Originally Posted By vbdad55 While I don't think Carter is irrelevant - I think it is in poor judgement ( something he does excel at) - to be critical to the level he is. And while I surely don't believe any administration is above criticism - a former president of all people whould know the problems of anyone in the White House. To this day I still don't think he fully grasps the role of the President of the US in the world -- part of the problem when he was in office. SO while I do believe him to be an honest man, he is naive to an unbelievable level for someone who has been there- done that.
Originally Posted By DlandDug I think that Carter is an increasingly embittered man who has finally decided to speak his mind. For years he has really harbored a grudge toward Ronald Reagan. (His wife has said as much, although claiming she was "bitter enough" for both of them.) I find it somewhat cowardly that Carter has targeted a President who is so unpopular to finally unleash his agressive criticism. I do note that he also fired a few shots in passing at Reagan and Nixon. It is claimed that Carter used the term "malaise" in his televised speech, but that the word did not appear in any transcripts released by his White House. Here's the Wikipedia entry: >>On July 15, 1979, Carter gave a nationally-televised address in which he identified what he believed to be a "crisis of confidence" among the American people. This has come to be known by critics as his "malaise" speech because Carter used the word "malaise" in his televised speech, even though the word "malaise" did not appear anywhere in the officially released text transcript...<< <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J immy_Carter</a> (Not that I really trust the Wikipedia!) For those who care, that speech was written by Chris Matthews. Yeah, that Chris Matthews. And three days after delivering it, Carter asked his entire cabinet to resign. Oh, and for those who are reaching, reaching back to remember just what all was wrong with the Carter Presidency, I offer one more piece of the puzzle: Andrew Young.
Originally Posted By jonvn Please, can we stop talking about carter? It's making me ill. He was just about as bad as the current guy. Ugh...you had to mention Andrew young....Bert Lance...remember him? Oh, and the christmas tree lights when iran stormed our embassy? Oh, and when they stormed it how we did a great big pile of nothing? Oh those were the days...
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <I really recall him saying malaise.< I think he was saying mayonaise - it was on the cooking show with Paula Dean
Originally Posted By DlandDug OK, you can download the complete audio of the speech here: <a href="http://www.millercenter.virginia.edu/scripps/digitalarchive/speeches/spe_1979_0715_carter" target="_blank">http://www.millercenter.virgin ia.edu/scripps/digitalarchive/speeches/spe_1979_0715_carter</a> He doesn't use the "M" word.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 oh c'mon, it brings back memories of looking for my first house and interest rates were only 18%....... oh the good times....
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "I think he was saying mayonaise - it was on the cooking show with Paula Dean." My wife likes watching all those cooking shows. She even has a couple of Paula Dean's books. When I saw the Carter episode, I saw a simple older man who didn't seem all that tuned in. It's a rather quaint idea to think he still wants to issue opinions on current events.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>To this day I still don't think he fully grasps the role of the President of the US in the world -- part of the problem when he was in office.<< While I don't support the current administration's foreign policy, Carter's policies were a disaster as well. To this day it blows my mind that Iran was able to overrun our embassy, take Americans hostage for over a year and all we did was an incompetent, bungled rescue mission (we should have hired the Israelis to do that) that provided photo ops for the Iranian leadership (and probably more than a few laughs at the expense of the Great Satan) .
Originally Posted By vbdad55 even better yet his own strategists came up with that piece of analysis to rip Ford -- not knowing Carter would take that index to heights never before seen......
Originally Posted By jmoore1966 "Thanks for trying to help Mr. Carter, now please sit down." Will someone please take the remote control away from Mr. Carter?
