President Jimmy Carter is, by my estimation, one of the greatest Americans to have ever lived, and perhaps the greatest living today. Here is a man who does work that can be described almost as angelic, and the impact that he has had has been tremendous.
Yes, he was once president. And yes, many people have been quite vocal in their criticisms of his presidency. In some respects, perhaps they even make some valid points, and perhaps Jimmy Carter, as a president, was ineffective in some areas, although I believe that Carter is often unfairly criticized too harshly, and that his critics do not give him any credit whatsoever for some of his considerable achievements while in the White House.
Carter was the first president to start the tradition of walking much of the route following his swearing in on inauguration day, and he wore a common suit, rather than an expensive, fitted one to increase his prestige and overall image. He scored some major foreign policy victories. The most famous and celebrated one, of course, was his role in the Camp David Peace Accords between Israel and Egypt. He also signed the treaty that gave the Panama Canal back to Panama for 1999. He made a controversial decision to boycott the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, in protest of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which was consistent with his administration's sincere focus on expanding liberty and human rights around the globe. To me, he epitomizes, truly, the role of "champion of liberty" for modern times. True, many criticize his alleged ineffectiveness in dealing with the hostage situation with Iran. But his primary focus was to keep the hostages alive, and not to indiscriminately kill Iranians in some military strike, or to start an unnecessary war. In this regard, his handling of it could not have been better, as frustrating and taxing as the situation was. I believe this, more than anything else, hurt his election chances.
Despite runaway inflation, Carter tried to answer another domestic crisis that stemmed from events outside of American borders. With the OPEC oil boycott and the ensuing energy crisis, Carter stressed the need to make the United States more energy independent, relying on alternative energy, particularly solar energy. He also urged Americans to be more responsible and less wasteful with their resources, stressing the need to make personal sacrifices for the betterment of the country - something that he has been mocked for since.
But the truth of the matter is that, in this regard, Jimmy Carter was well ahead of his time, and Americans just were not ready to receive that message. A question then arises of how much better the country could have been had they heeded his call. That is an answer we will never know, but the lesson hopefully will continually be pounded home, because Americans need to understand this.
One of the main problems of Carter's years in the White House stemmed from his campaign for the presidency in 1976, as well as things that were well beyond his control and responsibility, given the history of the country, and particularly the presidency, in the years before Carter was inaugurated.
Let me explain this a bit more. As a candidate, Jimmy Carter promised that he would always tell the truth, something that, I think, he delivered on. That was problematic on two levels. First of all, he was too honest, too sincere, and probably too philosophical and forward thinking to be an effective politician. As would be proven true immediately after Carter left the White House, Americans preferred someone telling them pretty lies, with a pretty smile to accompany these lies. Secondly, given the recent history of scandals surrounding government, with Watergate and the reopening of old wounds around the JFK Assassination and the swirling conspiracy theories, not to mention the excessive lying of how well things had been going in Vietnam during both the Johnson and Nixon years, Americans had grown highly skeptical of their presidents. So, whenever Carter got into trouble, and it seemed even a little bit that Carter, or his staff, were trying to deal with problems, he received far more scrutiny than most others would. When you compare the intense scrutiny that Carter faced for relatively minor scandals, it seems rather small potatoes compared to the monstrous scandals that we have grown used to from our elected leaders these days.
So, Carter was blamed more than he probably should have, and we know that he was a one-term President. We are left to wonder what, exactly, a second term might have meant for the country, and what it would have looked like.
But Carter has remained vocal and active with what is going on in the world today, and I believe that is because he has a sincere passion for trying to make the country a better place, and he is vocal in expressing how he feels, including being critical of Presidents when they do things that he feels is wrong for the country.
Personally, I am glad that he is, and the fact that he was formerly the President of the United States adds extra weight to what he says. After all, he is quite knowledgeable with how things work, obviously. And he is hardly some scrub, some celebrity or other figure that has political opinions that are not practical or workable. Carter, after all, had a very successful career in the field, going all the way to the White House. And he should express his opinions. The notion that former leaders should remain on the sidelines, somehow pretending to be above the fray of politics, as if they are now above the career that they obviously fostered for so long, seems a bit ridiculous to me.
When times were very dark, like they were a little over a decade ago, when the nation had been attacked by terrorists, basic rights were being eroded, the economy was in the tank, and we had an administration that wanted to engage in a war for false reasons, it was refreshing to hear another President from an earlier era be critical, to give voice to the notion that there were other possibilities and ideas that could be put into play.
And I hope that Jimmy Carter keeps going strong in this regard! Let others be critical of this if they wish. But to me, a man who is passionately patriotic, like Jimmy Carter, should express his beliefs every chance that he gets, and further open the debates about what is best for this country, rather than give in to some vague and, frankly, half-baked notion that former leaders should disappear into the background, play golf all day, and rarely, if ever, be heard from again.
Kudos to Jimmy Carter for being patriotic enough to express his opinions, even when, as if often the case, his opinions remain unpopular!
Here are some articles that I have been accumulating for some time illustrating Carter's willingness to be vocal about political matters, and even to criticize Presidents and candidates for the highest office:
"Carter's wrong to blame Obama, Clinton" by Aaron David Miller of CNN, Thu April 10, 2014:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/10/opinion/miller-jimmy-carter-obama-clinton/index.html
"Ex-President Carter: US 'dormant' on inequality" by Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/ex-president-carter-us-dormant-inequality-004514699.html;_ylt=A0LEVxwFz0dTJ18AgMlXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTB0YXQwZXBpBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDQxNl8x
Jimmy Carter knocks Hillary Clinton-President Obama foreign policy" CNN's Ashley Killough and Dan Merica April 10, 2014:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/10/jimmy-carter-knocks-hillary-clinton-president-obama-foreign-policy/
Jimmy Carter calls on US, EU to recognize Hamas Ynet news, August 6, 2014:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4555502,00.html
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