They say it is not nice to talk bad after the dead but it is also not nice to try to rewrite history. The mainstream media is now trying to rewrite the history of the Jimmy Carter Presidency avoiding the bad while highlighting only the good.
They make mention of what a good husband he was to wife Rosalynn and how much in love he was with her. President John F. Kennedy was another Democrat president who was a total womanizer and adulterer. He constantly cheated on Jackie, even in the White House as president, but still, he was a genius next to Carter. The point being, marriage has nothing to do with the U.S. Presidency as a metric of measure. As the old expression goes, “Nice guys finish last.”
Some of the other interesting things that are to be remembered about Jimmy Carter as a one term American President (1977-1980) are both odd and seldom remembered.
In April of 1978 Penthouse Magazine published an article titled “The First 100 Lies of Jimmy Carter” which was an outstanding expose on things Carter had said both during the campaign and his first 2 years in office which turned out not to be true. At that time Penthouse was the second most read and quoted magazine after Newsweek when it came to news in America. That article which went viral on television and radio talk shows may have been spawned from a Harper’s Magazine article of 2 years prior in 1976 titled “Jimmy Carter’s Pathetic Lies: The heroic image is made of brass” by Steven Brill. Carter had been Governor of Georgia so Brill investigated him in office there.
One serious example of a Jimmy Carter lie came out of what the press touted as one of his greatest successes, “The Camp David Accords” which was a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. Carter was later accused of lying about the agreement he signed with both Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin. Carter said Israel will “withdraw to the 1967 border of the West Bank” when the agreement only said, “The negotiations will resolve, among other matters, the location of the boundaries…”
Keep in mind, this was from the supposed Christian president who once said, “I will never lie to you.” Lies like that one can actually start wars!
There were a number of other things off about Carter as well which the press will never cover, but I will.
- He came into office with this idea of requiring the entire bureaucracy of the Federal government to come into line with his plan and idea of “Zero-Based Budgeting”, a system whereby every budget would start the fiscal year with zero dollars and then each department head would have to come to Congress and him for an allotment of cash to operate in a merit based system. His idea never went anywhere. Washington is just too big to micro-manage like that. Smart people knew that.
- He once announced, rather randomly and awkwardly, “I have lust in my heart.” The then 1976 Democratic nominee brought up sex and sin as he explained his religious faith to Playboy Magazine. The television show “Charlie’s Angels” had just begun with Farah Fawcett so millions of American men of both parties were mumbling “Shut the hell up, man!”
- He once got chased by a rabbit on his Georgia peanut plantation which was photographed by the press. He had to be rescued by his Secret Service. Most men were thinking “onside football kick practice”. He was running for his life.
- He was said to treat some of those around him who served him very badly such as instructing his Secret Service detail to never look him directly in the eyes. Books have been written about this.
- He ran our inflation up to 14% before President Ronald Reagan made him a one term president and brought it back down under control.
- Of course nobody will ever forget the embassy hostages taken in Tehran in violation of International law. Some 53 embassy workers were held hostage for 444 days in Iran because Islamic fundamentalists decided to return their country from western ways to earlier days.
- This foreign relations fiasco led to operation Desert Claw which failed taking the lives of eight Americans which included three Marines and five Air Force personnel when the aircraft they were flying in collided out over the desert during the nighttime raid.
- The hostages were released as Ronald Reagan was sworn into office as he had promised the Iranians a good ole fashioned ass whooping.
CONCLUSION:
Donald Trump left the Democratic Party in 1987 soon after the abject failure of Jimmy Carter as President. I remained an Independent for a short time thereafter but soon became a Republican myself, because of Bill Clinton.
I respect Jimmy Carter as a fellow Christian. I respect Jimmy Carter for his service in the Navy. I am really glad he turned me onto both donating to and serving with Habitat for Humanity. I was unaware of this outstanding organization before he highlighted it on television.
“How Jimmy Carter Jump-Started the Craft Beer Revolution | WSJ”
Since so many domestic beers came to give me headaches due to all their additives and preservatives, I am very grateful Jimmy Carter can be credited with promotion of the home brew, or craft beer, industry.
It is my understanding he also helped the peanut farmers widely in America as they were not getting a fair shake before his presidency. People who love beer, generally love peanuts with their beers!
Bottom line, the two things Joe Biden and Jimmy Carter both have in common are is they are/were serial liars and they cost us American military lives in the Middle East in the most pathetic ways.
The thing is though, Jimmy Carter had some redeeming social factors where Joe Biden has none.
© 2024 by Mark S. Schwendau
