Jimmy Carter (Round 2)

Steve Brenneis on President Carter:

When history has been written, I feel confident in asserting that Jimmy Carter will go down as the worst President of the Twentieth Century and one of the five worst of US history. He will also go down in history as one of the worst ex-Presidents in all of History. Rather than gushing over how wonderful the man seems, let's review some facts:

Carter's economic record: This could be described as dismal at best. After the economic debacle of the Nixon Administration (wage and price controls, Keynesian tinkering with the business cycle, etc.), President Ford adopted the Eisenhower model of more or less laissez-faire economic policy (i.e. if it ain't broke, don't fix it). To his credit, he didn't institute any more intrusive government economic programs, to his detriment, he didn't do away with any that would prove to be Carter's undoing. After Carter was elected, US economic policy became all about central control. The Carter Administration brow-beat the Federal Reserve into throwing iron clamps on the money supply, not by sound monetary policy as has happened in the Greenspan years, but by imposing Byzantine interest rates on money suppliers. In the mean time, in order to fund the massive growth of Carter's social agenda, massive quantities of debt were incurred, initially by strong-arming money suppliers into providing cash at ridiculously low interest rates putting further upward pressure on the rates private lenders could offer. Along about 1977, American business decided there was an idiot at the helm and they began hunkering down to ride out the storm. That meant they started stockpiling cash and began downsizing their workforces. Unemployment shot up, the stock market went into the toilet, and Jimmy Carter's "great national malaise" was born. He accomplished something no other American President had before: the triple threat of double-digit inflation, unemployment, and interest rates.

Carter's foreign policy record: This one even embarrasses Democrats. At least Democrats with a modicum of sense. It can best be described by the word appeasement. Of course everyone but Jimmy Carter seems to understand that appeasement fails every time it is tried. It was first during the Carter Administration that the Kremlin was heard to utter the phrase "winnable nuclear confrontation." In a reversal of long-standing policy going back to Truman, Carter decided surrender was going to be the new US policy toward the Soviets. Apparently operating from some bizarre alternate universe, Carter seemed to think that if we were nice to the Russians and gave them everything they wanted, they would be nice to us and world peace would reign. I have often wondered if Carter really understood what Nikita Kruschev was talking about while he was banging his shoe on the podium at the UN. Had insanity reigned supreme in the US and Carter been granted a second term in office, I have no doubt we would all have been learning to write in Cyrillic by now. This policy of appeasement didn't stop with the Russians. In a moment of complete insanity, Carter decided we should hand over the Panama Canal so that the Panamanians would like us. This put us at a strategic disadvantage that took several years and billions of dollars to overcome. Meanwhile, nothing changed in Panama. The haves still lived in fine homes in the canal zone and the have-nots still lived in filthy hovels in Panama City and Colon. Oh, and the Panamanians liked us no better than before. What about Camp David, you ask? Picture this: The Israelis had basically handed Egypt their butts between 1967 and 1977. Israel was on the verge of collapsing the entire Muslim power structure in the region and achieving its own security through total military domination. They had taught the Arabs that is was very painful to mess with them. Along comes Smilin' Jimmy and announces to Israel that we aren't going to back them in the UN any more and that we won't be providing any direct or indirect military support for them unless they agree to come to the table. Carter's drama at Camp David was completely manufactured since the outcome was known all along. It was a show for the breathless ninnies in the press. In fact, most of America greeted the whole charade with a big yawn. The crown jewel in Carter's foreign policy was what happened in Tehran, but that has more of a military aspect to it so...

Carter's record on defense: As with his fiscal policies, Carter's defense policy was all about central control. At a time in which our military needed to be exceptionally nimble in order to counter the massive stupidity of Carter's economic and foreign policies, the White House moved the entire command structure of the US military under its direct control. Essentially nothing moved without the permission of the White House. The capitol of the US is not in Moscow today simply because the Soviets were under exaclty the same military model and were not flexible enough to take advantage of it. The Chinese were still reeling from the Cultural Revolution and couldn't muster a response. In other words, sheer dumb luck was about the only thing that kept us sovereign. After Carter handed over the Panama Canal, a permanent fleet presence had to be established in the Caribbean to keep an eye on Castro. Prior to the canal handover, that duty could be effectively shared between the Atlantic and Pacific fleets. Since Carter was also engaged in the Democrat Party's other favorite pastime (besides ruining the economy), cutting defense spending. That meant ships, planes and people had to be pulled from other areas, mostly from those keeping an eye on the Russians. Meanwhile, the Carter Administration decided that the military needed to be less, well, military. Carter decided to improve our image, he would turn the US Army into the Salvation Army. And while he was making grandiose statements about caring for the poor and downtrodden in society, he was turning the US Armed Forces into a welfare state. Members of the military received subsistence wages due to the huge shift of government resources from defense to redistributionism and socialism. If people think the malaise was great in American society in general, they should have seen it in the military. Morale could not have possibly been lower. People were leaving the military in droves and there was actually discussion of reinstituting the draft. I am convinced that the only thing that saved us was the fact that Hyman Rickover had nearly autonomous control of the nuclear Navy and it was what held those who wished us ill at bay. The debacle in the the desert during the Iranian hostage "crisis" was only the inevitable result of Carter's monkeying around with the military command structure. We could no longer carry out a commando action because Carter had centralized control of every single move the military made to the White House. Carter didn't understand that a successful commando operation can't be carried out from 6000 miles away.

In my opinion, Carter brought this country closer to the brink of destruction than any other President since Lincoln. I am qualified to hold that opinion because I was there. I served in Carter's military. I was in Panama in 1978. I was on a ballistic missile submarine in the North Atlantic when the Iranian "students" overran the embassy in Tehran. Marie and I were married in 1978 and we were surviving on $500 per month, $225 of that going to just pay our rent. If history marvels at anything regarding Carter's term, it will be that the US did not actually collapse. Any sane person with a sense of dignity would be shamed into obscurity by that kind of record. The fact that the Carters had turned over management of their personal business to an incompetent surprised no one. They left the White House essentially broke. That embarrassment alone should have kept Carter's mouth shut for the remainder of his life. But not Smilin' Jimmy. In a stunning demonstration of proof that ignorance is bliss, Carter has traipsed all around the world, running his mouth at every opportunity, befriending thugs, murderers, tyrants, and petty despots. Even the Clinton Administration asked him to kindly shut his yap. Not Jimmy, Oh no. One can only assume that he is trying for a legacy that includes, "most Hated Moronic ex-President in History."

It takes more than a winning smile and a pretty speech to be a leader, Robert. It takes the integrity to stand up for what you believe, it takes the vision to have a plan and to follow that plan, and it takes the trust of those you lead, something that is earned, not granted by an academy somewhere. It takes a rational mind with the ability to see beyond the end of one's own table. Carter had none of those traits. Carter was an anomaly. He was the Alka-Seltzer tablet taken during the great national hangover from the party that was the 1960's: Lots of fizz and a big belch, but no help in the end. Carter was the media's idea of a fundamentally moral man and a leader with vision. This, if nothing else, should be proof that the media knows nothing and that Mark Twain was absolutely correct: "Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the press, for they will steal your Honour. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse." I can only add that at least one of those self-complacent simpletons fetched up in the White House on his way to ignominy.

Since we should always try to find the positive in any situation, I'll close with this thought: Carter's greatest gift to the US and the World was that his sheer incompetency virtually guaranteed the election of the greatest President of the Twentieth Century and one of the five greatest in US history: Ronald Wilson Reagan.