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<To this day it blows my mind that Iran was able to overrun our embassy, take Americans hostage for over a year>> And just what percentage of hostages have we been able to free in Iraq? At least none of our hostages in Iran were beheaded. As for the 'botched' rescue mission, I can assure you that Carter had absolutely nothing to do with formulating the plan or carrying it out. It was a plan that our military commanders thought would work. And it probably would have if they hadn’t run in to the middle of a dust storm. Had it worked Carter would have been praised for approving such a gutsy plan and undoubtedly would have been re-elected. So all you Reagan worshipers better thank God that the plan didn't work because if it had your guy would have never been President.
Originally Posted By DlandDug >>As for the 'botched' rescue mission, I can assure you that Carter had absolutely nothing to do with formulating the plan or carrying it out.<< According to several sources, Carter was very involved with the Iran Hostage rescue mission. Mostly, he kept interfering with the military planners. Critics contend it was because he was intent on going through his entire term without a military operation. Instead, eight soldiers died in the failed rescue attempt that Carter wanted to be done without endangering anyone in Iran. Huh? By the end of his term in office, we lost Iran, and Afghanistan, and Nicaragua, and the Panama Canal, too. Just more of Carter's dubious legacy.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <Had it worked Carter would have been praised for approving such a gutsy plan and undoubtedly would have been re-elected. So all you Reagan worshipers better thank God that the plan didn't work because if it had your guy would have never been President. < huh? oh yeah, I wanted 4 more years of 18% interest rates, runaway inflation and a 25% misery factor --- go Jimmy. ( he was a boob ) if we want to look at unlikely scenarios - if those 1000 points of light would have worked out better, Bill would just have been another governor nailing girlfriends in Arkansas. the odds were about the same for both happening....
Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder One thing both Presidents Bush have in common. They took through the roof approval ratings immediately after a major event and found a way to sink them so deep they were never seen again.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<According to several sources, Carter was very involved with the Iran Hostage rescue mission.>> I would love to know those sources. According to the official account by the Air Force Association Carter's involvement was minimal. <<Carter, facing a re-election battle in 1980, strongly favored a diplomatic solution, but his national security advisor, Zbignew Brzezinski, directed the Pentagon to begin planning for a rescue mission or retaliatory strikes in case the hostages were harmed. In response, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. David C. Jones, established a small, secretive planning group, dubbed "Rice Bowl," to study American options for a rescue effort.>> <<After five months of planning, organizing, training, and a series of increasingly complex rehearsals, Kyle recalled: "The ability to rescue our people being held hostage, which didn't exist on Nov. 4, 1979, was now a reality." The team still needed Carter's permission to execute. Although the shah had moved to Panama and then to Egypt, the 53 Americans remained hostages and the public was getting impatient. Finally, in a White House meeting of his top advisors on April 11, Carter gave up on diplomacy. "I told everyone that it was time for us to bring our hostages home; their safety and our national honor were at stake," Carter said in his memoirs. Five days later, Jones, Vaught, and Beckwith briefed Carter at the White House on the plans for the rescue mission and expressed their confidence in their ability to pull it off. Beckwith recalled that Carter told them: "I do not want to undertake this operation, but we have no other recourse. ... We're going to do this operation." Carter then told Jones, "This is a military operation; you will run it. ... I don't want anyone else in this room involved.">> Source: <a href="http://rescueattempt.tripod.com/id8.html" target="_blank">http://rescueattempt.tripod.co m/id8.html</a>
Originally Posted By jonvn I guess if we can have a guy on here defend bush, we can have a guy defend carter!
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<huh? oh yeah, I wanted 4 more years of 18% interest rates, runaway inflation and a 25% misery factor --- go Jimmy. ( he was a boob )>> Actually, the highest average mortgage rate under Carter was about 12.5%. Rates peaked at 14-15% in 1981 and 1982 under Reagan. Source: <a href="http://mortgage-x.com/trends.htm" target="_blank">http://mortgage-x.com/trends.h tm</a> By the way... the double digit inflation rate under Carter, like the double digit inflation rate during 74-75 under Ford, was largely due to oil shortages and the corresponding huge increase in the price of oil. There is very little either president could have done to avoid that inflation.
