A Good Man
Jimmy Carter Set the Standard for Public Service
Some of my first memories involve Jimmy Carter:
The Iran Hostage Crisis on the news every night.
Gas prices going up and having to wait in line at the station.
My dad being laid off from his job, blaming the economy and Jimmy Carter.
My dad and uncle trying “Billy Beer,” the novelty brand offered by Carter’s neer-do-well brother.
My mom whining about her interview with a local television station being bumped for a story about Jimmy Carter boycotting the Moscow Olympics.
Yes, if you grew up in that era, you got an errant picture of the person Jimmy Carter was. As a President, he seemed out of his depth, overwhelmed by events beyond his control, a small man in the biggest chair in the world. As it turns out though, sometimes the great opportunities we get are not our greatest callings. What makes a person great may not be what most of society values and the world hold up as important, but what we do in all the little things that add up over time.
Carter began his lifetime of public service committing to the Naval Academy. He met the love of his life and got married at the ripe young age of 22(!), something kids today could not possibly imagine; even more amazing, they remained married for 70+ years until Rosalynn’s death. When his father died, he left military service to manage the family peanut farm down in Plains, GA.1 Once home, he felt he had a higher calling and began a political career eventually taking him to the Governor’s Mansion in 1970. In the aftermath of Watergate and Vietnam, his straightforward, friendly, honest, even folksy demeanor represented the sentiment of the time and he was elected the 39th President of the United States in 1976.
But the country was severely damaged and he had trouble putting the pieces back together. Inflation which had started under Nixon and Ford still ran rampant. The Middle East, was in the midst of a religious fundamentalism that would reshape it climaxing in 1978-9 with the Iran Hostage Crisis. Saudi Arabia having it’s own fundamentalist backlash started slashing oil exports causing the gas crisis. There was little Carter could do to fix the issues. In 1980, while running against Ronald Reagan, Reagan stated flatly, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” In truth, any President at the time was destined to fail, but the American voters had to agree that they were not and Carter took the blame. Reagan won in a landslide.
Shakespeare once wrote that “Some people are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” Carter was neither born great nor had achieved greatness as President. It would be in his post-Presidency where he would have the opportunities to shine. He established the Carter Foundation which became an important institution of voting integrity and democracy throughout the world. At a time of world instability, and where elected political officials needed to keep arms length between themselves and whom they were dealing with (North Korea, Hezbollah, Serbian Militants, etc.), Carter stepped up to negotiate on behalf of the United States and open up doorways and communications between hostile regimes. His efforts at diplomacy among some of the worst actors in the world earned him a well earned Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
But doing these things on the world stage wasn’t his greatest accomplishment. Unlike most in politics, Carter practiced what he preached. If all politics is local, Carter demonstrated that until his death, volunteering for Habitat for Humanity to make affordable housing for those who could not afford it. He was often seen at local construction sites helping out well into his 90s, until he had to go to hospice for declining health issues. Carter genuinely believed the greatest way to help the world was to start and continue to do things locally, everyday and help the people in our towns and communities if we can. If we make the small areas around us better, a little at a time, each and every day, the world becomes a greater and better place. In that, Carter has done more to heal this world and help those in need than most all people known to me.
Carter was not a great, or even good President. But he is the man we should all aspire to be in our day to day lives. And that’s far more important. If we all think, behave and act like that plainspoken person from Plains, Georgia, and do good things each and every day, then it doesn’t matter who occupies the Oval Office.
PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day
Jimmy Carter had the longest post-Presidency of any former President, at 43 years and 343 days.
Second on the list is Herbert Hoover, with 31 years, 230 days.
Bill Clinton is currently the longest, currently surviving ex-President at only 20 years.
PurpleAmerica’s Final Word on the Subject
R.I.P. Jimmy.
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Footnotes and Fun Stuff
One of the greatest stories I heard in remembrance of Carter was that his wife hated the idea, and the car ride from toney Schenectady, NY to rural Georgia was the quietest and most tense day of his life. And this is a man who negotiated Peace Treaties with Israel and Egypt, North Korea, helped negotiate the Dayton Accords ending the Balkan War and won a Nobel Peace Prize.