Carter did what the governor in Best Little Whorehouse in Texas suggested:
“It behooves both the Jews and the Arabs to settle their differences in a Christian manner."
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I remember parts of this, especially: “Carter’s not the reason you can’t gas up your car”
Thanks. I didn’t know/remember about the whole domestic/shale/etc production difference.
Very well put.
Carter always maintained that he no regard for his own legacy, his only concern was the lives of the 53 Americans being held captive. He always said the fact all of them returned to the U.S alive was his greatest achievement.
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Don’t forget the 8 guys that didn’t go home alive.
The US had what was called the “Synthetic Liquid Fuels Program”, which started in the 1940s and worked to develop, among other things, oil shale (“oil shale” is a misnomer in that it’s not really oil and it’s not really shale. It’s a kerogen-rich marlstone, from which oil can be extracted). For reference, the U.S. oil shale deposits contain three times as much oil equivalent as there is liquid oil in the rest of the world in total. Carter was a huge supporter of this effort.
Reagan struck a deal with OPEC to cut domestic production, undercutting the SLFP, leading to what is known as “Black Sunday” in the oil business. He formally killed the program with the Comprehensive Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985. You may know this legislation as “COBRA”, best known for the provision that provides insurance for worker after they’ve been laid off.
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Not forgetting them, only saying that all of the “hostages” came home alive. Yes, eight US servicemen died in the rescue attempt.
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Thank you.
eta: not just for that, but for the earlier knowledge drop about the oil business back then. I was too young to remember it personally, but later I got to hear lots of stories about it and other interesting things.
Part of the perception of Carter is tanted by the media’s portrailal of him as a hick from the deep south who took Jesus’s teachings seriously. This resulted in him being dismissed as uneducated and naive. (His brother Billy didn’t help him any either).
He was much brighter than people gave him credit for. He was president during a tough time financially and the president takes more blame and credit than they actually have power over.
I would love a president with his integrity and connection to real people again.
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I was interviewing for a high-profile job and the woman, who has a deep southern drawl, was asking tough, smart questions. She asked where I was from and I told her and then guessed her location based on that accent. She seemed a little surprised and said she tries to mask it sometimes because of that same impression that Carter encountered. I told her, “people that marginalize others with that accent have clearly never done business in the south and do so at their own peril”. I got the job.
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Godspeed, Jimmy Carter.
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Greg Gumbel.
“Peanut Farmer” didn’t help either.
The ABC News headline reads “Former President Jimmy Carter, celebrated champion of human rights, dies at 100”.
Celebrated champion of human rights. That’s a damn good epitaph.
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Republicans absolutely pilloried him for being a man of faith. And a farmer. But being a true Christian made him the laughing stock of conservatives. I guess some things never change.
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Carter was a reform candidate, succeeding Nixon’s scandals and the steering of that ship into port by Ford and his pardon. Carter in part won because he represented a new way of doing political business and he replaced as much of the Old Guard as he could with his younger associates from the South, who had political and business experience but not the legacy of connections within DC. This didn’t just piss off Republicans, it pissed off Democrats who were used to running a big chunk of The Show regardless of who sat in the White House. Republican opposition was normal and expected, but a very large part of the Democratic Party controllers, as well as the press they fed, did everything they could to cut Carter off at the kneecaps. His southern accent and everyman / gee-whiz appeal was used to paint him as a fool in over his head but the man was a nuclear engineer, not an idiot. Unfortunately, as an outsider in the national political arena, he could not find a way to get out of the box they put him in.
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He was also a fine fly fisher, with a deep connection to nature.
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Linda Lavin. 87
The man also commanded a nuclear submarine.
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He put solar panels on the roof of the White House…in the 1970s.
Spoiler
Reagan ripped them down, of course.
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And a fan of the Allman Brothers. There was a lot to like about him.
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