[aahala]

Carter was bascially right. Had the policies of his time had simply continued rather than largely abandoned, we wouldn't have solved the energy problem at this point, but things would be better than what we have now.
The $2,000 home PV tax credit is something, not much but better than zero.
We are paying for the bad or less than adequate energy policies of the Reagan-Bush I-Clinton-Bush II years.

[MicroHydro]

The problem was that in 1980 the US was still somewhat of a constitutional republic, and had elections that couldn't be entirely controlled. Conservation was not a winning issue for consumers, who were whining like spoiled children for a return to 1960s cheap oil abundance. Thus no energy conservation administration could be reelected.

In retrospect, the whole world would have been better off if TPTB had installed the current US vote stealing technology back in the 1970s and used it to force powerdown and transition to post carbon energy sources on an unwilling populace. At least that would have been a wise use of their oligarchical powers.

[Ancien_Opus]

It was stated by several historians that Jimmy Carter would be remembered favorably by history. Indeed he was right about energy and equally correct about expanding National Parks.
The election of 1980 hinged on many problems dating back to the Vietnam War. Carter gave amnesty to the draft dodgers and this may have cost him a substantial quantity of the veterans vote.

Double digit inflation was driving up home mortgages and car loans so the economy was quite soft as well. The election of Ronald Reagan did not stop the collapse of the economy in 1980 and things fell apart shortly afterwards.
Simply stated, intellect and integrity lost to a charismatic con-artist. Iran-Contra, savings & loan debacle and the 1987 stock market crash, voodoo economics all belong to the Great Teflon President.

[Falconoffury]

Micro, I find myself in agreement.

[peaker_2005]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MicroHydro', 'T')he problem was that in 1980 the US was still somewhat of a constitutional republic, and had elections that couldn't be entirely controlled. Conservation was not a winning issue for consumers, who were whining like spoiled children for a return to 1960s cheap oil abundance. Thus no energy conservation administration could be reelected.
In retrospect, the whole world would have been better off if TPTB had installed the current US vote stealing technology back in the 1970s and used it to force powerdown and transition to post carbon energy sources on an unwilling populace. At least that would have been a wise use of their oligarchical powers.

[MacG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('UncoveringTruths', ' ')Was Jimmy Carter right?

[turmoil]

It was "a new morning in America." *hindsight*

[Starvid]

While Jimmy Carter had rather sound energy policies, he lost Iran and fucked up that pathetic rescue attempt, things I will never forgive him for.
I don't know what Reagan did at home in the US, but at least he saved our European asses from the Soviet Union, something for which I will be forever grateful.
edit: I get so pissed thinking of the Iranian Hostage Crisis and Carter that I have to post this excerpt. If you're not interested in it, don't read it.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gary Brecher', 'T')he Islamist "students" of Tehran blamed the US anyway and grabbed 70 US Embassy employees for a few hours. You'd think that would have been warning enough to evacuate the Tehran embassy. Nope. Back then, remember, nobody took Islam very seriously. We were still scared of the poor ol' pitiful Commies, and fatally underestimated the power of the Mullahs, just like the Shah did.
Our diplomats thought they were safe because everybody knows foreign embassies are off limits, sovereign territory. Except Iranians don't have that tradition.

You Russians should know that better than anybody, because one of your writers, Griboedev, was torn to pieces by a mob in Tehran back in 1829. Maybe they were mad from trying to pronounce his name, I don't know, but they sure weren't too worried about entering the embassy to get at him. They turned him into a Russian pinata, ripping him apart like the zombies in Land of the Dead.

Our last chance to evacuate the embassy was October 22, 1979, when the US finally admitted the dying Shah for urgent gall-bladder surgery. Two weeks later-and for those two weeks there were daily, giant protests with a million people screaming "Marg bar Amrika," "Death to America"-a crowd of radicals swarmed the embassy. The Marine guards were ordered not to fire on the crowds, so we gave up without a fight, setting the pattern for this whole humiliating episode.

The "students" were amateurs, so some staff escaped and took refuge in the Canadian embassy. The occupiers released some hostages, mostly women, non-Americans and blacks. The rest were blindfolded, handcuffed and toyed around with-there were mock executions with unloaded rifles, that kind of sadistic crap.
Everybody was holding their breath waiting to see what America, the strongest power in the world, would do. Nobody, and I remember this real well, could believe it as the weeks went by and we did nothing. Nothing.

We had the bad luck to have as president this freak, Jimmy Carter. What a piece of work he was. We knew he was a Christian, but we didn't know he was the kind of soft-headed Christian that actually believed in turning the other cheek when you're hit. All our presidents were churchgoers, but I don't think we've ever had a president who actually bought that nonsense, and I pray (or I would if I still believed in God) that we never do again. Nixon, for example, was a Quaker-but he wasn't exactly what you'd call a "pacifist."

