and realized it, hence spending the rest of his political career making up for it via his humanitarian stuff.

Morbs, if all you have to say is non-constructive bitterness, why even bother? The only thing you're accomplishing is getting everyone to roll their eyes and say "Shut up".

I still love this guy! He gives me hope for this world and the human race and not too many people do that.

c'mon Dan, "everyone."

Carter's been OK as an ex-president.

we should have a poll

do you think morbz politics posts are

o tedious & pointless
o changing the world

Don't misunderstand me Dan - I think Carter is probably a pretty good guy on the whole. And it is impossible for any leader to measure up to any standards of morality (ordinary people too, of course). But if he isn't haunted by the (perhaps necessary, though in the case of SA I don't think so) lives of the people his decisions affected he's no kind of leader. And I think we owe it to ourselves and the rest of humanity not to forget about them either. But the fact that I think that when we talk about the good things Carter did we should remember the bad in no way rules out discourse about power/morality/leadership; I think it's vital to it.

HOLLA AT ME MAUREEN DOWD

We have done virtually everything we can with respect to carrots, if you will. It’s time for squash. Not to mention mushrooms, clouds of them.

I have no idea who that is, btw /scottish

I have Google Alert set for "ILXor changes world"

I'd be curious to know how Carter views his presidency; my suspicion would be that he thinks he did the best he could and that much of the popular assessment of his legacy is unfair. And as much as I view his presidency in a negative light, and as much as his sanctimonious ego annoys me, and as much as sometimes he seemed to be crusading for a Nobel, Jimmy has worked very hard trying to good things in the past 30 years.

I'm with Abbot on this one

Yeah, I like him!

whenever go-nowhere idealists like morbz start talking about how important shit like "honesty" & "integrity" (usually in opposition to "playing politics" or "polling") in in a president i always point to carter's presidency, the most honest liberal in the 20th c was also the one who got the least done as president

I'd be curious to know how Carter views his presidency; my suspicion would be that he thinks he did the best he could and that much of the popular assessment of his legacy is unfair. And as much as I view his presidency in a negative light, and as much as his sanctimonious ego annoys me, and as much as sometimes he seemed to be crusading for a Nobel, Jimmy has worked very hard trying to good things in the past 30 years.

I think this is completely OTM.

inasmuch as all presidents are bloodstained in one way or another, I wish all the ex-presidents devoted their spare time the way Carter has.

also: let Willie Nelson smoke weed on the roof of the White House + Playboy interview + sweaters = love

x-post

GWB has a lot of work ahead of him if you are allowed to undo murder/war by being cuddly afterwards.

forgiving this type of behaviour in ex-presidents can only encourage incumbents.

to forgive is divine

You have to ask for forgiveness...

leadership is for assholes

backstreet's back alright

hahaha Tombot OTM (see also "people who want to become cops should not be allowed to be cops" argument)

well it really is all the same, people who strongly desire positions of authority for any reasons other than a seemingly crazy sense of civic duty and self-sacrifice are completely suspect

catch-22 all over again

yep yep

^THAT ARGUMENT, YES^

Carter was not a liberal. The last liberal prez was LBJ.

(andwhat rong again, bigshit zurprize)

hahaha El BJ

(sorry)

is there anything wrong with people who distrust anyone who is in a position of authority?

Trust but verify.

hahaha El BJ

-- HI DERE, Tuesday, October 30, 2007 12:45 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

(sorry)

-- HI DERE, Tuesday, October 30, 2007 12:45 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

totally in character, but also funny

morbs you make a pretty big deal about having given up on this country of idiots 15 years ago, a lot.

it really never stops being interesting

yeah yeah we all hate each other on the politics threads because we keep coming back to them so much that we've all become totally predictable

familiarity & contempt together at last

my politics are from Sleeper: Six months from now,we're going to be stealing Erno's nose.

that's not EMO'S

finally I can go back to my diet of chocolate cake and steak

taking politics as they are and getting involved = back-to-the world compassion (to lift from pop-buddhism, if you like). it's a grubby world, and it's bravery to NOT hold it at arms length, not the other way around.

constant above-it-all kvetching = self-aggrandizing uselessness, a fear response plain and simple. fake politics designed entirely to hog the spotlight rather than say anything about anything.

xp funny i love sleeper and i have no idea wtf you're on about

morbz if you followed the chronicles of and what you would know my props for lbj are x1000000000000000000 of that for carter (20 hour road trip this summer just to hit up the library in austin) but johnson represents everything you would hate on if he were actually running, withholding shit from the public and polling and shameless pandering and triangulating himself and working across party lines and etc etc etc - hey its kinda like voting for ppl who actually will get shit done is better than sitting around whining and waiting for a liberal fantasy candidate (or right wing fantasy candidate in the case of your now-forgotten ron paul dick-riding - what happened in the last 3 months that made you not wanna crew with white nationalists & militia dudes?)

oh, tee 'em

I can't recall Morbz ever complaining about polling

I'm well aware of LBJ's political style. If any of the current batch of slop dwellers could get his results, I'd excuse em.

