[Xenophobe]

I think Jimmy was only a single termer because he appeared to advocate what appeared to be a "hunker down, keep quiet and pretend to be something other than American" strategy for making the rest of the world like us.

It didn't sit well with the country in general, obviously.

[Cid_Yama]

Jimmy Carter was the best President we've had since FDR. He was probably the most intelligent President we ever had. He was a liberal President concerned for the common man and thus was hated by the right.

He was well aware of the looming energy crisis as the US had passed peak in 1970. He placed solar panels on the roof of the White House as an example to the American people.

He brokered the Camp David Accords, bringing about peace between Egypt and Israel. As a result Sadat and Begin recieved the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978. Carter recieved his in 2002.

He has since been subject to the revisionist history of the right, But his subsequent work as a diplomat and peace broker as ex-president has gained him renown the world over.

It is suspected that the Republicans, through back channels with Iran, held up the Algiers Accord through the Presidential elections and until the day before Reagan's Inauguration, resulting in the Iranian Embassy hostages being released the day of the Inauguration. This resulted in the Hostages being held for 444 days and losing Carter the election.

In exchange the Reagan Administration, through Israel provided spare parts for Iran's largely US built military and Air Force left over from the time of the Shah. (See Iran-Contra)

Carter is hated by the right for Love Canal being declared a Federal emergency, and the resulting creation of the Superfund law. Throwing the spotlight on corporations and toxic waste.

He pissed off energy companies by creating the Dept of Energy to rein in abuses taking place in the several smaller agencies it replaced and by suggesting a transition to alternative energy sources.

He provided amnesty to Viet-Nam era draft dodgers.

Carter also sought to reform penalties for drug use. In an address to Congress he stated, "Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use."

Carter signed legislation to raise the minimum wage for the first time since 1968.

All in all, Carter was a humanitarian who cared about the everyday American and worked to regulate industry, whose abuses he saw as damaging our country, our people, and the planet.

You can see why the right, hate him to this day.

[Tanada]

He picked Walter Mondale for his VP!

He was very bad at giving speeches! The transcripts read well but his delivery stunk on ice!

He was very bad for the Military in a lot of ways but he mostly kept everyone alive who served during his term in office. Most married military qualified for Food Stamps during his last two years in office and many necessary spare parts were not purchased. If you read about the Desert One debacle in Iran remember that three of the aircraft suffered mechanical failures right before or during the mission.

He looked weak when faced with the Ayatollah in Iran. You don't have to start a war to act the role of a tough guy when needed in international politics. Putin and Sarkozy are masterful at it for example.

He continued the debacle that was the Space Shuttle but didn't fund it enough to accomplish its mission. It was over two years delayed by budget shortfalls and never lived up to its hype.

He talked about conservation a lot but most of the things he did were pointless. A solar water heater on the White House? Wearing a sweater in the Oval Office? Why not ground Air Force One except for overseas travel and re-institute a Presidential car on Amtrak? It would have been a heck of a lot more energy saving than anything else he did while in office.

He completely flubbed Three Mile Island and was proclaimed a Nuclear expert though he dropped out of training very early and resigned from the Navy on when his father passed away suddenly.

He was a nice guy who appeared to be in over his head doing the best he could in a lousy time in American history. I admire his character but nothing else about his Presidency.

[PrestonSturges]

Nixon had caused pent up inflation by wage and price controls (this was a Republican?). Inflation came roaring in under Gerald Ford whose answer was the "WIN" button (don't ask).

Carter whipped inflation with a tight money policy that drove up interest rates.

"Team B" was a republican-CIA disinformation group that countered Carters defense cuts with estimates that the USSR was an economic juggernaut, a storyline that the GOP rode right up til the moment the USSR collapsed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B
oh and they also claimed that Russia had superweapons a strategy similar to the claim of Saddam's nonexistent WMD.

There was also the oil crisis in 1979 that the US had no way to respond to. However the fundementalists and GOP really got together when Tim LeHay ("Late Great Planet Earth") declared that the US had to build as many nukes as possible and protect the Arab oil fields (save the defense and oil indutries) or JEEEEEESSSSSUUUUUS won't come back.

Because Jesus can't return without Exxons help. Seriously. You can't make up stuff like that.

[Cid_Yama]

A good example of revisionist history.

Carter wore the sweater during that speech, which was about conserving energy, as an example of how Americans could do their part by wearing sweaters and turning down the thermostat.

You turn that into a bad thing. Carter was not bad at speeches, that's just BS.
He was very straight-forward and told it like it was.

The rescue attempt failed due to a sandstorm forcing most of the aircraft to be grounded or returned to the carrier.

There was a refueling accident, as a result of the sandstorm, that damaged a C-130 and helicopter and resulted in the death of 8 servicemen. Nothing to do with spare parts.

Mission was aborted as Delta Force determined they no longer had sufficient resources to complete the mission.

[ian807]

Carter got bashed because:

1) First and foremost, he told the truth.

2) He wasn't bought, therefore, he was the subject of intense media propaganda funded by the wealthy to ruin his reputation and make sure he wasn't re-elected. It worked. What they wanted was a tool and a fool, which they got in Reagan.