I'd like to blame the Dems for our current problems, but but before Carter our Democrat presidents had been damn fine war leaders. Wilson, FDR, Truman-when it was time to fight they went in with both fists flying. Even LBJ can't be faulted for squeamishness. He may not have fought smart in Nam, but he was no peacenik, turn-the-other-cheek freak.

Carter was a whole different animal from those guys. He didn't threaten the hostage-takers, he "negotiated." Meaning, he begged. "Please, Mister Khomeini, can we have our hostages back?" It was the lowest point in American history. Every night on the news there were scenes to make you sick, blindfolded hostages being shown off to giant rallies in Tehran.

And Carter settled for embargoing oil from Iran. Meaning my parents had to pay double for gas. Oh, and he froze some of their assets. Which must've really hurt, because now that oil prices shot up, the mullahs were rolling in rials.

We didn't know it then, but Carter was some sort of sick Gandhi mutant version of a Southern Baptist. The most expensive armed forces in history were just dying to make those bearded bastards pay, and Carter sat back and tried talking to them nicely. We could have done things that would make our name feared throughout history. We could have made them forget Genghis Khan, who was responsible for turning Eastern Iran into the moonscape it still is today.

I used to lie in my room after the news, dreaming of what the USAF could do if Carter took the leash off. Like: announce that we were going to nuke Khomeini's "holy city," Qum, if the hostages weren't released. And do it. Then announce we were going to nuke another, bigger city-and do it. And keep doing it, going from smaller to bigger Iranian cities until Tehran was the only one left. Then, if the idiots didn't let the hostages go, sadly announce that all the hostages were brutally butchered, and seal Tehran underneath hot, radioactive glass.

I guarantee you we wouldn't be having our current problems if we'd done that 25 years ago.
If you don't have the stomach for that level of violence, then do what one high-ranking USAF officer suggested: using our jamming/e-warfare planes to wipe out all telecommunications across Iran. See if they're so eager for the Dark Ages after all.
We did none of the above. Carter's braintrust started dreaming about rescue raids, like the Israelis had pulled off in Entebbe. That's how Charlie Beckwith's pitiful "Operation Eagle Claw" was born. Carter wanted a plan that would snatch the hostages from safe houses scattered in an enemy city of four million people.

Stupid. American Special Forces missions have less than a 50% success rate, and the odds on this one were much, much worse than that. The only way to get the hostages out was to hurt Iran enough to make them GIVE the hostages back, screaming "Take them! Take them!" and Carter had ruled that out.

His Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, who looked like a Cub Scout leader, knew it wouldn't work. Even Beckwith, the mission Commander, knew it was hopeless. He calculated the risk of failure at 99.9%, but the poor bastard followed his CINC's orders and devised a plan.

It was maybe the worst plan in history. Eight RH-53D heavy-lift choppers-not the best ones we had either, but so-called "hangar queens" were used because their commanders weren't warned of the seriousness of the mission-would take off from the USS Nimitz and rendezvous with six C-130 transports at Desert One, a desert point near Iran's southern coast. After being refueled, the eight choppers would take Delta Force to Desert Two fifty miles outside Tehran, where they were supposed to hide for a full day before being infiltrated into Tehran in trucks.

So that's two big, loud landing strips inside Iran that we were supposed to manage without getting spotted. Plus a full day of trying to hide out.
If you've read Andy McNab's book Bravo Two Zero about what happened when his SAS team tried to hide out in rural Iraq during Gulf War I, you know how crazy that was. McNab's guys, the best soldiers in the world, were spotted by an old man herding goats before they even got unpacked.

If the Delta guys had somehow managed to go undiscovered and make it into Tehran in those trucks-another big "if"-and if they somehow found and rescued the hostage-an "if" the size of Shaquille O'Neal-the plan was that they'd take the hostages by truck to a downtown Tehran soccer stadium. Choppers would fly them from there to Manzariyeh air base 40 miles SE of Tehran, where C-141s would land, pick up the Delta operators and hostages and fly them home.

With some plans, you can find the flaw and say, "Aha! There's the problem!" But this plan was so hopeless, so complicated, with so many impossible stages open to so many obvious disasters, that you can't even isolate a single flaw. It was all flaws, and no logic.
On April 24, 1980, Operation Eagle Claw went off. Soon after hitting the Iranian desert, the RH-53D's flew into a "Haboob"-one of the dust storms that make the desert a Hell for pilots. The first chopper dropped with mechanical problems two hours from the Nimitz. Another had to turn around after trying to fly through the dust storm.

That left six choppers, the bare minimum, still working. They landed at the Desert One rendezvous an hour late. The C-130s were already waiting. The choppers were refueled, the Delta Force team was itching to go, when they found out that one of the choppers was inoperable-hydraulic failure. That was it: the plan wouldn't work with just five choppers.
Beckwith had no choice but to scrub the mission right there in the desert. All because Carter only authorized eight lousy choppers.
When Nixon heard about it, he had a great comment: "Eight? Why not a thousand? It's not like we don't have them!"
Carter should've listened to the Quaker Nixon. What's the world coming to when a Quaker ex-president has the right warlike attitude and a Southern Baptist, which Carter supposedly was, cringes like a pacifist?

