As a candidate for president in 1976, Jimmy Carter called for a government “as honest and decent and fair and competent and truthful and idealistic as are the American people.” The cynics rolled their eyes. They misjudged him.
Carter believed sincerely in the potential goodness of both the government and its people, and we would all be so much better off if more politicians did. Leadership can inspire the best or worst in people. He strove for the best.
His record as president was mixed, but his record as a former president is unsurpassed. His untiring efforts over five decades for peace, democracy, human rights, fair elections and public health around the world richly earned him the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize and set a towering example that would be challenging to match.
Talk about a life well-lived. America’s longest-living president is 98 and in hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia.
His election in itself was balm for a nation deeply torn over Vietnam and revolted by the Watergate-era criminality of the Nixon White House. At his inauguration, Carter complimented President Gerald Ford, whom he had defeated, “for all he has done to heal our land.” It was a unifying gesture that came from Carter’s heart.
Success in Florida
Carter’s successful campaign for the nomination had effectively ended the segregationist George Wallace’s influence in the Democratic Party, and the former Georgia governor’s victory in Florida’s early primary was crucial to that.
But he was still “Jimmy who?” to many people, Georgians included, when he sought the presidency.
Like other presidents, he promised more than circumstances — notably the 1979 energy crisis, chronic inflation and an Iranian hostage crisis — would allow him to accomplish.
The prospects of his reelection diminished every time the network newscasts highlighted the number of days Americans had been held hostage in Iran. But for the failure of a military mission to rescue our imprisoned embassy personnel — his only warlike act — he might still have won a second term.
Carter had known it was risky to admit the exiled Shah of Iran into the United States, but it was an example of his faith-based humanity guiding his actions. He would not deny medical treatment to a dying man.
His pardoning nearly 500,000 Vietnam war draft evaders was another courageous act for the sake of compassion and national unity.
Camp David Accords
His administration was hardly lacking in significant achievements. The Camp David Accords put Israel at peace with its most potent enemy, Egypt. It was a triumph of statesmanship that owed entirely to Carter’s tenacity in keeping Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat at the table for 13 days.
Ratification of the Panama Canal treaties was another. Carter, who had opposed them as a candidate, came around and expended considerable political capital in persuading the public and Senate that it was necessary to rectify a legacy of imperialism.
