Jimmy Carter

The 87th Birthday of Jimmy Carter: A Look Back At His Much Maligned Presidency!

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Today is the 87th birthday of former President Jimmy Carter, and it is proper to send good wishes to him!

By reaching the age of 87, and in good health, Carter becomes the seventh President to reach that advanced age, with former President George H. W. Bush having reached that pinnacle on June 12 of this year.

Other than the first Bush, only Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan (both 93), John Adams and Herbert Hoover (both 90) and Harry Truman (88) have lived longer.

Jimmy Carter has also had a longer retirement after his Presidency than anyone except Herbert Hoover, and will pass him in longevity in retirement in less than a year, on September 8, 2012.

Jimmy Carter has been much ridiculed, lambasted, and condemned by his critics, and this post is not an attempt to deny the weaknesses and mistakes of his Presidency. Carter has learned how to accept the reality that he is shown little respect for his virtues and accomplishments, with a lot of it due to his defeat for reelection in 1980 by the charismatic Ronald Reagan, who is often now seen as a deity in many circles. There is the reality that IF a President loses reelection, his reputation in history suffers dramatically, no matter what he had achieved in office.

But while there is much controversy over Carter’s Presidency, on his birthday, it is worth it to point out his major successes in office.

1. Carter was able to negotiate the impossible–an agreement between Egypt and Israel, the Camp David Accords, which brought peace, recognition, and security for Israel for the past third of a century.

2. Carter also negotiated the Panama Canal Treaty, much berated at the time, and causing loss of seats for the Democrats and assisting the conservative takeover, but in retrospect, one realizes that the treaty was not harmful and against our national security, but actually helped to improve relations with Latin America, and is now seen as non controversial a third of a century later.

3. Carter’s promotion of human rights as a major foreign policy goal was ridiculed by conservatives and Ronald Reagan, but later it turned out that future Presidents, all of them, utilized the concept in some form as part of their foreign policy goals.

4. Carter made us aware of the energy crisis, and the need to expand energy resources beyond oil, and while it has not been pursued as he emphasized by later Presidents, it is clear that Carter was correct in his emphasis on alternative sources of energy being essential for America’s future.

5. Jimmy Carter had the best one term environmental record of any President, greatly expanding national parks and forest land, and focusing on the environment as an issue in a very admirable manner.

6. Carter appointed more minorities to appointed positions than any President before him, and fully backed affirmative action, which became a controversy during his Presidency due to the Bakke case.

7. Three new cabinet agencies were started during his Presidency, although now under attack by conservatives in 2011–Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Energy.

8. Carter presided over the smallest increase in the national debt during his administration, attempting to have very tightly negotiated budgets, although all were with deficits.

9. Carter issued an executive order on his first day in office, granting amnesty to Vietnam draft evaders, which however caused a rift with military supporters who opposed this courageous act.

10. Carter negotiated the SALT 2 (Strategic Arms Limitation) Treaty with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, which was never ratified by the US Senate because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but its details were obeyed by both sides despite the rejection of the agreement in the Senate.

It would be easy to list the faults and shortcomings of Jimmy Carter, and as the years go by, and eventually Carter passes from the scene, there will be much more research done on him and his Presidency. When that happens, it is likely that a reassessment of Carter in a much more sympathetic manner, will occur.

For now, Mr. President, Happy Birthday and many more!

George Will’s Criticism Of The Republican Party: Too Southernized!

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George Will, the respectable conservative voice on ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour, was sharply critical of the Republican Party this past weekend, in a way the author can totally agree with.

He pointed out that the Republican Party, the party that the South hated for a century because of the Civil War, has become overwhelmingly Southern in the past five election cycles.

Imagine this: 79 percent of the electoral votes the GOP has gained from 1992 to 2008 were in the South! Between that and the Northwest (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah) , the Republican Party has managed to make itself a sectional party, which Will is concerned dooms it in the 2012 Presidential Election!

Will pointed out that Ohio has been the crux of whether the GOP wins or loses, and probably will be the same in 2012.

The author wishes to remind the reader that EVERY Republican Presidential winner since the inception of the party in the 1850s has won Ohio, so when Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and Barack Obama won that state in 1976, 1992, and 2008, it guaranteed a Democratic victory.

