Happy 97th Birthday, Jimmy Carter!!

An American treasure most of us know little about...which is a damned shame

Former President Jimmy Carter turns 97 today. If you believe in the adage, “only the good die young,” Carter is the exception to that theory. He’s a genuinely kind, decent, and compassionate human who endeavors to live his Christian faith. Jimmy Carter has arguably done more in the 40 years since he left office than any former President…and most humans.

I think anyone turning 97 deserves to be celebrated; especially someone who’s led a life as full, meaningful, and free of scandal as Carter has. His is a life defined by service in many different forms. He’s a man of peace who’s talked the talk and walked the walk his entire life. His Presidency was the only four years since WWII in which no American perished in combat. The American military fired no bullets, launched no missiles, and not a single bomb was dropped by an American aircraft anywhere in the world.

Think about that for a moment. Since 9/11, an entire generation came into its majority not experiencing their homeland at peace for a single day. Jimmy Carter managed it for four years- and you can’t use the “Well, it was a different world” argument. During the 1977-1981 period that Carter occupied the White House, America was still firmly engaged in the Cold War, facing off against the USSR. We still lived with the genuine fear of nuclear annihilation.

Jimmy Carter was indeed a man from another era. Presidents after him usually came from wealthy backgrounds, often with Ivy League educations. Carter came from Plains, GA, a world few of us would recognize today.

To say that it was a world that would shape his view of humanity and race relations would be something of an understatement. He grew up in the only White family in Plains, an area that one could charitably describe as poverty-stricken.

Born in 1924 to Earl and Lillian Carter, virtually the only landowning family in Archery, Ga. (Plains, more famous as Carter’s hometown, is 2.5 miles away), Jimmy Carter certainly enjoyed status despite living in what many Americans would consider poverty. The Carters were the only white family in town. Most of the population of 200 consisted of Earl’s Black tenants. Although considered well off in the rural South of the first decades of the 20th century, the family didn’t have running water until Carter was 11 and didn’t get electricity until three years later. “The greatest day in my life was not being inaugurated president, [and] it wasn’t even marrying Rosalynn — it was when they turned the electricity on,” Carter later recalled.

We’ve all heard the stories of how Carter rose above his humble peanut-farmer upbringing to become President. His story is a variation of “rags to riches,” though he never sought riches. He sought service.

He graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1946 and served aboard several submarines. When his father died in 1953, he returned home to Plains to run the family peanut farm. He then served as a state senator in Georgia from 1963-67 and Governor of the Peach State from 1970-75.

Despite being a virtual unknown outside Georgia, Carter somehow won the 1976 Democratic nomination for President. He defeated then-President Gerald Ford in the general election, primarily because Americans were angry that Ford had pardoned Richard Nixon after he’d resigned in August 1974.

Carter’s Presidency was snake-bit almost from the moment he took office. Because he was still an unknown quantity (a considerable amount of votes had been against Ford, not FOR Carter), many Americans had no idea what they were getting in Jimmy Carter. What they got was someone who didn’t fit the Washington press corps’ vision of a President. He was different- more open, more vulnerable, more emotional, and more honest. Of course, the mainstream press would use all of those qualities against him during his tenure. But, to his credit, he never let that change him. He continued to be the same Jimmy Carter, though as the ‘70s came to an end, it was clear that the Presidency was taking a severe toll.

There’s an old saying inside the Beltway- “If you want a friend, get a dog.” It’s sad, but also very accurate. Unfortunately, politics in official Washington can be dog-eat-dog, and EVERYONE is wearing Milk-Bone underwear, no one more so than a sitting President. Jimmy Carter wanted to be a compassionate and caring President because that’s who he truly is. It’s neither a gimmick nor an act. If there’s one thing that’s become clear over the past 40 years, it’s that Carter is a genuinely kind and selfless person.

That’s not something people inside the Beltway respect. In official Washington, compassion translates as weakness, and kindness as evidence of moral turpitude. If you’re not willing to play the game- “kill or be killed”- you can count on being chewed up and spit out. Politics is rough and tumble, and it’s not for those with a conscience or a sense of fair play.

Carter's loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980 ushered in one of the darkest periods in American history. Of course, Reagan was a gifted actor born to play the role, and Carter refused to be anything except what he was. By the time the election rolled around, the Iran hostage crisis had mortally wounded Carter’s Presidency. It didn’t help that the Iranians manipulated the situation in the hope of defeating Carter.

The mainstream media had also spent four years portraying Carter as a weak and pusillanimous President, clearly lacking the cojones to defend American prerogatives. That this was nowhere near true hardly mattered; it had been presented as the truth for so long that Americans came to accept it as Gospel. Thus, to them, Carter was weak, indecisive, and unfit to occupy the Oval Office.

It’s ironic that losing the 1980 Presidential election was the best thing that could have happened to Carter. It freed him from the constraints of politics and the overbearing, self-important Washington press corps. Instead, he decided that he could, and would, use his status as a former President to do some real good in the world. He’d pursue causes that he could never have as President.

In doing so, he would show the world what someone genuinely committed to leading a compassionate, Christ-like life could accomplish.

In 1982, to promote and expand human rights, he established the Carter Center. It became a springboard for efforts worldwide to assist poor and developing nations around the world with establishing and growing democratic systems and processes.

Carter has traveled extensively over the years to conduct sensitive peace negotiations, monitor elections, and assist with preventing and eradicating diseases in developing nations. In addition, he’s become Habitat for Humanity’s most visible and committed volunteer. He continues to help build houses for the poor to this day with his wife, Rosalynn, to whom he’s been married since 1946 (et tu, Donald Trump??).

I’d wager there aren’t many 97-year-olds who can still wield a hammer with the skill and zeal of Jimmy Carter. Or keep a marriage together for 75 years, for that matter.

Carter has also written more than 30 books on numerous subjects. Yes, he may be celebrating his 97th birthday, but this former President hasn’t slowed down much. He’s still doing what he can while he still can.

I feel fortunate to have come of age when Jimmy Carter was President. I didn’t understand what a treasure he was at the time. Like most Americans, I bought into the portrait painted of him by the mainstream press, who almost uniformly hated him.

Sadly, Jimmy Carter may well have been the most misunderstood President in American history.

In 1980, I was a sophomore in college. Being young, impressionable (and wanting to get laid), I let a girl I had a serious thing for persuade me to work for John Anderson’s campaign. Anderson, a rogue Republican from Illinois who was running as an independent, had no shot. I didn’t care, and I was thinking with the wrong head, anyway. (Sadly, I never did get laid, so the election was a disaster all the way around.)

In retrospect, Carter’s (and America’s) loss was the world’s gain.

Since leaving office in 1981, Carter has worked to make the world a better place, and few could argue with his success. I may be an atheist, but I admire those who legitimately endeavor to live their faith, something that Jimmy Carter has quietly done his entire life. He’s not looking to attract attention, except insofar as he can convince others to join him in his work.

Many of us can say that we’ve made our world a better place, even if only in a small way…and that’s a great thing. Unfortunately, Jimmy Carter has left all of us in the dust. It’s a good thing it’s not a competition.

Happy 97th birthday to former President Jimmy Carter, who has done more good throughout his long life than most of us could ever envision accomplishing. I can only hope that he has many more vibrant years left.

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