has written about Jimmy Carter’s “core decency.” It is my hope that when our country’s 39th President moves beyond this earth’s existence, that description will live after him.
The announcement last week of former President Carter’s transition to hospice brought some reflection. When I voted for the first time—in the 1976 presidential election—my ballot was not cast for him. That year the two candidates were, in retrospect, both decent to the core. Gerald Ford’s experience on a national stage and getting us through Watergate were factors in my inexperienced decision-making process. Carter won. Ford lost. The two remained cordial and professional, and modeled civility in politics.
James Earl Carter, Jr., was an ineffective president. He was unable to manage an economy wracked with inflation and unemployment, oversaw a botched rescue attempt of the American hostages in Iran, and received pushback from special interest groups when he considered renewable energy. An idealistic outsider to Washington, D.C., Carter was outmanned by the system and deterred by what some observers saw as stubbornness and piety.
In fairness and truth, these are the historical low moments networks will rehash upon his passing.
Below is the programming I hope will be added to media eulogies. CNN, please remind your viewers that Carter had every intention of pursuing a military career, graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946. Tell them that he was an engineering officer on submarines and was selected in 1953 to help develop the up and coming nuclear submarine program.
ABC, point out that he gave up that naval career because his dad died the same year. As the eldest son, Carter felt the obligation to come home and manage the family peanut farm in Plains, Georgia, (population just under 400). Carter was only 29, his father only 58.
PBS News Hour, I hope you will devote an entire segment to his 76-year marriage to Rosalynn, the woman who chose to wear the same dress to the inauguration ball that she wore when her husband was sworn in as governor of Georgia. Frugal and practical, Rosalyn’s mental health advocacy and caregiving training programs remain vital policy at the Carter Center in Atlanta today. Be best? Rosalynn genuinely was.
NBC, show footage to your nightly viewers of President Carter with the leaders of Egypt and Israel— countries that were bitter enemies since 1948— at the Camp David Accords in 1978. Then display the photos of those historic handshakes and signatures on a long-awaited peace treaty.
Any chance, Fox, you could say something nice about a Democrat who taught Sunday School Class for Maranatha Baptist in Plains until he was 90 years old, who handcrafted the wooden collection plates which are still passed around, and who along with his wife has, for every year since 1984, donated time to Habitat for Humanity building projects in the United States and abroad? I dare you to show the quote from David Gergen, who worked for three Republican presidents. “Jimmy Carter won't go down as great president but should be remembered as a great saint.”
As if destined to live a long life of service, Carter was spared the health problem that took the lives of his father, two sisters, and younger brother—all dying in middle age from pancreatic cancer. Carter, diagnosed with melanoma in 2015, is 98.
Duty before honor when he relinquished the naval career he had planned to pursue. Duty without honor when much of his work floundered during the White House years.
Duty is honorable: what Jimmy Carter should have engraved on his tombstone.
Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thought-provoking commentary appears occasionally in several West Texas newspapers, including The Texas Spur and The Caprock Courier.
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