This statement of Will should be recalled when one feels gloomy about the electoral prospects of Barack Obama, and remember that the Democrats are strong in the Northeast, the upper Midwest, and the Pacific Coast, and it is still their election to lose in 2012!

The Herman Cain Phenomenon: What It Tells Us About The Republican Presidential Race

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So now we have a new phenomenon: former Godfather Pizza CEO and talk show host Herman Cain, winning the Florida Republican straw poll, putting him in the forefront of the news, after earlier surges in Iowa’s straw poll for Michele Bachmann, and then in the public opinion polls for Rick Perry.

After Bachmann and Perry flopped in debates, now the excitement is with Cain, who has ZERO political experience, and yet tells us his business background qualifies him to be the leader of the free world and deal with foreign policy, when a major criticism of Barack Obama is his supposed lack of experience, even though he was a US Senator for four years and an Illinois state senator for eight years, more experience in office than Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter, among others!

This concept that a businessman is good to run a government is a false argument, as government is NOT a business, and cannot be run like one!

But beyond that fact, Herman Cain is a candidate with major flaws that disqualify him to be our Commander in Chief.

His 9-9-9 tax idea is ridiculous and unworkable. Having a 9 percent corporate tax rate, a 9 percent flat income tax, and a 9 percent national sales tax will NOT work, will NOT raise adequate income, will allow corporations and wealthy people to continue to have unfair tax rates, and will victimize the middle and lower classes in a major way!

A national sales tax will burden the poor and lower middle class much more than the wealthy, as any sales tax is inherently unfair, since it does not take income levels into consideration!

Beyond that, and Cain’s lack of ANY government or foreign policy experience, there is the unfortunate issue of his health. Cain revealed to us in Thursday’s Orlando debate that he had stage 4 colon and liver cancer, and has been a survivor for five years. evoking sympathy and applause from the debate audience.

But his explanation, that he has survived because there was no government involvement in his medical care, is preposterous, as the reason he has survived has nothing to do with that at all, but rather because he was RICH enough to be able to afford the best health care, which most Americans cannot acquire!

But beyond that, should a person who has miraculously survived stage 4 colon and liver cancer be running for President, when the odds of his survival for at least five years more is unlikely? And then we would be stuck with his choice of a Vice Presidential running mate, with the fear that it might be a Sarah Palin type or one of his opponents in the race! Is that being fair to the American people, and is it not a question of Herman Cain’s own ego that makes him run? This is reckless behavior on his part!

The one good thing about Herman Cain is that, being an African American, it would be fascinating if both of our candidates for President were black, a very intriguing idea on its surface. But that is not enough to make this a good idea! The question arises whether Herman Cain is willing to deal with the problems of black America, being someone who has become wealthy and seems to want to ignore his past! And one has to wonder whether the Tea Party Republicans would EVER be willing to endorse a black candidate for President, based on their past rhetoric.

So instead of focusing on Herman Cain, if the Republicans had any common sense, they would be moving toward Jon Huntsman, who has suddenly surged in the polls in New Hampshire, now in third place and with double digits (10 percent) behind MItt Romney, who is way ahead, and Rick Perry. This could be the sign of Huntsman starting the long climb to prominence, which would give the Republicans a REAL chance to defeat Barack Obama!

33rd Anniversary Of Camp David Accords Between Egypt And Israel: Greatest Accomplishment Of Jimmy Carter Now In Danger Of Being Lost!

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Today marks the 33rd Anniversary of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, brought about by intense negotiations between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, presided over by President Jimmy Carter.

Over ten days at Camp David, President Carter accomplished what is seen as his greatest deed in office in foreign affairs: a peace treaty between two nations who had been in a state of war for 30 years; recognition of the state of Israel by the first Arab nation to do so; and movement toward return of territory gained by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War.

This was a greater accomplishment than just what has been listed, as realize that President Sadat had warred against Israel less than five years earlier in the Yom Kippur War of October, 1973!

