That 70's President

Former President Jimmy Carter has a new book out and you know what happens when a politician has a book published. The politician goes out and tries to sell the book. The politician appears on 60 Minutes and other news shows talking about the book. Then the book sits on the shelves at the bookstore until it is placed in the bargain bin. There is no reason to think The White House Diary will be exempt from the same fate.

Former Presidents write books for the same reason most people write books: to make money. That and to settle some scores. If the reports of The White House Diary are correct, this book has it in spades.

But first, a little history lesson for the younger readers.

There once was a President named Richard Nixon who had a Vice President comically named Spiro Agnew (really). Agnew had his hand caught in the cookie jar and had to resign the Vice Presidency. In his place, President Nixon selected Gerald R. Ford, the Minority leader of the House. Of course, (you older people know I’m leaving out a lot of history) President Nixon had to resign for his own cookie jar problems, making Gerald R. Ford the first President of the United States never to have been elected.

Then, out of my beloved state of Georgia, came former governor Jimmy Carter who promised he would never lie and he would carry his own luggage. This enabled him to defeat President Ford in the election of 1976, especially when Ford promised he would never allow Poland to become a Communist country, which was a big promise back then considering Poland was already a Communist country.

I’ve always had problems with President Carter. First of all, it was hard for me to accept a President named “Jimmy”. It was never “Johnny Adams”, “Tommy Jefferson”, or “Billy Clinton”.

Secondly, and this is going to get me into a lot of trouble, Carter was an engineer and didn’t mind letting you know that he was very, very, smart. I remember his ad for governor back in 1970. The voice over said, “Nuclear engineer. Peanut Farmer. Elect Jimmy Carter”. Even as a kid, that never made a lot of sense to me. He was smart enough to be a nuclear engineer and a peanut farmer at the same time! Wow! His opponent, Carl Sanders, was just a lawyer. His commecials never said "Lawyer. Grows tomatoes. Elect Carl Sanders."

Carter decided to run for President in 1972 after meeting Humphrey, McGovern, Muskie and Scoop Jackson because he thought he was just as smart, if not smarter than they were, and here we are today having to hear about Carter still being smarter than everybody.

According to Carter, he did not have a failed Presidency. He had a great Presidency. You were just too dumb to realize it because you didn’t want to wait in line for gas or to solar power your house. My gosh, the man passed more bills than anybody ever elected President before or since and that includes FDR and Lincoln and the only thing people remember are hostages, stagflation, gas lines, and that horrible disco music. On top of that, he was not above lecturing about not using the air conditioner so much

In fact, if you wait around long enough, Carter will be happy to prove to you, with complex Algebraic equations that he was probably the greatest President ever and greatest former President too.

By the way, he is worried about the tone of this country. You know, Fox News and all that. But it is okay when he criticizes sitting Presidents, at the time of war, because Jimmy Carter is incapable of making a mistake. Oh Lord it hard to be humble when you are perfect in every way.

I will give him the Israel-Egypt Peace Accords. He also had pretty good taste in music (Buffett, The Allman Brothers,etc). Carter and I went to the same Bob Dylan concert in Atlanta in 1988. Carter had better seats.

Jimmy Carter is like a lot of memories of the 70’s: best forgotten.