Tonight, they announced the death of the oldest former President .... ever ...
President James Carter died today ... about a year after the death of his wife, Rosalind - they were unseperable until her death ... well, pretty much.
Until Biden, he was considered the worst President in American history - his presidency was riddled with problems ... from inflation to an oil crisis to an outbreak of war in the middle east to American hostages ... the only real bright light during his presidency was the Camp David Accords.
He had two huge mistakes during his presidency which forever tainted him ... and likely are what caused him to lose the 1980 election.
1)His "Malaise" speech ...
Listen to it ... he basically blames the citizens for the troubles in the country ...
2)US HOSTAGES ... when Iranian students overtook the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979, Carter tried to negotiate their freedom ... and the Iranians laughed in his face.
Most of us (I was in high school at the time) had no idea what needed to be done ... but the President of the USA should have ... and he did ... well ... nothing.
He lost his re-election campaign ... Ronald Reagan won - although, he put up a prety good fight, but he just couldn't get over the issues of his presidency.
He grew up on a peanut farm, but soon found he didn't want that life ... so when he graduated, he joined the Navy ... in fact, he served on a submarine - one of the first nuclear submarines of the US Navy ...and that was where he and Rosalind thought he would serve out his adult life ...
But then, his father died ... and instead of leaving the farm in the hands of his brother, Billy, he decided to leave the Navy and become a peanut farmer ....
But that just wasn't enough ... he jumped into public service and politics.
Soon he was the Governor of Georgia ... and from there he became the President in 1976 ...
You have to remember that he ran against President Ford - the only President/Vice-President who had never been elected into that role! And Ford's biggest mistake, in many people's eyes, was pardoning Richard Nixon for his part in Watergate ...
Carter loved to blame most of the issues in the early years of his presidency on Nixon (he rarely mentioned Ford) ... but not as much as Obama did.
He could have ran for another term as President - he had only served one 4-year term ... and maybe, just maybe, he might have won this last round. But, probably not - too many of us still remember.
His real character came out AFTER he left office ... he began the "Habitat for Humanity" organization ...
The program fixes up homes for low-income people - sometimes, they even build a house from start to end ... and it is a worldwide organization ...
Now if he had run after he had done all this - yea, I do believe he would have gotten back in office.
As he grew older he didn't slow down ... he still worked on-site with Habitat for Humanity - swinging a hammer, moving boards, etc - into his 90s!!!
The last few years, he has been in "hospice" - which is not what it once was, it is now usually in-home care, which is based more on "qulaity" of life, instead of "quantity" of life .... also known as "comfort care" .... it no longer symbolizes the "end of life" as it used to.
Well - now he is a peace ....
He is with his wife, Rosalind, and other family who went on before him.
He lived a loooooonnnnng life .... he taught Sunday school at his church (up until he was put on Hospice) ... he attended fmr. President HW Bush's funeral ... he had a FULL life, and then some.
Okay - one more thing about those hostages in Iran .... it turns out that he did try to rescue them at one point, but "chickened out" at the last moment - putting our Special Forces in danger.
The Iranians, however, did not respect him at all ... but they were afraid of Ronald Reagan -- once Carter was on the plane, and Reagan was sworn in ... the Iranians released the hostages, put them on a plane, and sent them out of the country ...
Geez - that had to be hard on Carter ....
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