Today is Sunday, December 29, 2024. Today the country lost an elder statesman, former president Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer, who died today at the age of 100. The Carter Center said the 39th president died in Plains, Georgia, surrounded by his family. Carter had been in home hospice care since last February after a series of short hospital stays. Carter, a Democrat, served only one term from 1977 to 1981, losing a reelection bid to former Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan. His presidency is largely remembered as an unfilled four years shaken by blows to America’s economy and standing overseas. However, his most lasting legacy, though, might be as a globetrotting elder statesman and human rights pioneer during an untiring 43-year “retirement.”

To me, who still remembered Carter’s single term, I always admired the man’s status as a humble humanitarian who worked tirelessly to eradicate disease in emerging countries, who built houses for the homeless under the banner of Habitat for Humanity, along with his inseparable companion of 77 years, Rosalynn, as well as being a man of great character and hope and optimism. Carter became the oldest-living former president when he surpassed the record held by the late George H.W. Bush in March 2019.

Remember, Carter’s term followed the presidential stewardship of Republican Gerald Ford after the Watergate debacle brought down a president, Richard M. Nixon, who resigned in August 1974. When he assumed the presidency, Carter vowed to restore morality and truth to politics – boy, how refreshing is that? – after an era of White House scandal that left many Americans distrustful of government.

Carter governed amid Cold War pressures, turbulent oil markets (who can forget waiting on line to get gas during his presidency?), and social upheaval over racism, women’s rights, and America’s global role. His most acclaimed achievement in office was a Mideast peace deal that he brokered by keeping Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the bargaining table for 13 days in 1978.

Yet Carter’s popularity got a shellacking when the country experienced double-digit inflation, those gasoline lines, and the 444-day hostage crisis in Iran in which eight Americans died in a failed hostage rescue in April 1980, helping to ensure his landslide defeat to Republican Ronald Reagan. Who could forget that moment when the hostages were released right after Reagan’s inauguration which was a a final, bitter turn of events favoring his opponent once more?

I’ll always remember his famous address to the American people in which he talked about a sense of malaise (though he never used the word malaise” throughout the speech) that, he believed, had gripped the nation’s populace. He beseeched Americans to overcome a collective “crisis of confidence” and, at another time, he urged consumers to turn down their thermostats since they were beleaguered by rising energy costs. This didn’t go over very well, of course, with many listeners.

In a word, Carter embodied decency in my mind, and it’s woefully absent from the kind of politics practiced today in Washington, and today President Joe Biden was asked what incoming president-elect Donald Trump could take away from the memory of Carter, Biden replied, it’s “decency.” Biden added, “Everybody deserves a shot. Everybody. Can you imagine Jimmy Carter walking by someone who needed something and just keep walking? Can you imagine Jimmy Carter referring to someone by the way they look or the way they talk? [in a clear jab at Chump’s predilection for puerile name calling and using undesirable language to characterize his supposed “enemies.”] I can’t.”

In honor of this truly great American, flags are expected to be flown at half-staff at Dump’s inauguration in January. Carter will also rightfully receive a state funeral in Washington.

May Jimmy Carter’s memory be a blessing!

Have a good week, everyone.

And so it went!