By Michael P. Riccards

When I wrote about Jimmy Carter in my two-volume history of the presidency, I conceded that sometimes America gets a president better than the nation  deserves. The fine political observer David Gergen wrote to me and noted that he was glad someone saw the truth in the man.

Carter is frequently seen as a fine man and a poor president. So much of presidential greatness is linked up with events a president does not control, the environment in which he is confronted. 

Yet Carter dealt with the amnesty question courageously and finally released us from that division that so plagued the nation. He supported affirmative action and named more minority judges than any executive before that time. 

More than any leader, Carter gave the country one of the most substantial peace keeping approaches in the Middle East. He avoided the endless no-win wars and gave us peace.  Meanwhile, we have praised the post-war presidents who have been called great and led us into Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and endless corners of the world that prize genocidal wars.  

He had a poor staff, but even those presidents with good staffs have not given us a future we prize. Carter had a personal moral core that made us proud to be Americans. And he meant what he said and did what he urged upon us.

We now have a president coming in who wishes to reopen the Panama Canal debate, extend U.S. borders to the vast wastes of Greenland, and is ready to wipe out environmental protection. 

Carter promised never to lie to us; now we don’t care if a president creates an administration that lies, cheats, seeks retribution and engages demagogic rhetoric. Historians find that a president’s second term is usually less successful than his first.  Wow….  

Michael P. Riccards, a former college president, is the author of 30 books, including “The Ferocious Engine of Democracy: A History of the American Presidency.“

Categories: Jandoli Institute, Michael Riccards, Politics