The result was more than thirty years of good relations and peace through difficult times for Israel with its other Arab neighbors and the Palestinians, three years under Sadat until he was tragically assassinated for that treaty on the anniversary of the Yom Kippur War in October, 1981; and then for almost thirty years under his successor, Hosni Mubarak, until his overthrow from power earlier this year as part of the Arab Spring revolts against established authority in Arab nations in the Middle East.

Just a week ago, an attack by Egyptians against the Israeli embassy in Cairo led to a call from President Barack Obama to the Egyptian authorities demanding protection of the embassy and safe passage for Israeli diplomats, this done after an appeal from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But the fact of gradual deterioration of Egyptian-Israeli relations is very troubling, and one can wonder IF the Camp David Accords will survive to its 34th anniversary!

The Congress And Job Creation Failure: How The Republicans Will Suffer More Than President Obama!

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Right now, there is panic in the Democratic Party over the job statistics, with 9.1 percent unemployment, with many thinking President Obama cannot be reelected in 2012.

The fact is, that despite this hysteria, it is in the hands of the Republicans in Congress as to whether Obama will be reelected, due to the fact that they control the majority in the House of Representatives, and with their 47 Senators, are able to filibuster any action desired by the Democrats in the Senate!

If no jobs program is enacted to help bring about the creation of employment, it will reflect on them more than President Obama, who will be able to use the same “do nothing Congress” argument on them that Harry Truman utilized in 1948, leading to his upset victory and the return of the Democrats to control in both houses of Congress.

The Democrats tend to panic whenever times are tough, so President Truman had much liberal opposition in 1947-1948, but he came through, with foreign policy helping him to look like the strong, stable leader that he was!

President Jimmy Carter had much liberal opposition in 1979-1980, including challenges within the party from Ted Kennedy and Jerry Brown, weakening him, and foreign policy crises of Afghanistan and Iran undermined his ability to recover from economic difficulties that arose at the same time.

President Bill Clinton had liberal opposition in 1995-1996, but won a battle over the budget with the Republican majority in Congress, faced no opponent in the primaries, and while unable to throw the GOP out of control of the Congress, won reelection handily and weakened the Republican majority.

With Obama having no opposition within the party for the nomination, demonstrating a strong successful policy against terrorism, and having an extreme right wing GOP in the House of Representatives determined to do nothing to create jobs, the need for panic and hysteria is overdrawn!

As long as Obama fights the good fight for his program, even if nothing is done over the next 14 months, the Republicans will hand the election to him, particularly if Rick Perry is their nominee!

The ability of the Republicans to self destruct is immeasurable, and with a public opinion rating of 12 percent for Congress (under the control effectively of the GOP), and with Obama’s personal popularity being a plus and his overall rating being 43 percent, the future is not as gloomy as many might think!

Rick Perry: Dangerous For The Republican Party And America’s Future! He Must Be Stopped!

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Texas Governor Rick Perry may have flubbed a bit in his debate performance in Tampa on Monday, but he remains the front runner for the Republican Presidential nomination as of today, and it is looking more likely that he really could end up as the nominee of the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and Reagan!

This is dangerous for the party and the nation, as Perry has many shortcomings, as well as dangerous aspects in his background and viewpoints!

For the party, Perry represents a threat to the Establishment Republicans, the middle, the mainstream of the party in the past, and gives power to the extremists of the Tea Party Movement!

With Jon Huntsman apparently floundering, even though the author feels he came across very well in the past two debates, the only hope in the field of candidates is Mitt Romney, with all of his shortcomings and faults, but it will not be easy to overcome the Tea Party takeover of the party!

One could say that if the party nominates Perry, they will lose, and that will be, therefore, only their problem as to how to recover from a disastrous defeat in 2012.

But with the economy so bad right now, the idea is starting to develop that maybe, just maybe, Barack Obama COULD lose in 2012, giving us President Perry, and possibly a Tea Party Congress, enough to make one hysterical and give one nightmares, and the purpose here is NOT to joke, but be very serious!

Were Perry to win, we would face the following, with and without a Tea Party majority in Congress:

1. We would have a President who is not very smart, not very curious to learn, not open to new ideas, very rigid in his right wing beliefs, unwilling to compromise, arrogant, cocky, with a swagger about him, and not willing to be transparent in his activities in the White House!

