Nobel Peace Prize for Jimmy Carter

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.