13 ms·

Jimmy Carter saved Canadian nuclear reactor after meltdown

137 points by georgecmu 5y ago

incomingpain 5y ago
Jimmy Carter is an interesting US president that I like and yet don't understand. After just 1 term he remarkably lost to Reagan. I just never quite understood why he lost so badly.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  Bad economy, high inflation, energy crisis, and pretty bad international context (Iran, Afghanistan).
  - willnonya 5y ago
    - pyronik19 5y ago
  - smt88 5y ago
    This is the correct answer. Carter would have lost to a significantly worse candidate than Reagan if they hadn't had Reagan. Studies don't show that Americans vote much based on foreign policy, but they certainly crush the current president and Congress when the economy is bad and inflation is high. It doesn't matter whether he did anything to cause it or not.
    - adventured 5y ago
      Which is one big reason why Biden's polls are so horrific presently (high inflation, negative wage growth, very serious concerns about the future including cost of living; so he's getting the blame and is viewed as being not very competent).
      - UncleOxidant 5y ago
        Yes, in many ways this is feeling like a re-run of the late 70s. Biden has done a competent job, especially given the hand he was dealt. But the electorate is blaming Biden for a lot of things that are outside of his control - this inflation, for example, it's mostly due to the pandemic, but the trade wars started by the previous president would have led to inflation even without the pandemic. Russia invading Ukraine seems to rhyme with the Soviet Union invading Afghanistan in 1980. Carter was not to blame for the latter and neither is Biden to blame for the former, but there was and will be political fallout.
    - incomingpain 5y ago
      >This is the correct answer. Carter would have lost to a significantly worse candidate than Reagan if they hadn't had Reagan. Do you feel like there's current events comparison of Carter vs Biden? >but they certainly crush the current president and Congress when the economy is bad and inflation is high. Economy is doing pretty good, starting to kick in post-pandemic recovery boost. https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/gdp-growth-rate?continent=world https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/gdp-growth-rate?co... Yes inflation is out of control but economy is looking great right now. >It doesn't matter whether he did anything to cause it or not. I find that the case. When the economy is doing well, both sides claim success. Current president claims his actions and previous president claims older actions took some time to work out. When the economy isn't doing well, both sides claim not me. It was the other guy's fault.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  Because in politics winning or losing elections has nothing to do with competence but with popularity and how good you are at moving the blame off yourself to your competitors.
  - willnonya 5y ago
    So, you're saying it has nothing to do with competence but everything to do with, competence? Just because the things that makes politicians successful don't make for particularly good people doesn't negate Carter's lack of proficiency in the field.
    - jpgvm 5y ago
      There is a big difference between being proficient at managing a countries affairs and being popular by the means you manage the countries affairs. In the modern age this is even more apparent because of the media and how stupidly polarising it is compared to the era of Carter, Reagan and Nixon. Best example that comes to mind is Kevin Rudd - Prime Minister of Australia. Supremely competent, both as a diplomat but also as a leader. However his popularity was destroyed by a campaign but Rupert Murdoch after he started to implement his campaign promise of a national fibre-to-the-home network. Ironically most people think it was his mining "super-tax" that turned the media against him but that was very much just a cover-up for the real reason Murdoch wanted him out. Carter is different because the sentiment at the time was such there really wasn't a lot he could do. No ammount of competency was going to rescue the mess Nixon created. By decoupling the worlds currency system from gold and simultanously creating a situation where domestic oil production peaked the oil crisis was bound to happen eventually. The devaluation of the USD caused real loss in incomes from the middle-eastern countries and they (perhaps rightfully?) used this leverage to ratchet up prices and secure their own futures at the expense of global economic activity. They both fucked up though because the resulting oil glut really screwed the middle east in the following decade. Either way, I don't buy the argument that Carter was incompetent because he didn't win a second term. I don't think anyone could have in those conditions and I also don't think he really had the power to change them. He did a decent job of implementing policies that would eventually shield the US from OPEC shenanigans but they took a long time to come to fruition, much too late to save his second term.
- OneLeggedCat 5y ago
  Anyone would have lost to Reagan. He was extremely charismatic.
- recuter 5y ago
  “I can’t believe Reagan won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.” Yes, I know the quote is paraphrased and was originally about Nixon. I just find this befuddlement why Jimmy Carter lost amusing. Man got very badly played: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter%27s_engagement_with_Ruhollah_Khomeini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter%27s_engagement_wi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis He was also attacked by a bunny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident
  - wallfacer120 5y ago
    How is the 79 oil crisis an example of Carter getting "played" exactly?
