September 30, 2024
On Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday...
Over the past month, I’ve taken a couple very wonderful but, thanks to the election, less-than-ideally timed vacations. During this latest trip, I wondered what the news would be when I got back. My suspicion was it would be the election is close and will stay that way to the end. This wasn’t based off any sort of clairvoyance — I discovered it at the end of my previous trip and it just seemed to fit this time around. So that was what I had my head wrapped around dealing with today until I saw tomorrow is Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday. While that might seem less of the moment than our current election, I disagree.
When I was growing up, people talked about Carter the way they talk about California’s weather: “Sure, his administration was a disaster… but the charity work.” It was as if his four years in office boiled down to a recession, a hostage crisis, and a malaise speech and, well, thank God he’d finally found something he was good at.1
Fortunately, with the benefit of time, Carter’s presidential legacy has undergone a bit of a rehabilitation. That’s not to say he should have run away with the race in 1980 or even won it, but the benefit of hindsight has shaded areas of his administration previously seen as black and white. One of particular interest to me — his attempts to end the 1979 recession. Many credit Ronald Reagan with stopping the slide, and yet Reagan held on to some of Carter’s austerity measures to turn things around. In some cases, he even pushed them further. Again, I’m not endorsing 1980 Jimmy Carter, but this is worth some attention. Today’s author has more examples and — worth noting — he’s a Republican, so he’s not doing this to score political points. He really means it.
Happy 100th Birthday, President Carter. Yours is a life extraordinarily well-lived.
For the record, Carter and his wife — the no-nonsense, borderline saintly Rosalynn — were nigh unmatched at charity work. They didn’t just build houses and bring attention to mental health at a time when mental health went actively ignored. The Carter Center and its partners reduced Guinea worm infections in Africa and Asia from 3.5 million recorded cases in 1986 to 14 in 2023. Not 140. Not 1,400. Just a 1 and then a 4. 14.