Nobel Peace Prize for Jimmy Carter

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Well done Peanut Farmer.

I have a great Jimmy Carter story:

When JC was running for President, I was seven and we had a neighbour kid who was allergic to everything and twitchy as hell, and so was the subject of much teasing. His parents were a former nun and seminarian who'd run away from convent/seminary together and settled into hippydom next door to us (because of their children's allergies, barley, carob and goat's milk featured heavily, and none of us could handle that). Their child wrote to JC during his campaign saying 'if you get angry at people teasing you, just count five silently to yourself and it will pass.' After Carter won, the whole family were invited to the inauguration, but as poor hippies had to wait until local businesses chipped in to send them.

So rather early in life I believed politicians responded to 'normal' people as a matter of course, and it's all Jimmy Carter's fault!

suzy (suzy), Friday, 11 October 2002 09:53 (twenty-two years ago) link

he seems normal. discuss.

anthony easton (anthony), Friday, 11 October 2002 13:14 (twenty-two years ago) link

I met the Carter family, although not Jimmy Carter (although my mom once met him and got a peck on the cheek from him at some Democratic Party function). He was on the campaign trail at the time we went to Plains. We were just heading down to Florida and stopped by Plains on the way. His family were so nice - they were just hanging out in downtown Plains, and they remembered all of our names when we left. I can't imagine getting to meet any other President's family.

Kerry (dymaxia), Friday, 11 October 2002 15:13 (twenty-two years ago) link

Oct. 11, 2002--

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

Oh, the irony.

nory (nory), Friday, 11 October 2002 19:33 (twenty-two years ago) link

removing hussein will do more for peace than anything carter ever did. his shining moment was when he called a press conference to announce he was changing the direction of his part. nobel peace prizes are a bit of a joke, arafat has one on his mantle.

keith (keithmcl), Friday, 11 October 2002 22:18 (twenty-two years ago) link

So does Kissinger

James Blount (James Blount), Saturday, 12 October 2002 05:18 (twenty-two years ago) link

five years pass...

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, 29 October 2007 15:46 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Monday, 29 October 2007 16:01 (sixteen years ago) link

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

Dandy Don Weiner, Monday, 29 October 2007 16:22 (sixteen years ago) link

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

Abbott, Monday, 29 October 2007 18:37 (sixteen years ago) link

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

J.D., Monday, 29 October 2007 19:07 (sixteen years ago) link

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

Abbott, Monday, 29 October 2007 19:08 (sixteen years ago) link

He killed many ppl as president, obv.

Dr Morbius, Monday, 29 October 2007 19:09 (sixteen years ago) link

THE SWEATERS, MORBZ. THE SWEATERS.

Abbott, Monday, 29 October 2007 19:09 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

J.D., Monday, 29 October 2007 19:09 (sixteen years ago) link

He killed many ppl as president, obv.

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

J.D., Monday, 29 October 2007 19:12 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

Abbott, Monday, 29 October 2007 19:14 (sixteen years ago) link

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

Dr Morbius, Monday, 29 October 2007 19:18 (sixteen years ago) link

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

gershy, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 05:03 (sixteen years ago) link

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

max, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 05:24 (sixteen years ago) link

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

Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 13:42 (sixteen years ago) link

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

Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 13:49 (sixteen years ago) link

Carter was also dealing with Brezhnev not Dr. Gorbz

Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:25 (sixteen years ago) link

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

HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:37 (sixteen years ago) link

or JellyNY

Catsupppppppppppppp dude 茄蕃, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:41 (sixteen years ago) link

is Gandhi responsible for any deaths, morbs?

gabbneb, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:46 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:47 (sixteen years ago) link

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

HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:48 (sixteen years ago) link

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

dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:49 (sixteen years ago) link

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?

HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:51 (sixteen years ago) link

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?

HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:53 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:54 (sixteen years ago) link

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

gabbneb, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:57 (sixteen years ago) link

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?

dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:58 (sixteen years ago) link

...

gabbneb, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:59 (sixteen years ago) link

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

HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 16:59 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:00 (sixteen years ago) link

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

and what, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:06 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:08 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:14 (sixteen years ago) link

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".

HI DERE, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:16 (sixteen years ago) link

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

Abbott, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:19 (sixteen years ago) link

c'mon Dan, "everyone."