    - DonHopkins 5y ago
      Or the sensationalized "killer rabbit attack" for that matter. The fact that someone would bend over backwards to misinterpret a sensationalized incident with a wild animal as Carter "being played" says more about that person's preconceived political ideology than Carter's, and identifies them as one of Carter's "political and ideological opponents". How exactly does a swimming rabbit "play" a human being, or frame him as hapless and enfeebled? >The incident with the rabbit became fodder for political and ideological opponents who wanted to frame Carter's presidency as hapless and enfeebled, although the event's proximity to the U.S. release of the comedy feature film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which includes scenes of a killer rabbit slaying humans, led to some people describing Carter as having "fended off a killer rabbit" instead. To get back to the actual point of this discussion, why do you believe that the sensationalized story about Carter "being attacked by a bunny" is more indicative of whether Carter was hapless, enfeebled, or getting played, than the objective historical fact that he bravely and selflessly risked his own life and health by saving a Canadian nuclear reactor after a meltdown? Edit: I saw that. You just edited your comment to tell me that editing my comment (to add more information) is bad form, then you quickly edited your comment again to remove that remark after you remembered that was exactly what you were doing and have already done several times in this discussion, yourself (to change the meaning of your post). And that shows your intellectual dishonesty. So please stick to the discussion topic and reply to the points I raised, instead of hypocritically admonishing me not to do exactly what you've already just done repeatedly (like your "Racism bad" addendum -- we all already know that, but your original "So?" post sounded like you didn't believe that, so you had to add that obvious disclaimer, followed by more racism apologetic non-sequiturs, attempting to excuse Reagan's racism by pointing out that he used to be a Democrat). Denying and making excuses and carrying the water for racism is much worse form than editing comments, but "there you go again", to quote Reagan.
- CalChris 5y ago
  Reagan was an entertainer for people who wanted entertainment. Carter was a decent man replaced by a vain man.
  - drewcoo 5y ago
    They were both neoliberals who pushed deregulation. And both were union-busters. Carter was the beginning of that trend, in fact, putting an end to FDR's legacy. Reagan just did it more palatably, with a smile and a joke.
    - CalChris 5y ago
      Despite being a union member and president of the SAG, Reagan is well known for firing the air traffic controllers. In California, he was against the UFW's grape boycott. As governor, he vetoed the legislation which would have given the farm workers the right to organize. Reagan was unquestionably anti-labor despite perversely being inducted into the Labor Hall of Fame by Trump's Labor Secretary. Carter was the beginning of none of this.
- wallfacer120 5y ago
  Because voters reason like language models, not like symbolic ais.
- UncleOxidant 5y ago
  It was mostly due to the Iranian hostage crisis. Every night on TV there was a count "Day 123: America held hostage!" - this was when the ABC news show Nightline with Ted Koppel got it's start. Also, the economy wasn't great. We had inflation - though to be fair that started during the Nixon/Ford admins and was largely due to 1) Vietnam war spending and 2) the Arab oil embargo. Unemployment was also fairly high (around this time the term 'stagflation' was coined.) Carter appointed Paul Volcker as Fed chairman in '79 with the full knowledge that Volcker planned to significantly raise interest rates in order to curb inflation - in fact, Volcker did not expect to be chosen as Fed chairman because he made it clear to Carter in his interview that he would significantly raise rates. By the time of the election the Fed rate was around 13% which began to slow the economy significantly. Add to this that Carter was very honest with the American people that they needed to consume less and develop alternative forms of energy to become less dependent on authoritarian regimes. Well, it was all too much for most of the electorate. Carter did the hard things that needed to be done. Volcker raising interest rates was absolutely the right thing to do and it did quell inflation a few years down the road, but Carter bore the brunt of the immediate political fallout. Carter was thinking further ahead than probably any president in my lifetime (from JFK through Biden). He was the first president to take climate change seriously. If we would've listened to him I think we wouldn't be in a lot of the messes we're in now. But American politics is a short-term game... and it's even moreso now than it was then.
  - pstuart 5y ago
    And when discussing that hostage crisis we would be remiss if we did not include the October Surprise that ensured said crisis would hurt Carter: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/01/ronald-reagan-october-surprise-carter-iran-hostage-crisis-conspiracy https://jacobinmag.com/2020/01/ronald-reagan-october-surpris...
