James Earl Carter, 38th president of the United States, is having a difficult time shaping his legacy. Anticipating a bad showing in the history books, he continues to run around the world in an effort to salvage his reputation and his legacy. Let's take a little trip back in time to the 1976 presidential race.
The competitors for the office of president in 1976 were Gerald Ford and James Carter. President Ford, the incumbent, came to the office as a result of the resignation of Richard Nixon. James Carter was the Governor of Georgia. Ford, the experts tell us, had angered a lot of Americans by pardoning Nixon for his involvement in a scandal known as Watergate. Governor Carter, an Annapolis graduate, was an appealing choice for many Americans after the tumultuous Watergate affair. Initially Carter had a wide lead in the polls but Ford would narrow that lead to 2 points by the time of the election. James Carter took the oath of office in January of 1977.
The new president presented himself as a humble, religious man from Plains, Georgia. Indeed, he took great pride in the fact that he was a peanut farmer. As it would turn out, many Americans wished he had chosen to remain in that position.
During his time in office we saw the first major gas crisis. Long lines appeared at the pumps. Eventually we had alternate day pumping based on an odd-even system using license plates. Carter proved to be ineffective when dealing with OPEC. Despite the fact that he created the Cabinet Post for a Department of Energy, nothing was done to turn the nation in a new direction.
With the overthrow of the Shah we saw the mullahs come to power in Iran. We were called the Great Satan by the mullahs and their followers. Eventually they took over our embassy there and held a number of Americans hostage for 444 days. This crisis crippled Carter and he spent a vast amount of time in the White House not doing the nation's business.
His domestic policy and programs were almost as good as his foreign policy. Under his administration we would suffer stagflation. Interest rates went into double digits. Prices went up. People lost their jobs. And the president told us that we were suffering from a "malaise" In his fireside chat to us he exclaimed, in the face of rising fuel oil prices, that we should put on our sweaters and pretty much get use to it.
With prices rising and wages not keeping pace, we were in one of the worse economic times I personally can remember. I was a teacher at the time. We negotiated a 7% wage increase but inflation was at 12%. I was not making up ground at that rate and a lot of my fellow Americans were in the same boat with me. Needless to say, James Earl Carter was a one term president.
Now Carter is trying to establish his legacy. He has been a gadfly flitting from one spot to another to put a sheen on Jimmy Carter. He has sat down with wretched people like Hugo Chavez and now he has spent time with Hamas, a group of avowed terrorists who swear that they will destroy Israel. I can think of only one other president who was as much the egomaniac and that was Woodrow Wilson. Jimmy Carter needs to return to Plains, Georgia. Above all else, the state department needs to revoke his passport before he does some serious damage in the world in his effort to salvage his own ego.
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