I never rode Ron Paul's dick, but thx for homophobic slur.

voting for ppl who actually will get shit done

and that's exactly what Dem Hero Clinton got done, lots n lots of Reaganite SHIT

and what, i'm with you for the most part (and agree re: uselessness of idea of "purity" in politics), but i can't really let LBJ off with just a "he was a brilliantly corrupt politician who got things done" considering he launched a huge and unnecessary war in vietnam which probably fucked the country up worse than anything post-1960.

morbius gave up on america after three terms of republican preznits came to an end huh.

When the Democrat who was elected was an even worse Republican, yep.

Eisenhower and Kennedy launched or at least pre-launched the war, but obv it was part of the Cold War proxy bullshit LBJ believed in, yet people are so willing to forgive Carter for same upthread (I guess because no Americans were dying).

I have no aspirations to "purity"; I voted for Walter Mondale, and Bill Bradley vs Gore.

can't we just argue over which president had the worst siblings?

Clinton I

Anybody who says Billy Carter hates fun (and Billy Beer)

Carter's sister also entertaining

All I'll say about Carter is that he's the perfect example of the cult of survivalhood. A shitty president still carries a patina of respect because he writes a couple of books a year and is an irritant to every sitting president.

Somewhere in CNN's archives from 1998 there's a brief video of me standing next to Jimmy at the Carter family reunion in Plains.

Could someone recommend me a good book on the Carter presidency?

Neighbour kid mentioned in initial post turned out not to fall too far from the branch - either of parents or, it seems, of James Earl Carter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomkin_Coleman

Walter Karp's Liberty Under Siege discusses both the Carter and Reagan presidency. It does a smashing job of destroying stereotypes.

i strongly second that. karp's book is one of the reasons i got interested in politics and it's still a harrowing, powerful read. it's not exactly a cold, impartial reading -- karp frequently (and with hilarious offhandedness) refers to ronald reagan as a "tyrant" -- but it's full of gritty, gruesome details about carter's death struggle with congress.

Although he doesn't let Carter off the hook either – Carter comes off as clueless and haughty – it's impossible not to read the book and think that Carter wasn't doomed to failure from the beginning, thanks to a Congress that couldn't stand him.

JC's answer to why the US wouldn't pay reparations to Vietnam: "The destruction was mutual."

His current elevation to sainthood, complete with Demme doc, is kind of sad.

From Dennis Perrin, who is writing a book on the hypocrisies and evils of the Democrats from a leftist perspective:

Quick presidential Dem tidbit: Do you know why Jimmy Carter refused to offer Vietnam reparations for our murderous destruction of their country? Because "the destruction was mutual."

― Dr Morbius, Monday, October 29, 2007 11:46 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's a knee-slapper

I thot I'd checked for that, gawdammit. (I'm reading the Perrin book obv)

presidents always be funny re our Shining Moral Leadership

Hospitalized in Cleveland

RS publishes The Riddle of Jimmy Carter.

i lived in a duplex w/amy carter when i was a kid (heh, typed farter at first), one afternoon during summer vacay (i was 6 or 7?) jimmy rolled up with his secret service bros to visit her - she wasnt home, so he shook my older brother's hand and gave me a package of rainbow chips deluxe cookies - A+ for the peanut prez

I just finished that profile: it's outstanding.

I want cookies :(

naturally, though, it omits the part Carter played in helping Reagan's accelerated military spending and fucking up the ouster of Somoza.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amycarterjpg.jpg

i like carter even if he was a crap president by most accounts

that profile was great! i was really impressed at the fine grain insight the author came away with

Nothing energizes Carter more than a good Guinea-worm meeting

Did you ever get to meet Gibby Haynes too?

i wish, gibby rules

I asked this on one of the presidential polls, but didn't really get an answer; I'm still looking to read a very good account of his presidency. It's one that interests me a lot, more in terms of the moment (post-Bicentennial madness) and my own timeline (high school) than Carter himself.