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  "I just never quite understood why he lost so badly." The hostage crisis probably broke him (the rescue attempt was a total disaster. Not his fault but it looked terrible) plus the inflation fighting Volker did. Reagan was also an excellent communicator. Hard to campaign against a guy like him.
- indymike 5y ago
  > After just 1 term he remarkably lost to Reagan. American voters are very unforgiving to bad economies and bad foreign policy outcomes. Carter was the victim of both, and Reagan was a formidable candidate.
DSingularity 5y ago
Jimmy Carter. A great president treated like an outcast. If you fight for things like fair elections or against things like apartheid you will be demoted despite your credentials.
- hsnewman 5y ago
  Only by people who don't want fair elections and apartheid. He was a good president.
  - recuter 5y ago
    Only, huh? You know it is quite tiresome this attitude of "if you don't vote like me you're literally pro terrible thing". It is just as annoying as people who would accuse Carter voters of being limp wristed champagne communists. A lot of the people who voted for him the first time around did not vote for him the second time around for a variety of reasons. Primarily his perceived job performance.
    - DonHopkins 5y ago
      “To watch that thing on television, as I did, to see those, those monkeys from those African countries – damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Reagan tells Nixon, who erupts in laughter. A lot of those people voted for Reagan primarily because of his perceived and actual manifest racism and dog whistles, the exact same reason they and the racist children they raised also voted for Trump. How Ronald Reagan’s Racism Helped Pave the Way for Donald Trump’s https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a34733508/reagans-showtime-racism-matt-tyrnauer-ian-haney-lopez-donald-trump/ https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a34733508/reagans-s... >“The Republican Party has consistently used Reagan for their moral authority, but I think that there are many aspects of the Reagan presidency that do not hold up under scrutiny and cannot be used as the basis for a moral argument for Republicanism,” Tyrnauer tells Esquire. The “huge amount of dog-whistle racism that came from Reagan's own lips,” he says, “was under-reported in the time and has been virtually erased from the popular imagination.” >Using archival footage and interviews with journalists, experts, and members of the former president’s circle, including his son Ron Reagan, Sunday’s episode examines the ways in which Reagan utilized racism that tapped into the nation’s oldest bigotries while being just subtle enough to be denied. He kicked off his run as 1980’s Republican presidential nominee with an appearance at the Neshoba, Mississippi county fair, where he professed his commitment to states’ rights. Lauding federalism at a campaign could seem reasonable enough, but the subtext is insidious. Neshoba county was infamous for the 1964 Freedom Summer murders of civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, and appeals to states’ rights have long been used to justify southern states’ refusal to enact civil rights measures. By touting himself as a states’ rights candidate near the site of one of the nation’s most famous hate crimes, Reagan offered voters a racism that was both obvious and unspoken. Ronald Reagan: No defence for 'monkeys' remark, says daughter https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49207451 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49207451 >The daughter of the late US President Ronald Reagan has said there is "no defence" for racist comments he made in a 1971 phone conversation. >Newly unearthed tapes reveal Reagan - then Governor of California - described UN African delegates as "monkeys". >His daughter Patti Davis condemned the remarks in a newspaper article. >"There is no defence, no rationalisation, no suitable explanation for what my father said," she wrote. The Myth of the Welfare Queen https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen How a Historian Uncovered Ronald Reagan’s Racist Remarks to Richard Nixon https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-a-historian-uncovered-ronald-reagans-racist-remarks-to-richard-nixon https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-a-historian-uncov... >In a taped call with Richard Nixon, from 1971, that the historian Tim Naftali recently made public, Ronald Reagan described the African delegates to the United Nations in luridly racist terms.Photograph from Bettmann / Getty OPINION: Ronald Reagan is a symbol of systemic racism. It’s time to rename our high school. https://milwaukeenns.org/2020/07/16/opinion-ronald-reagan-is-a-symbol-of-systemic-racism-its-time-to-rename-our-high-school/ https://milwaukeenns.org/2020/07/16/opinion-ronald-reagan-is... Ronald Reagan’s Long-Hidden Racist Conversation With Richard Nixon https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-rea...
quanto 5y ago
Disheartening is to hear that people view Carter as a nice guy but incompetent. "Nice guys finish last." Perhaps it is ingrained in our Western culture that we expect leaders to be aggressive and aggrandizing. Carter is the only modern president to have a successful second career after presidency -- through the Carter Center. He has detractors as all politicians do, but to call him incompetent belies his long and varied career, including the one in this article.
