James Earl Carter Jr, 1924-2024

[Renauda]

In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s a close friend of mine from grad school was an analyst at CSIS in Washington. She worked closely on one project with Jimmy Carter. She said he was always gracious and showed no pretense towards anyone. She also said that he would always apologetically arrive very early for any meetings and would insist that he be left in the reception area to read quietly until all others arrived and were prepared to begin the meeting. If offered a vacant office to wait he would refuse. Besides being a pleasure to be around he also had a mind and memory like a trap and understood all details the project required of him and the team.

R.I.P. President Carter. A true statesman and decent human being if there ever was one.

[George K]

A not-too-charitable take from National Review:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/12/jimmy-carter-was-a-terrible-president-and-an-even-worse-former-president/

[LuFins Dad]

@jon-nyc said in James Earl Carter Jr, 1924-2024:

Odd trivia:

The five longest lived post presidencies:

Carter
Hoover
Ford
Bush Sr
Adams

All five were one term presidents.

I’m sure Biden will make the list…

[Copper]

I saw Mr. Carter many times when he was president.

I watched him come out the door where Mr. Reagan got shot by John Hinkley. That hotel was a popular place for the president to talk to groups.

My office was across the street on the second floor, it looked right down on the door.

I didn't talk to him or meet him or anything, I just watched him get in the car.

[George K]

[Jolly]

@jon-nyc said in James Earl Carter Jr, 1924-2024:

Low bar is cleared. Only one reference to himself and its kind of on topic.

Every man ought to have a passion.

[jon-nyc]

@LuFins-Dad said in James Earl Carter Jr, 1924-2024:

@jon-nyc said in James Earl Carter Jr, 1924-2024:

Odd trivia:

The five longest lived post presidencies:

Carter
Hoover
Ford
Bush Sr
Adams

All five were one term presidents.

I’m sure Biden will make the list…

It sure if you’re joking or misunderstood my post. This is the list of presidents ranked by how many years they lived after leaving office. Biden and Trump will be near the bottom, right above those who died in the saddle.

[jon-nyc]

[George K]

[jon-nyc]

I wouldn’t have questioned the meme but we were just talking about it and I looked up when the silent film was made when posting about the NYC church that shows it annually.

[jon-nyc]

From the Georgia Republican Senate leader. Hard to disagree.

If we all strived to live half the life of service to the Lord and to our fellow man as Jimmy Carter did, the world would be a much better place.

[LuFins Dad]

@jon-nyc said in James Earl Carter Jr, 1924-2024:

@LuFins-Dad said in James Earl Carter Jr, 1924-2024:

@jon-nyc said in James Earl Carter Jr, 1924-2024:

Odd trivia:

The five longest lived post presidencies:

Carter
Hoover
Ford
Bush Sr
Adams

All five were one term presidents.

I’m sure Biden will make the list…

It sure if you’re joking or misunderstood my post. This is the list of presidents ranked by how many years they lived after leaving office. Biden and Trump will be near the bottom, right above those who died in the saddle.

It was a joke… though not necessarily a good one. Sometimes these guys hit the dementia stage and maintain.

[George K]

[jon-nyc]

Link to video

[89th]

@jon-nyc said in James Earl Carter Jr, 1924-2024:

@Horace said in James Earl Carter Jr, 1924-2024:

@jon-nyc said in James Earl Carter Jr, 1924-2024:

Low bar is cleared. Only one reference to himself and its kind of on topic.

It's.

When I’m typing on my phone I rely on autocorrect for apostrophes and double spaces for periods.

apostrophe’s

Idiot.

[jon-nyc]

From the Reagan Library

[jon-nyc]

From a friend who is a docent at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley

[jon-nyc]

[jon-nyc]

Interesting to see today.

[George K]

From Powerline - some observations that recall Carter in a less friendly way. These are from when Carter was president, or shortly thereafter.