2. We would have a complete takeover of right wing conservatism, leading to total deregulation, cutting of taxes even further on the rich, attempts to destroy several government agencies or make them ineffective in their work, and resulting in widespread corruption due to “cronyism”!

3. We would have a President who would be arrogant toward the outside world, create crises and possible interventions in other countries, and boast about “American exceptionalism”, undermining relations even with our allies and friends around the world.! The neoconservative view of foreign policy would dominate.

4. Civil Liberties would be violated worse than any President in modern times, and civil rights enforcement for Latinos, African Americans, women and gays would end!

5. We would see a theocracy develop, as Rick Perry would constantly invoke Jesus Christ, talk about God and religion more than any President, including Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush, and promote as much combination of church and state as one can imagine might happen.

6. The economy would NOT get better, and instead we would have more poverty, deprivation, and human suffering, similar to the reality in Texas under Governor Perry.

7. War would be declared on environmentalists, and scientists, in the name of industry and religion, undermining our education system nationally, as well as our health care programs.

8. Justice and fairness in the law would be undermined, as capital punishment would become a virtue, and the courts, including the Supreme Court, would become the most right wing in American history since the Gilded Age of the late 19th century.

9. The goal of a Perry Administration would be the destruction of Social Security, Medicare, and all other social safety net programs, and basically the repeal of the Progressive Era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, the New Deal of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Great Society of Lyndon B. Johnson, and the other reforms under Richard Nixon in the early 1970s.

10. Fundamentally, America would go back a full century to the Gilded Age, with the total or near total repeal of the 20th century, which made America the envy of the free world!

This is serious stuff here, no joking, and all efforts must be made in the Republican Party to defeat Rick Perry, and if that fails, and even if it succeeds, do everything necessary to reelect Barack Obama as the only hope for moving forward in the second decade of the 21st century!

The Targeting Of Bin Laden: The Most Important Accomplishment Of Barack Obama And Will Guarantee A Second Term In The White House!

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Here we are 14 months away from Election Day 2012, and many observers project that Barack Obama is in deep trouble, and will lose reelection.

Certainly, with the horrible economy and the highest number of unemployed citizens in history, and the lack of any cooperation by the Republican opposition, Barack Obama has many problems and issues that could affect how people vote in 2012.

Despite these realities, the President remains personally popular, which is a major positive in his favor.

And after having watched the HISTORY CHANNEL two hour special tonight, entitled TARGETING BIN LADEN, revealing all of the details of the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden, it became clear to the author that this accomplishment will always be remembered as the most significant single action of Barack Obama, just as the Cuban Missile Crisis will be always seen as the major accomplishment of John F. Kennedy in office!

The courage, the decisiveness, the handling of the Bin Laden matter will be enough to give Barack Obama a second term as President!

Imagine if this action had failed! Barack Obama would be seen as Jimmy Carter after the failed mission to release the hostages in Iran in April 1980, the major reason for Carter’s loss to Ronald Reagan in the Election of 1980.

For the same reason, Obama will be able to use this great deed to insure that he will be reelected in 2012!

The Republicans, Barack Obama, And The 2016, NOT 2012, Presidential Election!

Ronald 1 Comment

All of America is focused on the 2012 Presidential Election, as the Republicans compete over who should oppose President Barack Obama for re-election.

There are a lot of people who seem to think that Barack Obama will be easy to defeat, because of the high unemployment rate, which will be the highest for a President running for re-election since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

But these are not ordinary times, and the thought that Barack Obama is going down the road of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George H. W. Bush is a false premise!

Remember that Ford, Carter and Bush I all had strong primary challenges, with Ford having to deal with Ronald Reagan, Carter with Ted Kennedy and Jerry Brown, and Bush I with Pat Buchanan in the primaries and Ross Perot in the general election.

Also remember that none of those three Presidents had a record of domestic accomplishments that Barack Obama has!

Also remember that none of those three had the charisma or oratorical ability of Barack Obama!

Also realize that Obama has foreign policy accomplishments in the fight against terrorism, unmatched by any of those three, except briefly with the Gulf War under George H. W. Bush!

