De mortuis nil nisi bonum so all I will say is that I hope God has mercy on his soul.
Update:
Statement by President Trump:
Jimmy Carter: Requiescat in Pace
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Prayers going up right now. RIP.
I do hope God has mercy for former President Carter. I hope he makes it into heaven. I didn’t vote for him and never thought highly of him, but I never wished him any ill will. Lord Jesus, please remember whatever good President Carter did, and please hold none of his wrongs against him. Amen.
Carter was the first president (and only Democrat) I voted for as a new voter in 1976. He was a retired president my entire teaching career (1981-2022). I was impressed at the time with his character and manner, but he seemed terribly naive about the USSR and he never brought inflation under control. He never met the demands of the times. Who knows if the times had been different?
Gotta give him at least some credit for the Camp David Accords, which seem to have held up surprisingly well – Israel and Egypt haven’t been at war in more than 50 years now.
Quite right Elaine. 1979 me would have been astounded to learn that they were still going strong in 2024.
Rest in Peace, President Carter. You will always be a hero to the Homebrewing community and anyone who enjoys a craft beer, as that industry was reborn by the return of (legal) home brewing.
“On October 14, 1978, President Carter signed bill H.R. 1337 essentially lifted regulations imposed by Prohibition laws over 50 years previous that prohibited home brewing of beer. Some states were quick to adopt federal legalization as their state’s policy on home beermaking, while others developed their own language. It wasn’t until 2013—nearly 100 years after Prohibition made home brewing illegal—that making beer at home became legal in all 50 states, with Mississippi and Alabama both establishing home brew legality in that year.”
May he RIP. I think he was in over his head as President, but he deserves credit for the Camp David accords. Would never have happened without his direct involvement. And after his defeat when the USSR was threatening to invade Poland in the midst of the Solidarity uprising, he got them to back down. A good man, albeit with flaws. Join the club….
IMO, Carter was a fairly ethical man, which sets him apart from at least six of the individuals who have occupied that office since 1960 as well as a large swath of people employed in politics, law, teaching, finance, social work, and institutional management. He made good decisions and bad in office (with the bad decisions in the more consequential areas of policy, alas). IMO, as a rule, his dispositions compared favorably to the mode in the federal Democratic Party at the time. For a man in politics, he had surprisingly poor people skills. For a man who had worked in a military hierarchy, run a family business, and run a state government, his management skills were also surprisingly deficient (in the realm of setting priorities and delegating). Some of his predecessors were worse, of course. His vigor on leaving office was impressive. I suspect if you audited actual results, it would be less so. I could be mistaken, but it’s my impression the embarrassing buck-raking our former presidents have been doing in the last 50 years was not his deal. I’ve had occasion to miss him (though not, of course, his monetary policy).
A modest man with much to be modest about. Found his true calling after he left the Presidency. Would that many of us would be willing to make a course correction in our lives when events clearly show the need. RIP
“….it’s my impression the embarrassing buck-raking our former presidents have been doing in the last 50 years was not his deal.” -AD
Amen. No one is perfect, however you hope that more Mr. Smiths enter public office than Mr. Bidens. Integrity wasn’t in short supply with former President Carter, imho.
I often remember how my dad summed it up to me as a kid:
“He’s a good man, but a bad president.”
RIP
A modest man with much to be modest about.
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He wasn’t that modest and the poses he struck were rather grating. There’s a great deal of artifice in everyday life and in public life in particular. Michael Kinsley, who despised both Jimmy Carter and George Bush the Elder, sometimes amused himself by writing columns about their public deceptions.
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There was a story from around about 1977 about a Carter Administration official who appeared at a conference of public officials and said, in the course of his remarks “It’s not part of my job to lie to the American people”. Present was Gov. Edwards of Louisiana who chuckled and said, “It’s a big part of my job”. (Edwards, running against David Duke in 1991, had an innovative campaign slogan, “Vote for the Crook. It’s important”). You don’t want men like Edwards in public life, but he did have a saving ironic detachment. If everyone went round every day being brutally honest, none of us could stand it.
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Someone once asked Lillian Carter if her son ever lied. She said, well, maybe a ‘little white lie’. She was asked by the reporter what that was. “Well, you remember when you came to the door and I said I was glad to see you?”.
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Don’t tell people you’re ethical except in extreme circumstances. Show, don’t tell.
RIP. I admire that he went back to his hometown after he finished his Presidency duties, to live in his $233k home. Even though his healthy lifetime pension sustained him, he could have become a very wealthy man post- presidency working in the corporate world. But chose not to. That is a rare and noble path for a former POTUS.
[…] News, Punditry, and Analysis:Jimmy Carter: Requiescat in Pace – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American CatholicThere Were 21 Campus Hate Crime Hoaxes […]
Even though his healthy lifetime pension sustained him, he could have become a very wealthy man post- presidency working in the corporate world. But chose not to. That is a rare and noble path for a former POTUS.
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None of our former Presidents have in their latter years worked in the corporate world and most had no experience of it. They haul in money from honoraria. I’d be pleased if they did return to their previous professions. The ones with a background in business (Trump, Bush the Younger, Bush the Elder, Carter) generally did not run or work within large enterprises.
“…most had no experience of it.”
Really? Zapata Petroleum founder, Arbusto Energy oil executive, The Trump Organisation… I dont understand how these are not classified as corporations. The only recent non-corporates before politics were Obama, Clinton. Yet both have set up corporations and consulted in corporate and become very wealthy post-presidency.
Carter to his credit actually did none of the above. He spent his later years writing some books, commenting on his successors and dabbling in some diplomacy.
The Trump Organization is a large enterprise. Not quite sure of the size of the workforce at the companies run by the Bushes, father and son. Jimmy Carter ran a modest rural business during the period running from 1953 to 1963. His brother took over the business in 1963. (If it hasn’t been sold, it’s presumably run by one or another of Billy Carter’s children).
What I find amazing is that Jimmy lived to 100 when his father and all 3 of his siblings died of pancreatic cancer at ages 51 (Billy Carter), 54 (Ruth Carter Stapleton), 58 (James Earl Carter Sr.) and 63 (Gloria Carter Spann). His mom, Miss Lillian, made it to age 85 so he must have got more of his mother’s genetic profile than his siblings did. If he had followed the pattern of his siblings he would have either died in office (he was 52 when elected/inaugurated and 56 when he left office) or shortly after leaving the White House.
He also had pancreatic cancer. It’s a death sentence, but they do have a treatment programme and some sufferers die of something else before the cancer gets them. Pancreatic cancer is pretty much a random strike. Its prevalence in the Carter family suggests some sort of environmental exposure as it does not appear to have burned through the next generation. Miss Lillian had 15 grandchildren. AFAICT, 13 are still living, with the youngest 50 and the oldest 77.