Jimmy Carter's Place In History

[brucejoel99]

I'd like to go ahead at the outset & drop all pretense on the matter by just outright saying that Carter was a good President who didn't fail the American people so much as they failed him: when handed multiple bad hands (e.g., an oil crisis, post-Vietnam malaise, & a recession brought on by the manufacturing economy shuddering & dying as it was forced to absorb the baby boomers who were entering the workforce), he was expected to work miracles by the American people, who, in gracious return, promptly scoffed at him when he expected them to hold themselves to the same standard. It's truly a shame, since he actually saved us from going into a depression for crying out loud, to say nothing of the Carter legacy legitimately being one of workaday reforms that significantly improved American life with cheaper travel thanks to airline deregulation & cheaper goods for the middle class (including beer thanks to beer industry deregulation leading to the large amount of craft- & micro-breweries today) by actually doing the thankless job of restraining & reforming government.

Not to mention Teddy, before using the last 29 years of his life to become the Liberal Lion of the Senate whose credo in his work was "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good," singlehandedly blocking Carter's 1978 healthcare reform in order to instead propose his own alternative bill that'd secure him the AFL-CIO's endorsement for his primary of Carter for the nomination 2 years later, irresponsibly sacrificing good healthcare reform to be able to (narcissistically) champion his comparatively "perfect" plan, making the post-1980 rebrand feel a lot more hollow.

And to top it all off, what's still utterly astounding is the fact that he worked through his literal last minutes in office to free the Iranian hostages, only to see Reagan get all of the credit Veep-style for all of the Carter team's hard work all because the hostages didn't manage to clear Iranian airspace 'til just after noon ET on Jan. 20th. That's a testament as to how unfair life can sometimes be, & I'm probably more pissed about him not being recognized as the one who succeeded in getting our hostages out than even he himself is, because actually doing so - as opposed to getting the credit for doing so later on too - was all that mattered to him, which is exactly the perfect testament as to the truly great man - & damn good President, as somebody who mostly made the right decisions all along but was undeservedly blamed by the people for circumstances largely out of his control - that he was.