Jimmy Carter’s Big Mistake - And the noblest president of my lifetime.

By now, you all know that I offer contrarian views for Contrary Brin hoping to shake calcified assumptions like the lobotomizing ‘left-right spectrum.’ Or sometimes just to entertain…  

...(while remaining loyal to the Enlightenment Experiment that gave us all this one chance to escape brutal rule by kings & priests & inheritance brats, to maybe save the world and reach the stars.) 

At other times, contrariness can be a vent of frustration.  

(“You foooools! Why can’t you all seeeeee?!?”)

Okay, today's is of that kind. It's about one of the most admirable human beings I ever heard of – (and I know a lot of history). 

And yes, it's relevant to these fraught time!

==Somebody to look up to ==

Let's talk about former President Jimmy Carter, who passed away at 100, just a few months ago.

Sure, you hear one cliché about Carter, repeated all over: Carter was an ineffective president, but clearly a wonderful person, who redefined the EX-presidency. 

Folks thereupon go on to talk about the charitable efforts of both Carters, Jimmy and Rosalind. Such as the boost they gave to Habitat for Humanity, helping build houses for the poor and turning Habitat into a major concern, worldwide. That, compared to the selfishly insular after-office behaviors of every single Republican ex-president. Ever. And Habitat was just one of the Carters’ many fulfilling endeavors.

In fact, I have a crackpot theory (one of several that you’ll find only in this missive), that JC was absolutely determined not to die, until the very last Guinea Worm was gone. Helping first to kill off that gruesome parasite. 

Haven’t heard of it? Look it up; better yet, watch some cringeworthy videos about this horrible, crippling pest! International efforts – boosted by the Carter Center – drove the Guinea Worm to the verge of eradication, with only 14 human cases reported in 2023 and 13 in 2022. And it’s plausible that the extinction wail of the very last one happened in ’24, giving Jimmy Carter release from his vow. (Unlikely? Sure, but I like to think so. Though soon after his death, all of America was infested by a truly grotesque parasite...) 

So sure, after-office goodness is not what’s in question here. Nor the fact that JC was one of Rickover’s Boys (I came close to being one!) who established the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet that very likely restored deterrence in dangerous times and thus prevented World War Three. 

Or that, in Georgia, he was the first southern governor ever to stand up, bravely denouncing segregation and prejudice in all forms. 

(Someone who taught Baptist Sunday School for 80+ years ought to have been embraced by U.S. Christians, but for the fact that Carter emphasized the Beatitudes and the words and teachings of Jesus - like the Sermon on the Mount - rather than the bile-and-blood-drenched, psychotic Book of Revelation that now eroticizes so many who betray their own faith with gushers of lava-like hate toward their neighbors.) 

But doesn’t everyone concede that Jimmy Carter was an exceptionally fine example of humanity? 

In fact, among those with zero-sum personalities, such a compliment assists their denigration of impractical-goodie eggheads! It allows fools to smugly assert that such a generous soul must have also been gullible-sappy and impractical. 

(“He was a good person… and therefore, he must have been incompetent as president! While OUR hero, while clearly a corrupt, lying pervert and servant of Moscow, MUST - therefore - be the blessed agent of God!”)

Sick people. Truly sick.

And so, no, I’ll let others eulogize ‘what a nice fellow Jimmy Carter was.’ 

Today, I’m here to assail and demolish the accompanying nasty and utterly inaccurate slander: “…but he was a lousy president.”

No, he wasn’t. And I’ll fight anyone who says it. Because you slanderers don’t know your dang arse from… 

Okay, okay. Breathe.

Contrary Brin? Sure. 

But I mean it.

== Vietnam Fever ==

This mania goes all the way back to 1980. That year's utterly insipid “Morning in America” cult monomaniacally ignored the one central fact of that era…

… that the United States of America had fallen for a trap that almost killed it. 

A trap that began in 1961, when a handsome, macho fool announced that “We will pay any price, bear any burden…” And schemers in Moscow rubbed their hands, answering:

“Really, Jack? ANY price? ANY burden? 

"How about a nice, big land war in the jungles of Southeast Asia?”

A war that became our national correlate to the Guinea Worm. 

Those of you who are too young to have any idea how traumatic the Vietnam War was… you can be forgiven. But anyone past or present who thought that everything would go back to 1962 bliss, when Kissinger signed the Paris Accords, proved themselves imbeciles. 

America was shredded, in part by social chasms caused by an insanely stupid war, plus too-long-delayed civil rights…

…but also economically, after LBJ and then Nixon tried for “Guns and Butter.” Running a full-scale war without inconveniently calling for sacrifices to pay for it. 

      Now throw in the OPEC oil crises! And the resulting inflation tore through America like an enema. 

Nixon couldn’t tame it. 

Ford couldn’t tame it. 

Neither of them had the guts.

Entering the White House, Jimmy Carter saw that the economy was teetering, and only strong medicine would work. Moreover, unlike any president, before or since, he cared only about the good of the nation.