- throwaway936592 5y ago
- willnonya 5y ago
  It's a fallacy to believe that intelligence or competency in one field translates to competency in all fields. An admittedly intelligent and nice guy he wasn't a particularly competent president. Looking at his term through the lense of sympathy rather than history gives a distorted picture.
  - coolso 5y ago
    > Looking at his term through the lense of sympathy rather than history gives a distorted picture. In light of comparisons of the current President to him, the current meme seems to be to consider Carter “an actually very good, misunderstood President” in the hopes of neutering the insult.
  - DantesKite 5y ago
    Herber Hoover is a brilliant example of this. Great engineer. Terrible president.
    - jhbadger 5y ago
      Also translator (with his wife Lou) of Latin into English -- specifically Agricola's De Re Metallica (an early treatise on mining). Their 1912 edition (obviously published long before his presidency) is still the most common English translation of the work to this day.
blantonl 5y ago
I would imagine that in military and defense circles, there are hundreds of highly classified nuclear incidents that we'll never, ever know about in our lifetimes. The work and materials that these folks worked with in the 50's and 60's were probably so outrageously dangerous that it would bend the mind to think what they were capable of accidentally doing and how much destruction and mayhem that was/could have been caused due to a mistake.
- robonerd 5y ago
  Close calls can certainly be hidden, but serious nuclear accidents that result in appreciable release of radioactive materials are another story. Those are very hard to hide for long (there have certainly been attempts though.) I think by now we know about about most of the accidents. For instance, the British government initially tried to cover up the Windscale fire, but they couldn't hide the release of Polonium.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  See the Santa Susana field lab and other coverups. Dark of the Valley is a recent doc on the situation. In short, they built a reactor in the hills in a simple building without containment. Worked fine until it exploded.
DonHopkins 5y ago
Jimmy Carter will always be my favorite Amazing Colossal President, as Rodney Dangerfield described in the SNL "The Pepsi Syndrome" sketch: https://m.facebook.com/tapewrecks/videos/the-pepsi-syndrome/533858710873763/ https://m.facebook.com/tapewrecks/videos/the-pepsi-syndrome/... https://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78ppepsi.phtml 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
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  This was a great skit, just recently was introduced to it on this very site. May have seen it as a child, it certainly reminds me of that time.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    Bill Murray + Richard Benjamin + Tom Davis + Al Franken + Dan Aykroyd + Laraine Newman + Garret Morris + Jane Curtin + Rodney Dangerfield + Gilda Radner What could POSSIBLY go wrong??? ;)
wallfacer120 5y ago
Jimmy Carter rocked -- the image of him as weak or mealy-mouthed is the complete opposite of correct. Read about how he dealt with the Iranian hostage crisis, he had iron principles and nerves of steel. Reagan, on the other hand, got utterly played by the Iranians. The fact that Carter was a genius is pretty cool too.
- drewcoo 5y ago
  I don't think the October surprise was "getting played by the Iranians." Nor was Iran-Contra. Reagan was connected, with a VP ex-CIA chief, no less. Carter is known for his "crisis of confidence" speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IlRVy7oZ58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IlRVy7oZ58
- antattack 5y ago
  Carter's administration supplied US arms to Indonesia fighting East Timor: "I saw intelligence that came from hard, firm sources in East Timor. There were people being herded into school buildings and set on fire. There were people herded into fields and machine-gunned. ... We knew the place was a free-fire zone and that Suharto was given the green light by the United States to do what he did. We sent the Indonesian generals everything that you need to fight a major war against somebody who doesn't have any guns. We sent them rifles, ammunition, mortars, grenades, food, helicopters. You name it; they got it. ... None of that got out in the media. No one gave a damn. It is something that I will be forever ashamed of. The only justification I ever heard for what we were doing was the concern that East Timor was on the verge of being accepted as a new member of the United Nations and there was a chance that the country was going to be either leftist or neutralist and not likely to vote [with the United States] at the UN."[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_invasion_of_East_Timor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_invasion_of_East_Ti...
  - wallfacer120 5y ago
    What is it that you think this proves?
- Maursault 5y ago

137 points by georgecmu 5y ago

Jimmy Carter is an interesting US president that I like and yet don't understand. After just 1 term he remarkably lost to Reagan. I just never quite understood why he lost so badly.