It seems inevitable that someone who has been the most powerful man in the world isn't likely to take orders well. But the official says it goes beyond that — it cuts to the nature of who Carter is. The former president, he says, doesn't seem to value others in any deep way, except in terms of what they can do for him. "Jimmy Carter is like the man of whom Goethe said, 'He loved humanity but hated people.' Such a strange, driven man. Almost possessed as he plods forward to spread good to the world in accordance with his — or His — plan."

Since democracies cannot act with the decisiveness of dictators, the world sometimes needs a man like Jimmy Carter, a democrat with the will of a despot.

"He's an engineer," says Andrew Young, whose loyal support of Carter's political career led the new president to appoint him U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the first African-American to hold the job. "Engineers will tell you exactly how to build a bridge, but they can't seem to explain why you need this bridge. He's so fact-oriented, so detailed in almost everything."

That's precisely why he sucked as president!

A command of details is unnecessary to the modern presidency. Our last former engineer president: Herbert Hoover, also a whiz at details.

Beyond being one-termers who got killed in the election by their successor, he and Hoover have a lot in common.

x-post!

i loved the part about how its a pastime among people who know him to brainstorm for ideas on what his ideal job should've been - supreme court justice, pope, dictator, st. peter

A command of details is unnecessary to the modern presidency.

oh man there are so many good oliver north jpgs out there!

http://img.timeinc.net/time/magazine/archive/covers/1986/1101861222_400.jpg

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/12/jimmy-carter-womens-rights-equality

I have been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world.

So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when th e convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief - confirmed in the holy scriptures - that we are all equal in the eyes of God.

I guess it's cool that Carter's being the liberal he never was as president.

lol at this:

i loved the part about how its a pastime among people who know him to brainstorm for ideas on what his ideal job should've been - supreme court justice, pope, dictator, st. peter

― weed hitler poop fart obama (Princess TamTam),

after six decades

Dems been kinda quiet on JC calling Mittens competent:

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/04/jimmy-carter-a-democrat-who-likes-mitt-romney-video.php

i've been reading morris berman's 'why america failed.' he's got some interesting thoughts on carter's 'malaise' speech. it was actually initially well-received by the public and looked like it'd rejuvenate his presidency, but carter instantly blew it by firing his whole cabinet, which made him look like a flake. what could've been...

and by 'what could've been...' i mean 'no reagan,' which whatever you think of carter is a pretty major difference.

I don't think calling romney competent is that big a scandal, he is probably competent by most definitions of the word, it just also doesn't matter cause he's more than willing to act otherwise for political gain

anyway jimmy carter is a tree falling in a forest unless he's talking about israel

no use for him but RIP

I read this a couple of months ago, and it made the same point as above about the malaise speech--Carter's approval shot up (to 60% or so) in the immediate aftermath of the speech. (As I remember the book, he also--and this is a little weird--took some of the speech's pessimistic tone from a White House screening of Manhattan.)

http://cjrarchive.org/img/posts/mattson1.jpg

Slamming the current Nobel Peace Prize prez in a NYT OpEd:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/opinion/americas-shameful-human-rights-record.html

Fuck Jimmy Carter, he has no room to criticize Obama's record on human rights.

not much... but some.

least bad pres since FDR, surely?

I don't have an algorithm for that, but sad if true.

He has competition from Poppy.

symbolic or not, i'm thinking this was one of the worst things carter did in office:

http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/10/the-pardon-of-jefferson-davis-and-the-14th-amendment/

Carter had the bad luck to be president in the late 70s and took the blame for a lot of shit that he had no control over, like the effects of OPEC and the oil shocks, the inflation hangover from the Vietnam War, and the first wave of job losses to globalization. Far from being the worst president of the 20th century, as Reagan Republicans love to classify him, Carter was just a mildly inept president caught in unusually trying times, much like Herbert Hoover.

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/10/america_as_the_no_1_warmonger_president_jimmy_carter_talks_to_salon_about_race_cable_news_slut_shaming_and_more/

I can only hope I'm that well-spoken at 89.

So the former GA governor Carl Sanders, who lost to Carter in the 1970 Democratic gub primary, just died. (He was considered "moderate" in the late '60s though he called mixed-race marriage an abomination.) Apparently Carter ran a pretty race-baity campaign against him, praising Lester Maddox etc, even tho he didn't carry this over to governing when he won. Anyone have a good source/summary on this? Online info I can find comes mostly from assorted wingnuts and/or transparent racists.

Randy Sanders. " 'The Sad Duty of Politics': Jimmy Carter and the Issue of Race in His 1970 Gubernatorial Campaign"
The Georgia Historical Quarterly. Vol. 76, No. 3, Fall 1992, 612-628

Well worth finding. JSTOR access, if that helps. Wish I could upload some of the images, esp. this one cartoon that has not been posted to the www

I'll check the NYPL sometime, thanks.

upthread:

removing (saddam) hussein will do more for peace than anything carter ever did.