Although there are those competing for the Presidency in the Republican Party, actually, on the sidelines, there are others who desire the job, but either are not ready yet to run for the office, or are smart enough to realize that the odds of ultimately defeating Obama are long, so better to wait to 2016, when Obama would be finishing his two terms of office, if he is reelected.

It is a gamble, of course, to sit back and wait, but likely a good gamble, and if it is an open Presidential election, the odds of success for the Republicans grows by 2016.

So who is sitting on the sidelines, salivating for the Presidency, and secretly hoping no Republican is elected in 2012?

In no special order, here is a list of ambitious Republicans:

1. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey
2. Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin
3. Former Governor Jeb Bush of Florida
4. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida
5.Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts
6. Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia
7. Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin
8. Governor Rick Scott of Florida
9. Governor John Kasich of Ohio
10.Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina

Notice particularly THREE Floridians who have ambitions–Bush, Rubio and Scott, and realize the fact that Florida will have 29 electoral votes, the fourth largest number, as Florida is the fourth largest state.

So, particularly among Republicans in Florida, there are those who secretly hope that 2016 will be an open election, and are willing to sit back and wait for just that reason!

Could Jon Huntsman Be The John Anderson Of 2012? What Effect Could It Have On The Presidential Election?

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Some speculation and rumors are beginning that Jon Huntsman, the moderate centrist candidate in the Republican race for the Presidential nomination, might abandon the party and run as a third party candidate, appealing to the center of the population. Right now, in reality, he scores exactly one percent in eighth and last place of the Gallup poll, on the Republican race for President, so he might not have any sustaining influence, but who can know this far ahead?:

Huntsman has been depicting Barack Obama as too far to the Left, and all of his GOP opponents as too far to the RIght, and his argument is that the Center, where most people are, needs to have representation in the election.

Huntsman is an appealing candidate in his appearance and speaking manner, and comes across as rational and reasonable to people who are disgusted at the growing right wing extremism of the Republican Party. He has personal wealth, and is courted by the news media, so in theory, he could run a substantial third party of independent bid.

In many respects, he appears to be similar to former Illinois Congressman John Anderson, once one of the top leaders of the Republican minority, who left the party and ran as an Independent in 1980, claiming that President Jimmy Carter had been disappointing and that Ronald Reagan was too far to the Right. After winning a lot of media support and 15 percent in polls, he was able to gain the opportunity to meet Reagan in one debate, with Carter refusing to confront him. Anderson made Reagan look weak in their debate, but then Reagan performed well against Carter and won a landslide victory, with Anderson only winning 7 percent of the vote. Many who flirted with Anderson, including this author, ended up not voting for him, with the recognition that third party or independent candidates only hurt one of the candidates, and cannot win with the Electoral College reality which favors the major party candidates.

If Huntsman were to run, the question is would he hurt Obama or the Republican nominee more? There is no easy answer to this question, but it would certainly “muddy up the waters” of the campaign were he to do that.

Sadly, even if one hoped that such a so called Centrist candidate were to run, at the end we are going to have either Obama or the Republican nominee as our President for the next term, and easily the preference would be for Obama, who the author regards as the best Democratic President since Lyndon B. Johnson!

The author was not thrilled at the time with Jimmy Carter, and often even with Bill Clinton later, but right now, he would be opposed to a Jon Huntsman, or any other, third party candidate, who might just harm Obama and elect the horrors of a Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann or Ron Paul!

Bill Clinton Becomes 65: A Former President Who Continues To Have Impact!

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Former President Bill Clinton hits 65 years old today, and in many ways, although out of the White House now for eleven years, he still has a major impact on America!

Considering that he had open heart surgery in 2004 due to bad eating habits, Clinton has slimmed down and become a vegan, and he has been active with his Clinton Initiative and Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Presidential Library.

The former President has been engaged at times in diplomacy, along with fundraising for disasters such as the Haitian earthquake, and also been a spokesman on human rights.

Clinton has great respect internationally, and has become the most active former President along with former President Jimmy Carter. Both have given back to their nation and the world after the honor of serving in the White House!

While controversial for his past actions and statements, and still debated as to his effectiveness as President, today is a day to celebrate and say: Happy Birthday, Mr. President!