As John Viril put it: “Jimmy Carter was, hands down, the most ethically sound President of my lifetime. He became President in the aftermath of Vietnam and during the second OPEC embargo. Carter's big achievement is that he killed hyper-inflation before it could trigger another depression, to the point that we didn't see it again for 40 years. Ronald Reagan gets credit for this, but it was Carter appointing tight-money Fed chairman Paul Volker that tamed inflation.”

Paul Volcker (look him up!) ran the Federal Reserve with tough love, because Carter told Volcker: “Fix this. And I won’t interfere. Not for the sake of politics or re-election. Patch the leaks in our boat. Put us on a diet. Fix it.”

Carter did this knowing that a tight money policy could trigger a recession that would very likely cost him re-election. The medicine tasted awful. 

  And it worked.

 Though it hurt like hell for 3 years, the post-Vietnam economic trauma got sweated out of the economy in record time. 

  In fact, just in time for things to settle down and for Ronald Reagan to inherit an economy steadying back onto an even keel. 

  His Morning in America.

Do you doubt that cause and effect? Care to step up with major wager stakes, before a panel of eminent economic historians? Because they know this and have said so. While politicians and media ignore them, in favor of Reagan idolatry.

Oh, and you who credit Reagan with starting the rebuilding of the U.S. military after Vietnam? 

   Especially the stealth techs and subs that are the core of our peacekeeping deterrence? 

  Nope.

  That was Carter, too.

== Restoring Trust ==

And there’s another unsung but vital thing that Jimmy Carter did, in the wake of Nixon-Ford and Vietnam. He restored faith in our institutions. In the aftermath of Watergate and J. Edgar Hoover and the rest, he made appointments who re-established some degree of trust. And historians (though never pundits or partisan yammerers) agree that he largely succeeded, by choosing skilled and blemish-free professionals, almost down the line.

And yes, let’s wager now over rates of turpitude in office, both before and since then. Or indictments for malfeasance, between the parties! Starting with Nixon, all the way to Biden and Trump II. It's night vs. day.

When the ratio of Republicans indicted and convicted for such crimes vs. Democrats approaches one hundred to one, is there any chance that our neighbors will notice… and decide that it is meaningful?

Not so long as idiots think that it makes them look so wise and cool to shake their heads and croon sadly “Both parties are the same!”* 

You, who sing that song, you don’t sound wise. 

You sound like an ignoramus. 

So, alas, it’s never actively refuted.

Not so long as Democrats habitually brag about the wrong things, and never mention facts like that one. The right ones.

== What about Reagan? ==

So. Yeah, yeah, you say. All of that may be true. But it comes to nothing, compared to Carter’s mishandling of the Iran Hostage Crisis.

Okay. This requires that – before getting to my main point - we first do an aside about Ronald Reagan. 

By now, the evidence is way more than circumstantial that Reagan committed treason during the Iran crisis. Negotiating through emissaries (some of whom admit it now!) for the Ayatollahs to hold onto the hostages till Carter got torched in the 1980 US election.  That’s a lot more than a ‘crackpot theory” by now… and yet I am not going in that direction, today.

Indeed, while I think his tenure set the modern theme for universal corruption of all subsequent Republican administrations, I have recently been extolling Ronald Reagan! Click and see all the many ways in which his tenure as California Governor seemed like Arnold Schwarzenegger's, calmly moderate! In 1970, Governor Reagan's policies made him almost an environmentalist Democrat! Certainly compared to today’s Foxite cult. 

Indeed, despite his many faults – the lying and corrupt officials, the AIDS cruelty and especially the triple-goddamned ‘War on Drugs’ – Reagan nevertheless, clearly wanted America to remain strong on the world stage. And to prevail against the Soviet ‘evil empire’…

… and I said as much to liberals of that era! I asked: “WTF else would you call something as oppressive and horrible as the USSR?” 

One thing I do know across all my being. Were he around today, Ronald Reagan would spit in the eyes of every current, hypocritical Republican Putin-lover and KGB shill, now helping all the Lenin-raised “ex” commissars over there to rebuild – in all it’s evil – the Soviet Union. With a few altered symbols and lapel pins. 

But again, that rant aside, what I have to say about Carter now departs from Reagan, his nemesis. 

Because this is not about Carter’s failed re-election. He already doomed any hope of that, when he told Volcker to fix the economy.

No, I am talking about Jimmy Carter’s Big Mistake.

== Iran…  ==

So sure, I am not going to assert that Carter didn’t fumble the Hostage Crisis. 

He did. Only not in the ways that you think! And here, not even the cautious historians get things right.

When the Shah fell, the fever that swept the puritan/Islamist half of Iranian society was intense and the Ayatollahs used that to entrench themselves. But when a mob of radicals stormed the American Embassy and took about a hundred U.S. diplomats hostage, the Ayatollahs faced a set of questions:

• Shall we pursue vengeance on America – and specifically Carter – for supporting the Shah? Sounds good. But how hard should we push a country that’s so mighty? (Though note that post-Vietnam, we did look kinda lame.)

• What kind of deal can we extort out of this, while claiming “We don’t even control that mob!”

