CARTER Again!

Notes of Concern…..

Jack Blair

JIMMY CARTER, AGAIN!

I recently wrote a column published in this paper that took former President Jimmy Carter to task for meddling in international affairs. Two friends questioned me on this judgment about Carter. Each of them believed that Carter had redeemed himself after the conclusion of his presidency. Their questions led me to further research

The nice thing about writing a column of opinion is that it anticipates that there will be readers who share the opinion and those who do not. It is not an attempt at reporting, it is an attempt at highlighting a particular viewpoint.

The Murray-Blessing study is widely recognized as “state of the art” in the presidential ratings game. I spoke this week with Dr. Blessing.

As a matter of reference, the Blessing survey rated Carter in 1982 as 25^th out of 39 presidents in performance. Another survey that year placed Carter at 26^th. Yet a third survey placed him at 33 out of 39 (Sienna survey).

For those for whom the years have dimmed the memory, let me compare the current popularity of President George W. Bush with the numbers earned by President Jimmy Carter. Both men, according to Newsweek magazine, polled at 28% favorability at the end of their terms in office. The only president to poll lower (at 22%) was Harry S. Truman in early 1952 at the time of the Korean War (according to George Gallup).

Some might point out that these surveys were early after the Carter presidency, at a time when he was not particularly popular in America. So let me refer to the Wall Street Journal survey done in 2000 which placed him at 25^th. Five years later, in 2005, the same survey dropped him to 34^th.

In my personal opinion, President Carter deserved the place he was awarded by a combined Wall Street Journal and Federalist Society poll in 2000. They found Jimmy Carter to be our 10^th worst president. Even his supporters typically do not argue in favor of his presidency but tend to admire work he did after his presidency concluded.

After leaving the presidency, Carter experienced a bit of a revival as he worked with Habitat for Humanity and took an interest in the plight of the poor and downtrodden. I had occasion to meet him in Atlanta during that period in his life. I took him a gift of one of his favorite foods from the Dillard House in the mountains of north Georgia. He is a pleasant and gregarious man.

I was impressed with his friendliness and his lack of formality. I was quick to compliment him on his activities and began to believe his post presidential contributions would greatly exceed his actions as president. Some even called him “our best ex-president”. Until recently, I had no argument with this assessment.

Unfortunately, as he has aged, he has become controversial again. The roundly denounced inaccuracies in his last book brought about significant resignations of quality people previously associated with the Carter Center. These were reported in all the major newspapers.

The thrust of my article was to question the wisdom of his meddling in the international relations of The United States of America, at a time of great international crisis for our country and our allies, and in direct defiance of the requests of our government. His trip was unwise, and had the potential to cause deterioration in the regular back channel talks that always occur between governments. It was also completely outside the bounds of historic and proper behavior for former presidents.

Since that column was printed it has become clear that his efforts irritated the government of Israel, the Secretary of State of the United States, and a great many citizens. And he produced absolutely no discernible positive results with his visit.

On this trip there was a nice picture of President and Mrs. Carter laying a wreath at the tomb of Yassir Arafat. For those of you who are historians, you know that Arafat was a terrorist with the blood of hundreds on his hands. The picture, in this case, was indeed worth “1000 words”. Most of the words that come to my mind could not be printed in a family newspaper!

With the world involved in a time of terrorism, we cannot afford to have former presidents, with no portfolio, negotiating with rogue states.

Watch the next Blessing poll of presidential rankings. It will be out this year.