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Jimmy Carter has died
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Re: Jimmy Carter has died
#42He sure seemed like a legitimately good man. I think one of my favorite stories about him is that he helped resolve a nuclear reactor meltdown https://www.military.com/history/how-jimmy-carter-saved-cana...
SNL gave him a lot of shit, but SNL's "Ask President Carter" skit was perfect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-68iTvhWNB0
Jimmy Carter will always be my favorite Amazing Colossal President, as Rodney Dangerfield described in the SNL "The Pepsi Syndrome" sketch:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=533858710873763
https://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78ppepsi.phtml
Dr. Casey: “It means, Mrs. Carter, your husband, President Carter, has become [camera zooms in on Dr. Casey] the amazing colossal president.”
Mrs. Carter: “Well, how big is he?”
Dr. Casey: “Well, Mrs. Carter, it’s difficult to comprehend just how big he is but to give you some idea, we’ve asked comedian Rodney Dangerfield to come along today to help explain it to you. Rodney?”
[Rodney Dangerfield enters]
Rodney: “How do you do, how are you?”
Denton: “Rodney, can you please tell us, how big is the president?”
Rodney: “Oh, he’s a big guy, I’ll tell you that, he’s a big guy. I tell you, he’s so big, I saw him sitting in the George Washington Bridge dangling his feet in the water! He’s a big guy!”
Mrs. Carter: “Oh my God! Jimmy! Oh God!”
Rodney: “Oh, he’s big, I’ll tell you that, boy. He’s so big that when two girls make love to him at the same time, they never meet each other! He’s a big guy, I’ll tell you!”
Mrs. Carter: “Oh no! Oh Jimmy! My Jimmy!”
Rodney: “I don’t want to upset you, lady, he’s big, you know what I mean? Why, he could have an affair with the Lincoln Tunnel! I mean, he’s really high! He’s big, I’ll tell you! He’s a big guy!”
Mrs. Carter: “No! No! No!”
Denton: “Rodney, thank you very much. You can go.”
Rodney: “It’s my pleasure. He’s way up there, lady! You know what I mean?”
—Saturday Night Live, Season 4: Episode 16, “The Pepsi Syndrome” skit, Apr. 7, 1979
And poor old Billy always got the cardboard box.
https://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78ncarter.phtml
>SNL Transcripts: Gary Busey: 03/10/79: The Carters In Israel
[...]
>Lillian Carter: Jimmy.. Jimmy.. I’ve come to talk to you about your brother.
>President Jimmy Carter: Oh, Mama. Let’s not talk about Billy now.
>Lillian Carter: Ohhh.. Jimmy, you’ve gotta remember that it hasn’t been easy for Billy. You were the oldest and the favorite – you got the wagon, he got the cardboard box; you got the bicycle, he got the cardboard box; you got the brains, he got the cardboard box.
[...]
Re: Jimmy Carter has died
#43[flagged]
Re: Jimmy Carter has died
#44Re: Jimmy Carter has died
#45Looking back, to me he was a much better president then people believed in the 80s. I believe if he got re-elected in 1980, the US would be in a much better place. One thing, it could be argued real work on Climate Change would have begun in 1981 as opposed to where we are now, which is just watching the average probably blowing past 3C in around 70 years from now. For his loss in 1980, I still blame Kennedy. RIP, he…
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The West didn't win the Cold War; the USSR lost it on its own.
Re: Jimmy Carter has died
#46Looking back, to me he was a much better president then people believed in the 80s. I believe if he got re-elected in 1980, the US would be in a much better place. One thing, it could be argued real work on Climate Change would have begun in 1981 as opposed to where we are now, which is just watching the average probably blowing past 3C in around 70 years from now. For his loss in 1980, I still blame Kennedy. RIP, he…
The big one I wish he’d been able to do was getting a U.S. nuclear network going like France has. It’d be nice to have now but they’re so slow to build that a 40 year head start would’ve been invaluable.
Re: Jimmy Carter has died
#47Of all the presidents I've seen in my lifetime, I think President Carter might be the only one who felt genuine and didn't exhibit narcissism.
I think our culture needs some general awareness and “antibodies” against Narcissism, and emotional manipulation in general. People seem generally unaware of, and as a result easily manipulated and controlled by people with these behaviors. I only became conscious of it after reading a book about communication where I learned how emotional manipulation worked- and then realized I was in a relationship with someone doing this to me, and had been completely oblivious for years.
Once I understood how it works, I can easily spot people including politicians using these quite simple manipulation techniques, and I feel quite stupid for not figuring it out on my own at a younger age.
Re: Jimmy Carter has died
#48Looking back, to me he was a much better president then people believed in the 80s. I believe if he got re-elected in 1980, the US would be in a much better place. One thing, it could be argued real work on Climate Change would have begun in 1981 as opposed to where we are now, which is just watching the average probably blowing past 3C in around 70 years from now. For his loss in 1980, I still blame Kennedy. RIP, he…
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It's not entirely clear they did.
Re: Jimmy Carter has died
#49Didn't do everything right as president, but a good man who mostly tried to do the right thing for Americans. Particularly exemplary since leaving the presidency.
The average U.S. person would be much better off today if he had won in 1980 instead of it being the beginning of deregulation and Reaganomics.
Re: Jimmy Carter has died
#50One could argue he set the stage for the 1980s economic boom by making short term sacrifices that cost him re-election. It was his administration that did market-oriented deregulation around airlines and trucking industries (meaning you didn't need to have a licence to ship goods across state lines and go through monopoly trucking companies to get your goods to market) as well as appointed Paul Volcker as Fed chair with the mandate to end the stagflation of the era (which meant he jacked up interest rates, causing the economy to temporarily slow down). There is a quite probably apocryphal quote that Jimmy Carter asked Volcker "can you end inflation" to which Volcker replied "Yes, but it'll probably cost you re-election" and Carter said do it. Reagan then swept in under these conditions.
Most of the "market reforms" under Reagan were more pro-business than pro-market and resulted in big problems like the savings and loan crisis, among other things.
Carter was also a very uninspiring person who mused too much in interviews and press conferences, which didn't look decisive to the general public, even though it showed how he was thinking.
Either way, he was an underrated president that was more a victim of timing and did what was best for the country.