This article reflects on the life and presidency of Jimmy Carter, highlighting his initial appeal and successes before delving into the challenges and controversies that marked his time in office.
Few people would remember now, but the Jimmy Carter who sprang from obscurity to the White House had magic. His piercing blue eyes. His big-toothed smile that became a trademark on campaign posters. His ease with the different cultures of a traumatized post-Vietnam America: Poets and farmers, Evangelicals and rock-and-rollers, war protestors and his fellow veterans, white and Black people alike. His ability to connect with so many of them led voters to take a leap of faith with him.
Watergate was still an open wound. Carter offered balm and healing. He said, 'I'll never lie to you.' He promised to give us his best. In my 20s, I was thrilled to meet him at one of his famous softball games in Plains, and honored to work as a speechwriter on his campaign. Americans crave the prospect of healing, renewing, fulfilling the best in our national ideals. That is what the earnest, intense, no-frills Jimmy Carter offered, and what much of the country accepted, with hope. Through his first year in office, it worked. As a new president, Carter was more popular than nearly anyone who came after him. Then, things went wrong. Runaway inflation. Endless gas lines. A hostage crisis in Iran. Much more. Some of it was Carter's fault, through his rigidity and inexperience. A lot was bad timing and bad luck. He was relatively young for a president, and very fit. Yet merciless cameras caught him being attacked by a 'killer rabbit,' and looking deathly on a 10k run. These stuck as symbols of an administration on its last legs. After working for him in the White House, I wrote a critical and controversial article, saying that his was a 'passionless' presidency
JIMMY CARTER PRESIDENCY WATERGATE INFLATION HOSTAGE CRISIS
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