But the worst was yet to come. Eight men-five USAF crew and three USMC chopper crew--died when one of the RH-53D tried to take off, got blown by the sandstorm into a taxi-ing C-130 and turned both aircraft into a huge fireball. We were very lucky a lot more men didn't die.
There were 44 troops on that plane, and only a heroic effort by the loadmaster got the jammed doors open so they could get off. The survivors flew off, totally gutted. And when the Iranians noticed the columns of black smoke, they hopped on their camels and found the wreckage of Carter's rescue mission. Every newspaper in the world, every TV station, carried this picture that's burned into my eyes for life: some greasy, stupid mullah grinning at the camera as he holds up the charred arm of an American serviceman.

I can't describe the sick, terrible feeling I had watching that on TV, then seeing it again on the front page of the paper. Like watching your family get raped while you're strapped in a chair. From that moment Reagan was in. His handlers made sure the hostages weren't released before the election. They timed it nicely: the hostages finally got out on Inauguration Day, 444 days after they were captured.
Carter was still trying to micro-manage the negotiations; he brought a phone to Reagan's inauguration.

[EnemyCombatant]

Can you personally blame Carter for the rescue attempt?

[DomusAlbion]

Carter was right. Carter was/is very intelligent.
If his proposed policies had been implemented and maintained we would be a lot better off today.
However, he was a weak, ineffectual leader. He lost the confidence of the people. He actually might have lost Europe to Soviet influence and that was a very important factor during that period.

[bruin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'W')hile Jimmy Carter had rather sound energy policies, he lost Iran and fucked up that pathetic rescue attempt, things I will never forgive him for.
I don't know what Reagan did at home in the US, but at least he saved our European asses from the Soviet Union, something for which I will be forever grateful.

[Starvid]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnemyCombatant', 'C')an you personally blame Carter for the rescue attempt?

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bruin', 'B')reaking up the Soviet Union was a much more important issue then delaying PO by x number of years. I totally agree. When PO takes hold, the probability of war will go up in kind. Without the USSR, the world will be much better off when PO hits. Although we do have China to worry about these days.

[MrBean]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'W')hile Jimmy Carter had rather sound energy policies, he lost Iran and fucked up that pathetic rescue attempt, things I will never forgive him for.
I don't know what Reagan did at home in the US, but at least he saved our European asses from the Soviet Union, something for which I will be forever grateful.

[Starvid]

Reagan murdered lot's of innocent people, sure. That's easy to complain about when you live across the Atlantic and only have to worry about nuclear attack, and not of having Soviet paratroopers on your street corners when you wake. Every f**king morning.
The Helsinki committees didn't do sh*t. It was only a Soviet pr-trick But sure, some people were fooled by it.
And yes, Finnish blood defended Sweden, and still (in practice) Finland manages our defence. Sweden is forever indebted to Finland.

And we were never neutral. We were solidly in the Western camp. The Swedish politicians knew it, the US knew it, the Soviets knew it. The only people who didn't know were the (ignorant part of the) Swedish people.
What Reagan did was recognizing that the Soviet Union never wanted detente (at least not after Kruschtov), but world domination. While Europe was all hippie peacenik he built up the US military and bled the Soviet Union with that silly Star Wars scheme. If the Soviets would have attacked us in the 70's we would have lost. In the 80's we would have won. All thanks to Reagan.

But I wouldn't call him my hero. He had awful energy policies. He said things like "trees make pollution". He did kill all those Nicaraguans (comletely needless too).
FDR is not my hero and neither is Reagan. But all of Europe is indebted to them and to the US.
Except maybe the people of Dresden.

[bruin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bruin', 'B')reaking up the Soviet Union was a much more important issue then delaying PO by x number of years. I totally agree. When PO takes hold, the probability of war will go up in kind. Without the USSR, the world will be much better off when PO hits. Although we do have China to worry about these days.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bruin', 'S')ure we could power down faster if Chairman Mao was running the US. I'm sure he could have run a new Cultural Revolution to get the job done. Those that don't follow suit will be relocated to labor camps. Russia was good at this too.
Personally, I'd rather wait until gas got too expensive to push back the demand.

[MrBean]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'T')he Helsinki commitees didn't do sh*t. It was only a Soviet pr-trick But sure, some people were fooled by it.

[bruin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bruin', 'S')ure we could power down faster if Chairman Mao was running the US. I'm sure he could have run a new Cultural Revolution to get the job done. Those that don't follow suit will be relocated to labor camps. Russia was good at this too.
Personally, I'd rather wait until gas got too expensive to push back the demand.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bruin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bruin', 'S')ure we could power down faster if Chairman Mao was running the US. I'm sure he could have run a new Cultural Revolution to get the job done. Those that don't follow suit will be relocated to labor camps. Russia was good at this too.
Personally, I'd rather wait until gas got too expensive to push back the demand.