Carter was the kind and gentle president Dec. 30, 2024

 

The death of Jimmy Carter struck me harder than I might have expected, especially considering most people believed he had been on death’s door for years.

Some people call him one of the most ineffective presidents in history, an unfair assessment considering all that he had to deal with in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, and Nixon’s forced resignation.

I call him the accidental president because he might not have been elected without a number of other factors.

Gerald Ford had pardoned Nixon, guaranteeing he would get no progressive vote. Ronald Reagan had come close to unseating Ford as the candidate and divided the GOP. On top of all that the United States had fled Vietnam, something that would be repeated in Afghanistan under Biden four decades later.

People seemed unwilling to vote for an inside the beltway candidate, and so found in Carter the ultimate outsider, a nice man, who media mocked as a peanut farmer, and whose brother Billy came across as a country hick.

Carter was much more than a farmer, but he did lack experience on a federal level, bringing with him to office many of his most loyal followers, none of whom were ready for prime time.

Carter inherited an America nearly as divided as the one who currently live in, extreme leftist still disrespecting the military while the right questioned all those kids who had fled to places like Canada.

In a compromise nearly as controversial as anything Solomon might have created, Carter made a deal to forgive the draft dodgers and deserters in exchange for doing away with prosecution of soldiers and others.

Also controversial was his move to rebuild the U.S. Navy – he having been a prominent navy man – and modernizing weapons (including a new kind of Atomic bomb).

While his SALT agreement with the Soviets never got through congress, it proved his worth as a peace person as well.

Iran became his undoing when it came to his seeking reelection in 1980 when he failed to win the release of 400 hostages.

I did not vote for him in 1976, feeling he lacked the experience necessary, but could not vote for Ford either (I would have voted for Nixon in 1968 had I been of age, and in 1972 when I was still on probation). Donald, my boss at the time and the father of a boy who went on to become a speech writer for President Clinton, towed the Democratic line.

I voted for Carter in 1980 only because I hated Reagan, with whom I’d had bad experiences in California when he served as governor.

Although history has been kinder to Reagan than Carter, I was never fooled by the actor that had betrayed his fellow actors in the 1950s and established the purge of communists (although with today’s batch of celebrities, I might approve of a similar purge of Hollywood today).

For a time, I suspected someone in the Reagan administration of authorizing the assassination of John Lennon just after the election, in order to keep Lennon from leading opposition, much in the way Nixon had tried to deport Lenon for the same reason – a not so farfetched a notion considering all the illegal things the Reagan Administration got away with in Central America

For the most part, the Carter years served as a vague backdrop to more personal issue, court cases against my ex-wife for visitation rights, the on and off playground of band life, my blue collar life as a warehouse worker and truck driver.

My writing focused on poetry and music with a number of recording sessions with Pauly and such.

It wasn’t until Reagen stole the election from Carter in 1980 that I got back into political protest – partly because I had gone back to college where most radical thought flourishes and began to interact with the radicals as WBAI, and underground radio station in NYC.

It was a different Carter that emerged from the wreckage of his presidency, a kind man, a helpful man, a man full of compassion, and it is from this post-presidency out of which Carter’s sainthood emerged.

I came close to meeting him more than once after I started working legitimate journalism in 1987 when he came to New Jersey as part of his Habitat of Humanity program. I never got the chance, one of those few regrets I still have.

email to Al Sullivan