• And what’s our exit strategy?

During the subsequent, hellish year, it all seemed win-win for Khomeini and his clique. There was little we could do, without risking both the lives of the hostages and another oil embargo crisis, just as the U.S. economy was wobbling back onto its feet.

Yes, there was the Desert One rescue raid attempt, that failed because two helicopters developed engine trouble. Or – that’s the story. I do have a crackpot theory (What, Brin, another one?) about Desert One that I might insert into comments. If coaxed. No evidence, just a logical chain of thought.  (Except to note that it was immediately after that aborted raid that emissaries from the Islamic Republic hurried to Switzerland, seeking negotiations.)

But never mind that here. I told you that Jimmy Carter made one big mistake during the Iran Hostage Crisis, and he made it right at the beginning. By doing the right and proper and mature and legal thing.

== Too grownup. Too mature… ==

When that mob of ‘students’ took and cruelly abused the U.S. diplomats, no one on Earth swallowed the Ayatollah’s deniability claims of “it’s the kids, not me!” It was always his affair. And he hated Carter for supporting the Shah. And as we now know, Khomeini had promises from Reagan. So how could Carter even maneuver?

Well, he did start out with some chips on his side of the table. The Iranian diplomatic corps on U.S. soil. And prominent resident Iranians with status in the new regime -- those who weren’t seeking sanctuary at the time. Indeed, some voices called for them to be seized, as trading chips for our people in Tehran…

…and President Jimmy Carter shook his head, saying it would be against international law. Despite the fact that the Tehran regime holding our folks hostage was an act of war. Moreover, Carter believed in setting an example. And so, he diplomatically expelled those Iranian diplomats and arranged for them to get tickets home.

Honorable. Legal. And throwing them in jail would be illegal. And his setting an example might have worked… if the carrot had been accompanied by a big stick. If the adversary had not been in the middle of a psychotic episode. And… a whole lotta ifs.

I have no idea whether anyone in the Carter White House suggested this. But there was an intermediate action that might have hit the exact sweet spot. 

Arrest every Iranian diplomat and person on U.S. soil who was at all connected to the new regime… and intern them all at a luxury, beach-side hotel.

Allow news cameras to show the difference between civilized – even comfy - treatment and the nasty, foul things that our people were enduring, at the hands of those fervid ‘students.’ But above all, let those images – the stark contrast - continue, on and on and on. While American jingoists screeched and howled for our Iranian captives to be treated the same way. While the president refused.

Indeed, it is the contrast that would have torn world opinion, and any pretense of morality, away from the mullahs. And, with bikini-clad Americans strolling by daily, plus margaritas and waffles at the bar, wouldn’t their diplomats have screamed about their decadent torture? And pleaded for a deal – a swap of ‘hostages’ -- to come home? Or else, maybe one by one, might they defect?

We’ll never know. But it would have been worth a try. And every night, Walter Cronkite’s line might have been different.

And so, sure. Yeah. I think Carter made a mistake! And yeah, it was related to his maturity and goodness. So, I lied to you. Maybe he was too nice for the office. Too good for us to deserve.

== So, what’s my point? ==

I do have top heroes and Jimmy Carter is not one of them. 

Oh, I admired him immensely and thought him ill-treated by a nation he served well. But to me he is second-tier to Ben Franklin. To Lincoln and Tubman. To Jane Goodall and George Marshall.

But this missive is more about Carter’s despicable enemies. Nasty backstabber-liars and historical grudge-fabulators…

…of the same ilk as the bitchy slanderers who went on to savagely attack John Kerry, 100% of whose Vietnam comrades called him a hero, while 100% of the dastardly “swift-boaters” proved to be obscenely despicable, paid preeners, who were never even there.

Or the ‘birthers’ who never backed up a single word, but only screeched louder, when shown many time-yellowed copies of Obama’s 1962 birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser. Or the ass-hats who attacked John McCain and other decent, honorable Republicans who have fled the confederate madness, since Trump.

Or the myriad monstrous yammerers who now attack all fact-using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror. 

Nutters and Kremlin-boys who aren’t worthy to shine the boots of a great defender-servant like Mark Milley.

Jeepers David… calm down. We get it. But take a stress pill, already, or you might burst a vessel.

Okay, okay. Though the blood bank says I have the blood pressure of a teenager...

... It’s just. Well.  We are about to embark on a journey of American self-discovery, when the very notions of democracy and enlightenment are under attack by living monsters. Monsters who know the power of symbolism vastly better than finger-wagging lib’ruls do, and who would deny us the inspiration of true heroes.

Mighty heroes like George Marshall. Like MLK. Like Elie Weisel and my Dad. Like Greta Thunberg and Amory Lovins. And those far-too-few Republicans who have found the patriotic decency to step up for the Union in this 8th phase of a 250 year American Civil War.

And like the subject of this essay. The best president (by many metrics) of the last over-100 years.

== And if you got all the way down here, some fun from SMBC ==

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/slam

Okay this one too, a glimpse of a better world with more Jimmy Carters in it, too.