― keith (keithmcl), Friday, October 11, 2002

^^another failed prophecy by a random googler

removing hussein will do more for peace than anything carter ever did.

― keith (keithmcl), Friday, October 11, 2002 6:18 PM (12 years ago)

heehee

weird thread, though, especially the discussion in late oct 2007. morbs pointing out that carter made some terrible decisions that led to many people dying was immediately criticized because a) other presidents' decisions have led to people dying, b) he didn't offer solutions to rectify carter's mistakes (??), c) since presidents' decisions affect many more people, they must be judged on a different scale of morality, d) he's morbs.

pointing out that something bad happened, with or without including possible solutions or suggestions to how the problem could have been avoided, is fine in my book. the vast majority of people have no clue that jimmy carter did terrible things. there's a value in pointing it out, even if you don't have a supplementary alternative history policy recommendation paper to accompany the post. a segment of the ILX politics cohort may be well aware of carter's more regrettable actions, but it's ridiculous to think that many others do. jimmy carter was a peanut farmer. jimmy carter is an exceedingly nice man that i met in an airplane a few years ago (he shook everyone's hand!). jimmy carter told everyone to turn down the ragodammned heat and put a sweater on for crissake, and installed solar panels on the white house roof. jimmy carter's administration strongly advised actions that led to the biggest massacre in south korea since the korean war. the fact that he was in the most powerful position on earth does not mean that it's pointless to cite terrible things that he did. the fact that very powerful people are sometimes put in situations where a decision could lead to the death of innocents doesn't mean that it's pointless to criticize the decision.

(it may annoy people if a particular poster frequently focuses on the terrible things that a president did, but if that's the case, why not criticize the poster on those grounds rather trying to make some sort of argument that the poster shouldn't be allowed to talk about the terrible things at all?)

anyway, lighten up 2007 ILX

this deserves a longer answer, but i guess i've come to feel, after growing up on the hard left's interpretation of recent u.s. history and later reading more in-depth books about those subjects, that i don't find the kind of critiques that cockburn specialized in to be especially convincing or interesting anymore. cockburn lists a lot of things that sound pretty bad, but he doesn't give us a lot of context or any detailed analysis of why those things happened, so carter's actual role in those events. like, did carter specifically sign off on the massacre in south korea? how did he justify supporting the regime in indonesia? i'd like to know the answer, but i don't feel like the cockburn/chomsky 'all presidents are war criminals' line is terribly useful in terms of understanding recent history, since it seems to attribute everything bad that happens to the personal character flaws of a person who can be kicked out of office every four years, as opposed to (say) the more-or-less permanent power of the CIA, the pentagon, and the other institutions that are actually responsible for the "continuity in empire" and atrocities that cockburn talks about.

it seems to attribute everything bad that happens to the personal character flaws of a person who can be kicked out of office every four years

yeah, I don't see it this way at all. "Personal character flaws" really don't seem to enter into it all that much since presumably 'different' personalities like Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Dubya, Obama do remarkably similar things, cuz they've all chosen to put on the executioner's hood that goes with the job.

Some of the tortured prose employed above in 2007 v reminiscent of Buck Turgidson's "We have two regrettable but nevertheless distinguishable scenarios..."

not a fan of most of those guys, but imo there is a clear difference between the attitudes that carter and (say) reagan had toward foreign policy and the national security state. this piece by mark ames has a lot of details about the differences between the two administrations that i haven't seen anywhere else (the carter stuff starts near the middle, but the entire piece is indispensable reading imo):

https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/assassinations/

haha, probably not going to be able to check out that link at work

haha, ironically i think almost everything on that site is actually safe for work, unless maybe you work for the defense department or something

yeah i'm sure it's fine but a lot of URLs are screened for their titles alone so i'm sure it's blocked. anyway i'll check it out when i get home!

When are the military exploits and collateral foreign carnage brought by Bush II, Bush I, Reagan, Nixon excused via the more-or-less permanent power of the CIA, the pentagon, etc.?

This rationalization is offered solely to deflect discussions of the actual Obama, Clinton, Carter admins.

i'm not rationalizing it, and i'm not trying to 'deflect' any discussions. i'm interested in the actual political history that cockburn smugly elides with his "they're all the same, those bums!" routine.

The best book about the CIA in Central America and its involvement in the October Surprise (which looks more credible every year) is Robert Parry's Secrets and Privilege. He's the AP reporter who uncovered the CIA assassination manual in Central America, among other horrors.

wait, which year's October Surprise is that?

