In case any of my publications were coming out this week, here’s my memorial tribute to President Jimmy Carter.
There have actually been a few good ones from my colleagues whose work appears in daily newspapers — thoughtful pieces and, in some cases, apologies for misjudging him way back when it mattered.
You can count on one hand the editorial cartoonists publishing now who were getting paid to draw during Carter’s presidency. I was drawing for my college newspaper ( for exposure, before we called it that); my cartoons about Carter for the Manitou Messenger were few and far between, but generally critical.
But at least I was harsher on Teddy Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
Those of us old enough to remember Carter’s presidency from start to finish also remember how the constant drumbeat of criticism directed at Carter resulted in eight years of Ronald Reagan. It enabled Reagan to cruise to reelection simply by making “Carter” into Walter Mondale’s first name.
This may be why some of us were too hesitant to criticize Joe Biden, who, like Carter, will probably be ranked by history in the middle of U.S. presidents (assuming he escapes the fate of James Buchanan). We saw Donald Trump, a mean-spirited liar, cheat, grifter, fascist, and overgrown brat— not in the Gen Alpha sense — plotting his comeback aided and abetted by his lickspittles in Congress, the courts, and right-wing media. (You too, Wall Street Journal.)
We did not want any responsibility for clearing the path for Trump, next to whom Ronald Reagan looks like FDR.
Well, maybe not FDR. LBJ, perhaps.
Carter had to cope with suddenly rising energy prices, inflation, and the Iran hostage crisis— that last one worsened by a rescue helicopter crash and Reagan’s lackeys colluding with Iran to keep the crisis going through the 1980 election.
On the positive side of the ledger, he negotiated a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt that still stands, strove to run an administration that looked like America, and set policies which lessened our reliance on petrocracies that resented us then and despise us still. And even his harshest critics concede that his post-presidency was nothing short of exemplary.
May angels sing him to his well-deserved rest.
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