Member-only story
News, President Carter
President Jimmy Carter
Memories of a good many who loved America
I will leave it to others to recount the many challenges of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. I recall some of them myself, most notably buying a car with an 18 percent auto loan. I also recall Carter speaking of “national malaise” wearing a sweater in front of a lit White House fireplace. Carter was ridiculed for his efforts to reduce energy usage, just as he was blamed for failing to rescue the Iranian hostages.
By the time Carter left office, he was considered a failure. I don’t remember him as one, even though the presidency of his successor, Ronald Reagan, was seen by many as a rescue from an America in decline.
I don’t dispute the successes of the Reagan presidency, but I also credit Reagan with consciously working to destroy Carter’s credibility during the 1980 campaign. In more ways than one, Donald Trump took a page from the hard-hitting history of Reagan’s 1980 win in his treatment of Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and more than a dozen Republican primary challengers in three elections.
I like to think that if Reagan were alive today, he might regret his harsh treatment of Carter because, on reflection, Carter wasn’t so much a bad president as an unlucky one. His heart was in the right place, and…