"They're all the same" is one routine. Another routine is "the Republicans like to do it, the Democrats only do it because [some excuse]." The first routine only sounds the most cynical; the latter routine is so much worse.

http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2015/08/12/jimmy-carter-i-have-cancer/

This is a man who has lived a good, long, rich and decent life, and who has been slandered in history by people not morally fit to tie his shoes.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a37130/jimmy-carter-has-cancer-ronald-reagan-iran

:(

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/08/20/former-president-jimmy-carter-says-cancer-has-spread-to-his-brain/

since he appears to have become a much better person since he was president, i expect he'll handle this with dignity and courage.

hmm seems like hes fucked

said Reagan in 1980

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/every-single-movie-that-jimmy-carter-watched-at-the-whi-1728538092

The Island of Allah (1956) and Herbie Rides Again (1974) - May 21, 1977

I've never heard of 'The Island of Allah' - does it make a good double feature with 'Herbie Rides Again' or did Carter just give up on the former after the first ten minutes and decide to put a Herbie film on instead?

we both saw The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu in summer 1980

he did not watch Airplane! until the week after he lost to Reagan.

This is almost like Barry Bonds setting a new HR record only three years after McGwire--too soon, Jimmy, too soon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/22/us/politics/how-old-is-jimmy-carter.html

(But congratulations anyway.)

didn't he beat stage 3 brain cancer or something like that?

brb searching for the wormhole to the parallel universe where he runs and wins a second term next year

Compared to George Freaking Herbert Walker Bush being the longest-lived president, I'll take Jimmy Earl Malaise Carter every day of the week. But, because there is no Just God behind this kind of stuff, in a couple of decades it could be someone even more hated than Trump is.

Carter is a bad retail politician but he is by no means stupid or unwilling to kill you. I think anger keeps him alive, I mean real biblical anger, which is a rare thing. https://t.co/e8g7b1rmGu

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) October 1, 2019

I'd say faux Nixon is really overreaching on that one. I'm pretty sure faux Nixon has never spent one minute in the same room as Carter and has no better insight into him than my Aunt Fanny.

if you think Carter didn't have a killer political instinct, research his 1970 campaign for governor

There are five assertions in that tweet. I don't quarrel with that particular one since his public record upholds it. The last two are just Wile E. Coyote running past the edge of the cliff.

new biography out

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/18/jonathan-alter-jimmy-carter-donald-trump-reagan-bush-clinton-obama

Question that has interested me for a long time: when did pop/rock & roll musicians cross over into the world of celebrity and power (you can add money, too, but some had already made that leap before they made the other). Specific oddity that got me interested: none of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, or Bob Dylan were at Truman Capote's famous party in 1966. It's like there's a line there, and by the late '70s that line had been obliterated.

I'd never thought about it, but Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President makes it clear that his presidency was key to that transformation. (Saw it in a theatre tonight; it should play on CNN soon.) Dylan, for one, talks about his first invite to the White House, and how--as Carter quoted his songs back to him--he realized this was the first time his work had crossed that barrier.

I wouldn't say it's a great film, and--understandably--it deifies Carter, but lots of amazing footage (Dizzy Gillespie inviting Carter up to sing "Salt Peanuts") and a good time capsule of those years. Carter's inauguration--the ceremony, then the party later--is especially striking in view of present circumstances.

Nothing to do with Carter, but I think of the shift of rock stars into celebrities being marked or heralded by some of the giant tours a little earlier: Rolling Stones in '72, Dylan/Band and also CSNY in '74. Maybe Alice Cooper fits in there somewhere too. Descriptions you read of these shows often mention movie stars and other personalities hanging around backstage or after the show, which as you say probably wasn't quite the case five or ten years earlier.

There was that strange time in rock between '74 and '77 where a lot of musicians embraced a putative sophistication that looks and feels now like an old issue of Cosmopolitan.

Definitely the '72 Stones tour--was going to mention that. There are shots in Cocksucker Blues of Capote (and maybe Warhol) milling about backstage. In the Carter film, Jerry Brown's campaign--enlisting the Eagles and, of course, Linda Ronstadt--also had a hand in this.

One annoying thing about the Carter film: along with Dicky Betts and Willie Nelson and Niles Rodgers and Trisha Yearwood and lots of people that make sense, there's five minutes of Bono. (Who might make sense too, but it's Bono.)

