How I love the irony: Jimmy Carter called George W. Bush the worst president in modern times. Now I will criticize ol' Dubya on many issues, but he is not the worst president in the past thirty years. That honor, my friends, goes to the all mighty Jimmy Carter.
Let me reminisce over the grand four years of the Georgia Peach:
He was a Democrat as was the majority in Congress much like Bush was a Republican with a Republican led Congress. Yet during Carter's administration there was a definite polarization of the legislature as Carter antagonized those who were supposed to be fellow party members leading to a general paralysis of federal authority/action. This was caused by Carter's repeated veto of Congressional provisions which led to them refusing to support his agenda. Both sides simply kept attacking each other rather than getting down to what they were there for: running the country. And this was the same party in both branches!
There was a severe economic downturn coupled with rising fuel prices. Yeah, that wasn't going to lock us into a downward spiral: jobs vanish causing people to spend less while fuel costs add to prices people already can't pay thus leading to larger losses causing more lay offs, etc. In fact, rising fuel prices led to rising energy prices leading to periods of brownouts. Nothing like the faltering light of democracy.
Of course, the above problem was greatly influenced by OPEC who proved exactly how vulnerable America was to foreign oil. What was Carter's response? Generally that the economic problem was caused by the American people's lack of confidence in their government. So the economic problem was the American people's problem, not an administration unwilling to either negotiate or find solutions to the OPEC problem? Yeah, good way to alienate your base.
While we're on the economy, it was during Carter's administration that interest rates hit their record high in America: 21.5% by December of 1980 (just before his stepping down in the wake of the Reagan tide). This of course led to a devaluing of investments and hurt the growing government deficit.
Carter proved himself incapable of following through on tax reform.
The American image was tarnished as we lost authority in Iran, still a leading opponent of ours. Even worse, Carter was unable to rescue embassy workers who were taken hostage shortly after the revolution led by the Ayatollah.
There was Carter's allowance of a massive exodus of Cubans into Florida, the Mariel Boat Lift. Now the illegal alien problem from Mexico is bad enough but that is due to lax border security which is gradually being tightened. Carter knowingly allowed thousands of Cubans into America without even worrying about their backgrounds. What was later discovered was that Castro had simply packed all his mentally unstable citizens along with a multitude of criminals onto the boats and shipped them over to us relieving himself of a major problem. Great on the background checks there, Jimmy. Don't even worry about who you're letting in.
Of course there was also Carter's willingness to sign a treaty surrendering the Panama Canal to Panama. Yeah, America financed and fought for Panamanian independence in order to gain the ground to build a canal (with our money) and the Panamanians simply get it all because they are complaining that it should be theirs. If Carter were smart he would have made them sign into the treaty that they would lease it from us until such time as they could afford to buy it outright. At least make them pay us back for one of "our" projects. Oh, and there was also the power vaccuum left by Carter's allowance of the Panamanians to push out American forces which was eventually filled by a drug cartler leader. Yeah, Carter was the master of creating unstable regimes.
On unstable regimes, let's follow two more. Carter decided human rights were more important than political reality thus he stopped his support of Somoza in Nicaragua. Of course this ended up leading to a civil war in that country. Hmm, guess trying to convince the guy to reform rather than backing his opposition just made too little sense. And then of course there was Zimbabwe. Carter complained that the election held there during his term had to be reheld because Mugabe was kept out of the list of candidates. Eventually Mugabe won due to Carter's support. Yeah, we saw how such progressive views led to a vibrant Zimbabwe.
There was also Carter's view that the Soviet Union's invasion into Afghanistan (a nation that is virtually useless both strategically and economically) and hurt America rather than the Soviet's by voiding the Russian Wheat Deal, an idea that had been used to establish trade with the U.S.S.R. and lessen Cold War tensions. Instead, it hurt farmers in America while the Soviets continued assaulting Afghanistan. It didn't matter that the Afghan government had asked for Soviet aid to put down revolutionaries. And of course, Carter's belief that America should help defend Afghan "independence" has only led to a brilliantly victory for fundamentalism over Communism. God over secularism. Awesome! That $40 billion investment in the Taliban paid off handsomely.
So, though I disagree somewhat with corporate practices, gas prices, involvement in Iraq, torture of suspects, tax cuts for the rich (largely the rescinding of estate taxes), and the increasing centralization of power at the executive which has proven so incompetent that states are doing things the federal government should take the lead in (clean/domestic fuel, immigration reform, environmental issues), at least this nation is in better shape than it was during Carter's four years. I think Carter should learn to watch his mouth and prove he learned something as a preacher: judge not lest ye be judged.
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