Carter's been OK as an ex-president.

Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:22 (sixteen years ago) link

we should have a poll

do you think morbz politics posts are

o tedious & pointless
o changing the world

and what, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:23 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:24 (sixteen years ago) link

HOLLA AT ME MAUREEN DOWD

sanskrit, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:25 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:26 (sixteen years ago) link

I have no idea who that is, btw /scottish

dowd, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:27 (sixteen years ago) link

I have Google Alert set for "ILXor changes world"

Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:27 (sixteen years ago) link

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.

Dandy Don Weiner, Tuesday, 30 October 2007 17:28 (sixteen years ago) link

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?

soref, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 08:48 (nine years ago) link

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.

skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 16 September 2015 19:05 (nine years ago) link

three years pass...

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

clemenza, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 00:00 (five years ago) link

(But congratulations anyway.)

clemenza, Tuesday, 26 March 2019 00:00 (five years ago) link

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

affects breves telnet (Gummy Gummy), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 00:40 (five years ago) link

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

(The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 00:41 (five years ago) link

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.

A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 26 March 2019 02:35 (five years ago) link

six months pass...

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

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 1 October 2019 21:37 (five years ago) link

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.

A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 2 October 2019 03:15 (five years ago) link

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

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 2 October 2019 03:27 (five years ago) link

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.

A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 2 October 2019 03:40 (five years ago) link

one year passes...
three weeks pass...

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.

clemenza, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 01:05 (three years ago) link

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.

Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 01:37 (three years ago) link

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.

clemenza, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 02:21 (three years ago) link

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.)

clemenza, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 02:30 (three years ago) link

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.

Josefa, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 05:01 (three years ago) link

Kennedys/Rat Pack is the beginning of this.

scampopo (suzy), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 09:48 (three years ago) link

Beats Thatcher/Tarby/Cilla Black any day.

Boring blighters bloaters (Tom D.), Tuesday, 10 November 2020 09:50 (three years ago) link

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.)

clemenza, Tuesday, 10 November 2020 16:59 (three years ago) link

two years pass...

Entering hospice care apparently.

Camaraderie at Arms Length, Saturday, 18 February 2023 20:59 (one year ago) link

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

recovering internet addict/shitposter (viborg), Sunday, 19 February 2023 03:50 (one year ago) link

one month passes...
six months pass...

happy 99th

mookieproof, Sunday, 1 October 2023 13:32 (one year ago) link

one month passes...

Rosalynn Carter dead.

RIP

The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Sunday, 19 November 2023 20:44 (ten months ago) link

ten months pass...

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

Alba, Tuesday, 1 October 2024 05:32 (two weeks ago) link

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

John Backflip (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 1 October 2024 06:03 (two weeks ago) link

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.

guillotine vogue (suzy), Tuesday, 1 October 2024 06:11 (two weeks ago) link

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

guillotine vogue (suzy), Tuesday, 1 October 2024 06:12 (two weeks ago) link

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

SPENGE (Bananaman Begins), Wednesday, 2 October 2024 07:46 (one week ago) link

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

papal hotwife (milo z), Wednesday, 2 October 2024 08:18 (one week ago) link

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.

guillotine vogue (suzy), Thursday, 3 October 2024 22:21 (one week ago) link

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

Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 3 October 2024 22:45 (one week ago) link

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.

Elvis Telecom, Friday, 4 October 2024 00:12 (one week ago) link

Great post, ET.

Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Friday, 4 October 2024 10:50 (one week ago) link

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.

guillotine vogue (suzy), Friday, 4 October 2024 11:50 (one week ago) link

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

RIO Speedwagon (Matt #2), Friday, 4 October 2024 12:01 (one week ago) link

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

guillotine vogue (suzy), Tuesday, 8 October 2024 17:37 (one week ago) link

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.

omar little, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 17:42 (one week ago) link

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

There’s a Monster in my Vance (President Keyes), Tuesday, 8 October 2024 17:49 (one week ago) link

strike me

There’s a Monster in my Vance (President Keyes), Tuesday, 8 October 2024 17:49 (one week ago) link

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”.

Booger Swamp Road (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, 8 October 2024 18:16 (one week ago) link

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

the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 8 October 2024 18:17 (one week ago) link

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

Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 18:23 (one week ago) link

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

Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 8 October 2024 18:25 (one week ago) link


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