I'd say the Beatles receiving MBEs in '65 was a step in this process, and then the Stones hanging out with and being shot by royal photographer Cecil Beaton in '67 was another, plus Jagger being good friends (at least) with Princess Margaret from '67 or so.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/howard-kaylan-storms-the-white-house-in-shell-shocked-my-life-with-the-turtles-exclusive-book-excerpt-179284/

Kennedys/Rat Pack is the beginning of this.

Beats Thatcher/Tarby/Cilla Black any day.

I was thinking more specifically of the rock and roll end of it, but for sure, Kennedy/Rat Pack clears the way for that. I'd say the bookends are Warhol and Dylan's orbits intersecting in '66 and Studio 54 a decade-plus later. Rod Stewart's great line from "You Were It Well" in 1972--"Madame Onassis got nothin' on you"--he's still like a kid there with his nose pressed against the window, pining for an invite into that world; five or six years later, he is that world.

(I always want to issue a personal apology when I hijack someone's thread. Sorry, Jimmy Carter--congratulations on your Nobel Peace Prize.)

Entering hospice care apparently.

https://www.cartercenter.org/news/pr/2023/statement-on-president-carters-health.html

Sad news.

The source here is a spook (is that ok to say?) but it was an interesting context on Carter’s continuing historic role after leaving the White House.

Thread on Jimmy Carter and 1994 North Korea nuclear crisis.
In August, 1994, I was one of a small team of intelligence officers asked to brief the former President prior to his mission to Pyongyang. Carter had essentially volunteered for the task…much to Clinton’s consternation.

— Frank Jannuzi ☮️ (@FrankJannuzi) February 19, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/us/politics/jimmy-carter-october-surprise-iran-hostages.html

happy 99th

Rosalynn Carter dead.

RIP

He made it to 100! I just hope Nov 5 doesn't spoil the party

TIL John Adams held the record for longest lived president for 201 years, but now he's only #5.

Happy birthday Jimmy! Will forever tell the story of my 8yo neighbour who wrote to him in 1976 with advice for dealing with bullies, and wound up getting an invite to Carter’s inauguration as a thank-you.

(LOL, of course there’s a longer version of this story up top)

That's a lovely story, did it aggravate the bullying though?

I say that cause of the time a girl from my school appeared on on Blue Peter, and the following day was bullied so mercilessly that she'd broken down by lunchtime and had to go home, and they called a special assembly to say what horrible shits we were*

Kids eh

* I wasn't personally involved, but probably shared to some extent the feeling that anyone who'd been on telly was probably well up themselves and could do with being taken down a peg

10 years younger and he could have been a credible candidate for President again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mje6haiutXk

Everyone was thrilled for this nice neighbour kid because his parents were hippies with not much money, and a local company stumped up the cash for the family’s flights and accommodation in DC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PsiLI36GE0

Political charisma, in action, is spooky. Especially when someone is really good at it. I’ve only seen Bill Clinton in an audience, but everyone says how he can speak to a crowd one-on-one personally. It’s a weird power to experience in person. I was touring the Capitol in 1986 and just wandering around in the crowd and suddenly I heard the Kennedy Voice - I turned to look and HFS it was Ted - still kinda young looking and a potential presidential contender. Somehow earning a celebrity level similar to a pop star but without the pop culture. I was seven years old the one time I met Nixon but I remember those awkward few seconds more than I remember third grade.

In the mid-90s I worked on the west side of Los Angeles and I often had lunch at the Apple Pan on Pico. Across the street was the Westside Pavilion’s Barnes & Noble - the one with the giant panoramic windows facing the street. One summer day I was walking down Pico from where I parked the car - through the windows I could see a huge crowd inside B&N and a solitary figure at a desk right at the corner of the store. I walked to the corner window, put my hands up, peeked in, and former President Jimmy Carter turned around, faced me, and turned on That Smile to full wattage. I can still picture it now writing this. Even in person and through a window that charisma is even more full-on than how someone like Paul Conrad or Jack Davis could capture it.

Lieutenant James Earl Carter, USN was a direct hire of Admiral Rickover and certainly a follower of Rickover’s doctrine regarding the use of atomic power and atomic weaponry. When Carter became president, one of his early missions was getting the Joint Chiefs, NORAD, and SAC, together and gaming out simulated nuclear exchanges. Getting the rust out of the system and arguably getting the US closer to actually acting on its change in nuclear policy to “launch on warning.” A year or so later, the Carter Doctrine over the Middle East was declared.

That’s all I got. Perhaps the rabbits were right all along.

Great post, ET.

The father of someone from college was given an ambassadorship by Bill Clinton and my friend went to the dinner. He said that he’d never seen anything like the way every woman there just went 🫠 when he worked the room.

