CBS News: 60 Minutes- Lesley Stahl Interviews Jimmy Carter: The White House Diary

Source:CBS News– 60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl, interviewing President Jimmy Carter (Democrat, Georgia)

Source:The New Democrat

“Lesley Stahl speaks to the former president about his new book, “White House Diary,” in which he admits mistakes and blames Ted Kennedy for delaying comprehensive health care.”

From CBS News

I mentioned this last week, but President Jimmy Carter was not a failed president and I laid out why I believe that. And of course we have the benefit of history now. And the economy was in bad shape when he left and the Soviet Union seemed to be stronger, even though again from the benefit of history their economy was failing with all of their bread lines, unemployment, poverty, shortages, that took them at least twenty years to over. So of course the Soviet Union wasn’t stronger when President Carter left office. Their military was just doing more because they thought America was weak.

There are a couple of reasons why Jimmy Carter wasn’t a great president. One of them his fault and the other partly his fault. His relationship with the two Democratic Congress’s that he had, especially with Senator Ted Kennedy, but Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil and Senate Leader Robert Byrd and many other examples. President Carter, actually had a better relationship with Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker (the ranking Republican in Congress during the Carter years) then he probably had with any Democratic leader in Congress. Including Southern Democrats who he probably had things in common with.

The other issue being all the problems that he had to deal with as president. Not his fault for the most part that they happened. Especially with the economy, but where he comes up short from my perspective at least was his failure to deal with them and gain traction and success in those areas. President Obama, inherited a worst economy then either President Carter, or President Reagan and yet the economy started moving again fairly quickly under his administration. And started creating jobs early in his second year.

I think what you see in the Carter White House diary, is what Americans back then and today really like and respect about the man. That Jimmy Carter, is a person and individual before he’s a politician.
He’s the politician that Americans say they want. Above board, free-thinker, free speaker, above politics, not all the time, but a lot of the time, does and says what he believes and then deals with the consequences. Including about how he feels with people he has to work with. As you see in his White House diary.

The problem with Americans though and perhaps where Carter’s personality hurt him, is that is just what Americans say they want. They actually prefer bullshit artists who tell them what they want to hear, generally, then free thinkers.

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America Experience: The President’s- Jimmy Carter

Source:American Experience– American Experience: Jimmy Carter.

Source:The Daily Press

“Jimmy Carter’s story is one of the greatest dramas in American politics. In 1980, he was overwhelmingly voted out of office in a humiliating defeat. Over the subsequent two decades, he became one of the most admired statesmen and humanitarians in America and the world. Through interviews with the people who know him best, Jimmy Carter traces his rapid ascent in politics, dramatic fall from grace and unexpected resurrection, including Carter family home movies and a rare film sequence of Carter’s final hours in the Oval Office, when he and his advisors waited in vain for the release of the Americans who had been held hostage in Tehran for 444 days.

Carter was the first president to confront the challenge of militant Islam, then embodied by the Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Iranian revolution. Carter was also the first president to embark on what would prove to be the excruciating road to peace in the Middle East. But in the end, his presidency was undone by his failure to secure the hostages’ release and by a plummeting economy. Yet the memories of his presidency — gas lines, inflation, recession, the Iran hostage crisis, an ineffectual and fractured administration, and the so-called national malaise — would be eclipsed, finally, by his post-presidential successes as a peacemaker in the world’s most troubled areas, and his emergence as a champion for the poor in his own country.”

From American Experience

“American Experience: Jimmy Carter. Airs Tuesday, June 25th at 8pm on PBS 6.”

Source:Arizona Public Media– American Experience: Jimmy Carter.

From Arizona Public Media

Had it not have been for 1974 and the Watergate scandal, Jimmy Carter doesn’t get elected President of the United States, at least in 1976. He probably runs for reelection for Governor of Georgia in 1974 and probably gets reelected and waits for 1980. And looks at his options then. Jimmy Carter, basically was in a time that was perfect for someone like him, after Watergate and President Nixon resigning in 1974. Americans were looking for decent honest person to lead the country.

Gerry Ford was, a good, honest man, but American voters were also looking for an outsider and a new voice that was not from Washington. Not a cabinet official, or someone in Congress, but a breath of fresh air, someone who wasn’t an elitist and someone who spoke their mind and could take the country on a different course. And perhaps end the gridlock in Washington and to a certain extent. That’s what President Carter brought to Washington. He was able to pass a lot of legislation out of Congress.

Yes, President Carter, had a Democratic Congress with large majorities, including a 3-5 majority in the Senate his first two years. But he was also able to get a lot of Congressional Republicans to vote for his legislation, because he worked with the Republican Leadership in the House and Senate. He probably actually had more Republican allies in Congress, than Democratic allies. He had problems with Congressional Democrats. The Democratic Party in Congress (especially in the House) was not the Democratic Party that John F. Kennedy had in the early 1960s.

National Democrats were moving way to the left and looking more for a George McGovern Democrat, than a Center-Left Democrat (which is what Jimmy Carter was) to lead them. Which made it difficult for President Carter to work with his own party in and outside of Washington.

Former Senate Republican Leader Robert Dole (Republican, Kansas) said that Jimmy Carter was the smartest President that he ever served with. Senator Dole was in Congress during the entire Carter Presidency and served as Ranking Member of the Finance Committee during that time, but the reason why Senator Dole became Chairman of the Finance Committee in 1981, is because Ronald Reagan defeated President Carter and Republicans win back the Senate in 1980.

Jimmy Carter had a great feel for policy and issues and was very intelligent, but he didn’t have much a political touch and vision to take the country in. He was better suited running a cabinet department, than leading an entire administration and country in a certain direction.

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