3) He knew about energy, resources and the economy. He saw peak oil and all its implications and tried to do something about with speed limits, conservation programs and unflashy things that would actually help. People just resented being inconvenienced by something invisible that they couldn't understand and blamed him. Reagan's administration, in contrast, just increased government spending on the military and signed legislation to loosen lending practices of credit unions so that ordinary people would feel richer, by acquiring more debt (sound familiar). http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=41872

4) Carter told people they would have to sacrifice and that their lifestyles might suffer. They despised him for that, just as people despise people who warn of peak oil now. Reagan's administration, in contrast, said it was "morning in America" and gave the country debt "money" in lieu of caffeine.

5) Carter is smart - a nuclear engineer, who didn't pretend to be dumb. People felt inferior to him, and resented him because of it. Reagan know how to act like the commonest of people. No intellectual intimidation there. Lower middle class and poor Americans hate people smarter than they are.

6) Carter did not kick Iran's ass. Lower class white America would have dropped a nuke on millions of innocents because a few of their leaders annoyed us and risked an all out nuclear war with Russia. Carter didn't. That made him look weak to a public weaned on WWII stories, still smarting from a defeat from Vietnam.

[Plantagenet]

Jimmy Carter gets bashed because he was a terrible president.

1. He presided over a very bad economy.

2. Iran was "lost" on his watch, leading directly to the global resurgence of radical Islam.

3. Carter failed to deal competently with the Iranian invasion of the US embassey in Tehran and the prolonged "US held captive" crisis that followed when our embassy staff were held captive.

4. Carter turned himself into a national laughingstock by claiming he was attacked by a killer bunny while paddling on a little pond.

[PrestonSturges]

You can see how the same strategies have been used to attack Obama. Three marines died while Obama was playing golf!!!!! And he takes to many vacations. And the public hates him, he's overexposed.

The GOP (aka Fox News) has been desperate to force Obama into a bunker mentality like Carter during the hostage crisis. Carter's biggest strategic mistake was to do this voluntarily, and "Nightline" was launched to give nightly updates. Carters strategy made him look powerless.

A similar helicopter crash occurred during the Grenada rescue operation, and Reagan was on tv declaring mission accomplished before anyone had been rescued.

[Plantagenet]

[/quote]

Did anybody else ever see Tom Paxton sing the Jimmy Carter "bunny wunny" song? I saw him do it in a little folk song club years ago---it was a HOOT!

Tom Paxton on YouTube sings his song about bwrave widdle Jimmy Carter being attacked by a killer bunny wunny in his widdle wow boat in the pond

Paxton is your classic liberal folk singer who travelled around the US singing to typical liberal folk song clubs-----you see---even the liberals made fun of what a wimpy wuss Jimmy Carter was as President.

[Cid_Yama]

The rest of the world isn't fooled.

Presidential Nobel Peace Prize Recipients

Barack Obama - Democrat

Jimmy Carter - Democrat

Woodrow Wilson - Democrat

Teddy Roosevelt - Republican (They were very different back then.)

That's it, just 4.

[Revi]

Nobody likes the guy who says the party's over. They like the guy who rolls out another keg. That's why everyone loved Reagan and hated Carter.

Standing there in his sweater telling us to turn the thermostat down and making the speed limit 55 didn't help his approval rating much either.

Remember Sammy Hager's I can't drive 55.

Nobody likes a party pooper.

[rockdoc123]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he rescue attempt failed due to a sandstorm forcing most of the aircraft to be grounded or returned to the carrier.

There was a refueling accident, as a result of the sandstorm, that damaged a C-130 and helicopter and resulted in the death of 8 servicemen. Nothing to do with spare parts.

[ColossalContrarian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '[')img]http://lisawallerrogers.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/jimmy-carter-rabbit-cartoon.gif[/img]

[ColossalContrarian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he rescue attempt failed due to a sandstorm forcing most of the aircraft to be grounded or returned to the carrier.

There was a refueling accident, as a result of the sandstorm, that damaged a C-130 and helicopter and resulted in the death of 8 servicemen. Nothing to do with spare parts.

[PrestonSturges]

And Carter did an interview with Playboy where he admitted he had "looked at other women with lust in his heart," which caused the fundies to get their knickers in a twist.

These same fundies obediently fell into line behind Reagan, who was divorced, had cheated on his wife, and was estranged from his kids.

Reagan sold weapons to Iran (and Iraq), cut and run from Lebanon, encouraged central American death squads, but skated on all this because he went senile halfway through his second term and was largely incoherent on television shortly after leaving office.

[deMolay]

Carter gave you Subprime. He planted the seeds, which Slick Willie nurtured into The Subprime Crisis. Carter the gift that keeps on giving. The one thing I do like about him. Is that he actually goes out and pounds nails for Habitat for Humanity. That I admire. Otherwise he is a rat assed Commie.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('deMolay', 'C')arter gave you Subprime. He planted the seeds, which Slick Willie nurtured into The Subprime Crisis. Carter the gift that keeps on giving. The one thing I do like about him. Is that he actually goes out and pounds nails for Habitat for Humanity. That I admire. Otherwise he is a rat assed Commie.

[Keith_McClary]

Carter didn't start any wars. All good US presidents start wars.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Keith_McClary', 'C')arter didn't start any wars. All good US presidents start wars.

[Plantagenet]

Why is Jimmy Carter so very very happy that Obama was elected president?

Because now Jimmy Carter is no longer the worst president of recent times.