My best friend met him twice when she worked for NSF; the second time, he remembered her name and the first meeting, which impressed her. Apparently that is unusual but BC is said to have a photographic memory.

Dunno about that, he seemed a little hazy on some of the specifics regarding Monica Lewinsky!

Hahahaha he probably had to use his photographic memory to keep track of all the lies!

the only even semi-big name politician i've ever met was Nithya Raman, who struck me as just really thoughtful and serious and intelligent and almost unassuming, but with a clear "it" factor.

I met Arlen Spector, who didn't strike like that.

strike me

I met the late great Senator Paul Simon (he of the bow-tie and abortive ‘88 primary run). He was friends with my mom’s parents. He was a nice man but did not have “it”.

My boss, an unsentimental man, has never stopped talking about how much Sen. Simon impressed him when they met 35 years ago or something.

I voted for Paul Simon! My first primary vote after turning 18
Doesn't seem like my vote helped that muchy

I briefly met Gov. Jim 'Guy' Tucker at the Little Rock governor's mansion - he directly followed Clinton after he went to Washington

He was very affable and gave us directions to K-Mart... but he was corrupt and a drunk, pretty typical Southern Dem Governor back then

Well, damn

RIP

Most conservative Dem president since Grover Cleveland?

RIP

Feel bad that he lived long enough just to see the monstrously shitty outcome of the election.

I was just thinking that, too.

People always blame Reagan for the disaster that was American intervention in Nicaragua, but it was this guy that got us there first

Carter has passed. An accomplished man. A brilliant legacy. Although for many of us he died years ago when he refused to condemn, gamer gate

— wint (@dril) December 29, 2024

People always blame Reagan for the disaster that was American intervention in Nicaragua, but it was this guy that got us there first

Not exactly? Carter tried to broker a plebiscite on Somoza's rule (i.e. reform via election rather than revolution), but when the Sandinistas took over he pushed through an aid package to try to help them stabilize the country. His preference of course was for moderate technocrats rather than Marxist revolutionaries, but his approach was very different from Reagan's.

He was in over his head and a big reason why I remain wary of the grand but vague optimism that always surround candidates that are framed as outsiders, but at the same time the optimism is understandable with someone like Carter - he was devoted to doing right and acting with his conscience, and he did things with the best intentions. He made too many crucial policy mistakes, but in terms of personal character, he rose to the responsibility of the Presidency rather than view it as something to serve his own interests.

He was before I knew what was going on. It should have been a lock for eight years after Nixon. I even know about the gas lines, hostages, high inflation with a horrible economy.

Never had a chance.

Robbie Robertson of all people talked about Carter in an unpublished interview that was just posted by Rolling Stone. Excerpt:

I’d only vaguely heard of Jimmy Carter. I'm from Canada. And during this particular period, the 1974 tour, there was something in the air about American politics that was not very inviting at all for a Canadian. People like Richard Nixon, I could tell from a mile away, “This guy, you gotta keep an eye on him. He’s not a good guy. And he’ll play with all the dirty tricks he can.”

Anyway, we go to the mansion, and I meet this governor. I talked with him for a few minutes, and I get a read on this guy, that he doesn’t have a bad bone in his body. This is a good person. I could feel it. I could sense it. I felt so comfortable, within 30 seconds of being around him, that we were kidding around, making jokes and carrying on...

Jimmy didn’t try to be hip. That night he just said, “You know, sometimes you put on a record and it comes right through to you, it gets you and you feel it. And you carry that around with you. And sometimes you put on a record, and nothing happens. And when I put on your record, it was a good feeling.” That meant everything to me.

Unfortunately, when he became president, it became quite clear that he wasn’t very good at playing the “game.” The game of sucking up to this one or playing the game with that one or letting someone get away with some shit. Jimmy Carter didn’t have that sensibility. He was too true for that, and in many ways, that didn’t turn out great for him. Things happened while he was president that nobody could have seen coming or fix. I was sad to see that it came down on him and turned on him. He didn’t know how to play the game, and it came back to haunt him.

But he was a better man for it. As for his legacy, sometimes good overrules bad. You’d like to think there’s a possibility, somewhere, sometime, that somebody could do their job and not be a complete jive ass. Richard Nixon was so jive. Ronald Reagan was so jive. I didn’t believe a word he said. He was a bad actor. Jimmy Carter wasn’t an actor, and he didn’t want to be. He was so kind that you thought, “Oh, this can’t be real.” But it was real. He was actually a real kind, wonderful human being, and in politics they don’t make enough of those.