People magazine, which Carter criticized during his presidency for its focus on self-absorbed celebrity, wrote about him 20 years ago: “Almost everyone agrees that Jimmy Carter was not our best President, but as former Presidents go, he’s tops,” while Time magazine wrote that Carter is the “consensus best ex-President.” Carter’s former chief of staff Jack Watson remarked effusively that Carter is “the only man in American history who used the United States presidency as a stepping-stone to greatness.” Howard Baker said in the 1980s that “history will be kind to Jimmy Carter.”

Carter’s one-time speechwriter Patrick Anderson observed that in Carter’s hometown of Plains, Georgia, neighbors said of him that after an hour you love him, after a week you hate him, and after ten years you start to understand him. (Anderson added that anyone who didn’t have a personality conflict with Carter, didn’t have a personality.) Anderson also described him as a combination of Machiavelli and Mr. Rogers.

The Washington Post’s Sally Quinn observed: “The conventional image of a sexy man is one who is hard on the outside and soft on the inside. Carter is just the opposite.” Fellow Southern Baptist Bill Moyers said “In a ruthless business, Mr. Carter is a ruthless operator, even if he wears his broad smile and displays his southern charm.” Part of the mystique of Carter was his careful and successful positioning as someone “above politics.” He gave off an air that he is too good for us, or certainly better than the rest of his peers in politics. Carter exemplified the paradox of taking pride in denouncing the sin of pride. He also displays a talent for combining self-pity and self-righteousness, sometimes in the same sentence.

David Brinkley observed of Carter: “Despite his intelligence, he had a vindictive streak, a mean streak, that surfaced frequently and antagonized people.” Eleanor Randolph of the Chicago Tribune wrote: “Carter likes to carve up an opponent, make his friends laugh at him and then call it a joke. . . [He] stretched the truth to the point where it becomes dishonest to call it exaggeration.”

His personal White House secretary, Susan Clough, recalled that Carter rarely said hello to her as he walked by her desk. Not a “Happy Thanksgiving,” or a “Merry Christmas.” Nothing, she says. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. judged Carter to be a “narcissistic loner.” “Carter was never a regular guy,” Patrick Anderson observed; “the sum of his parts never quite added up to that. . . Carter talked his way into the presidency, yet in some profound way he never learned the language of men.”

From Ronald Kessler's "First Family Detail."

“Carter was just very short and rude most of the time,” an agent recalls. “With agents, he’d just pretend like you were not around. You’d say hello, and he’d just look at you, like you weren’t there, like you were bothering him.”
Carter actually told Secret Service agents and uniformed officers he did not want them to greet him on his way to the Oval Office. It was appar“ently too much bother for him to have to say hello back to another human being.
Nor did Carter have much use for the military. Even though he was a Naval Academy graduate, Carter “talked down to the military, just talked like they didn’t know what they were talking about,” a former agent says.
“Carter didn’t want military aides to wear uniforms,” former agent Cliff Baranowski recalls.
Not surprisingly, of all the presidents in recent memory, Carter was the chief executive most detested by Secret Service agents. Agent John Piasecky was on Carter’s detail for three and a half years. That included seven months of driving him in the presidential limousine. Aside from giving directions, Carter never spoke to him, he says.”

“As president, Carter—code-named Deacon—orchestrated more ruses involving his luggage.

“When he was traveling, he would get on the helicopter and fly to Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base,” says former Secret Service agent Baranowski. “He would roll up his sleeves and carry his bag over his shoulder, but it was empty. He wanted people to think he was carrying his own bag.”

“Carter made a big show about taking a hang-up carryon out of the trunk of the limo when he’d go someplace, and there was nothing in it,” says another agent who was on his detail. “It was empty. It was just all show.”

Carter would regularly make a show of arriving early at the Oval Office to call attention to how hard he was working for the American people.

“He would walk into the Oval Office at 6 A.M., do a little work for half an hour, then close the curtains and take a nap,” says Robert B. Sulliman Jr., who was on Carter’s detail. “His staff would tell the press he was working.”