Except I didn't get kind and wonderful from reading Kai Bird or Perlstein or anyone who's written about Carter's presidency. He was petty and mean and small-minded -- the qualities we see in regular politicians but without the I-gotta-take-shit that gets stuff done.

Those writers would have been nicer to Jimmy if he had complimented their albums.

tbf, Kai Bird (no relation) did write in the NY Times "He was tough. He was extremely intimidating" but also added "Jimmy Carter was probably the most intelligent, hard-working and decent man to have occupied the Oval Office in the 20th century."

oth, he tossed Perlstein's demo tape into the trash, thus earning his wrath for all eternity.

the most intelligent, hard-working and decent man to have occupied the Oval Office in the 20th century.

sad to say, but as NYers famously noted "that and a nickel will get you a ride on the Staten Island Ferry." The problem was never that he wasn't an intelligent or decent man. He needed the powerful (and very selfish) committee chairs in Congress to agree to push his agenda forward and they were fully aware of that. He wasn't an accomplished enough horse trader/briber to bring them along, because he had no stomach for the unwritten rules that Congress operated by.

Wouldn't refusing to go along with political games like bribery actually be a case for a decency (albeit not shrewdness)?

https://readingdoonesbury.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/10oct76.png

Every post about Jimmy Carter is either "he secretly taught orphans English for 47 years and never wanted credit" or "in 1979 he gave the King of Siam a shipment of rifles to massacre the Freedom Nuns"

— Don Hughes (@getfiscal) December 30, 2024

What’re some books on Jimmy Carter that you’d recommend? (I have two to suggest myself but want to see what else is out there)

Perlstein's Reaganland

Despite being written by a former aide President Carter: The White House Years avoids hagiography.

I got around to Carter's own Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid recently. I remember when it came out out during the height of the US war on terror people were apoplectic about his use of the A-word, considered totally outside the bounds of acceptable discourse. Reading it today I found it clear-eyed and worthwhile, wish I'd gotten to it earlier.

Kurt Cobain apparently liked Jimmy Carter a lot

Here's a solid obit: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/12/jimmy-carter

Alfred, thanks. You should post YOUR obit.

Aw, thanks. A bit of the Cuban pov.

TIL that b/c Amy Carter couldn't go see The Ramones they came to the WH and played a 6-song set for her, her dad, and the Secret Service people.

Not at the WH

the Ramones played a 6 song sound check just for Amy Carter. April 8th, 1983. at the Agora Ballroom.

ah ok, thanks!

but yeah still very cool!

Reminds me that Our Band Could Be Your Life has a Jimmy Carter story involving the Butthole Surfers. Not sure if it's true, but it's believable.

I just want to pass a law where anyone caught doing ex-US president apologia are shamed out of their stupor or ridiculed forevermore if that fails.

Someone posted a Doonesbury cartoon above. There is an even better one from 1994 after Nixon died which pokes fun at how he went from being a fucking monster to “flawed” in retrospect after he died.

All American Presidents are pieces of shit

true and yet some of them were looking at the stars

https://www.instagram.com/p/DEOYgccRDmv/?img_index=1

Jeez go to a record store Jimmy

At least when we get eulogized at the end of our lives it will be an exercise in complete candor, not this embarrassing cavalcade of praise.

He had good aim.

Jimmy Carter says “DEREGULATION!”

Bought a good used first edition of this today--hope I didn't mistakenly buy it in duplicate.

https://postimg.cc/G9KCZ1KY/6112c1e4

If not, I'll read it for sure, although I don't know if an old-fashioned campaign book--where things like one candidate being caught in a blatant lie will be a big deal--will make much sense in 2025.

Not sure why that image didn't take:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3778707-running-for-president-1976

A lie like this?:

In April 1971, on the heels of the conviction of First Lieut., William L. Calley Jr. by a military court for the murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians in the hamlet of My Lai, Mr. Carter, then the Governor of Georgia, proclaimed ‘American Fighting Men's Day’ in Georgia and described the lieutenant as a “scapegoat.” Lieutenant Calley's conviction, ‘he said, was “a blow to troop morale.”

Today, at a news conference here, Mr. Carter denied that he had ever supported Lieutenant Calley or condoned his actions. Mr. Carter, the front‐runner for the Democratic Presidential nomination, says these positions are not contradictory. He says that he “never thought Calley was anything but guilty.”

Never heard that...obviously didn't stop him from winning the nomination, but--that you're quoting it verbatim--sounds like it must have at least been a story of some prominence. Maybe he got away with it because it went back five years, I don't know. But I'm thinking of that next to a daily avalanche of lies, so many that they blur into one big steady background hum.