mytailorisrich 5y ago
Bad economy, high inflation, energy crisis, and pretty bad international context (Iran, Afghanistan).
- willnonya 5y ago
  - pyronik19 5y ago
- smt88 5y ago
  This is the correct answer. Carter would have lost to a significantly worse candidate than Reagan if they hadn't had Reagan. Studies don't show that Americans vote much based on foreign policy, but they certainly crush the current president and Congress when the economy is bad and inflation is high. It doesn't matter whether he did anything to cause it or not.
  - adventured 5y ago
    Which is one big reason why Biden's polls are so horrific presently (high inflation, negative wage growth, very serious concerns about the future including cost of living; so he's getting the blame and is viewed as being not very competent).
    - UncleOxidant 5y ago
      Yes, in many ways this is feeling like a re-run of the late 70s. Biden has done a competent job, especially given the hand he was dealt. But the electorate is blaming Biden for a lot of things that are outside of his control - this inflation, for example, it's mostly due to the pandemic, but the trade wars started by the previous president would have led to inflation even without the pandemic. Russia invading Ukraine seems to rhyme with the Soviet Union invading Afghanistan in 1980. Carter was not to blame for the latter and neither is Biden to blame for the former, but there was and will be political fallout.
  - incomingpain 5y ago
    >This is the correct answer. Carter would have lost to a significantly worse candidate than Reagan if they hadn't had Reagan. Do you feel like there's current events comparison of Carter vs Biden? >but they certainly crush the current president and Congress when the economy is bad and inflation is high. Economy is doing pretty good, starting to kick in post-pandemic recovery boost. https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/gdp-growth-rate?continent=world https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/gdp-growth-rate?co... Yes inflation is out of control but economy is looking great right now. >It doesn't matter whether he did anything to cause it or not. I find that the case. When the economy is doing well, both sides claim success. Current president claims his actions and previous president claims older actions took some time to work out. When the economy isn't doing well, both sides claim not me. It was the other guy's fault.
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
Because in politics winning or losing elections has nothing to do with competence but with popularity and how good you are at moving the blame off yourself to your competitors.
- willnonya 5y ago
  So, you're saying it has nothing to do with competence but everything to do with, competence? Just because the things that makes politicians successful don't make for particularly good people doesn't negate Carter's lack of proficiency in the field.
  - jpgvm 5y ago
    There is a big difference between being proficient at managing a countries affairs and being popular by the means you manage the countries affairs. In the modern age this is even more apparent because of the media and how stupidly polarising it is compared to the era of Carter, Reagan and Nixon. Best example that comes to mind is Kevin Rudd - Prime Minister of Australia. Supremely competent, both as a diplomat but also as a leader. However his popularity was destroyed by a campaign but Rupert Murdoch after he started to implement his campaign promise of a national fibre-to-the-home network. Ironically most people think it was his mining "super-tax" that turned the media against him but that was very much just a cover-up for the real reason Murdoch wanted him out. Carter is different because the sentiment at the time was such there really wasn't a lot he could do. No ammount of competency was going to rescue the mess Nixon created. By decoupling the worlds currency system from gold and simultanously creating a situation where domestic oil production peaked the oil crisis was bound to happen eventually. The devaluation of the USD caused real loss in incomes from the middle-eastern countries and they (perhaps rightfully?) used this leverage to ratchet up prices and secure their own futures at the expense of global economic activity. They both fucked up though because the resulting oil glut really screwed the middle east in the following decade. Either way, I don't buy the argument that Carter was incompetent because he didn't win a second term. I don't think anyone could have in those conditions and I also don't think he really had the power to change them. He did a decent job of implementing policies that would eventually shield the US from OPEC shenanigans but they took a long time to come to fruition, much too late to save his second term.
OneLeggedCat 5y ago
Anyone would have lost to Reagan. He was extremely charismatic.
recuter 5y ago
“I can’t believe Reagan won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.” Yes, I know the quote is paraphrased and was originally about Nixon. I just find this befuddlement why Jimmy Carter lost amusing. Man got very badly played: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter%27s_engagement_with_Ruhollah_Khomeini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter%27s_engagement_wi... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis He was also attacked by a bunny: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident
- wallfacer120 5y ago
  How is the 79 oil crisis an example of Carter getting "played" exactly?
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    Or the sensationalized "killer rabbit attack" for that matter. The fact that someone would bend over backwards to misinterpret a sensationalized incident with a wild animal as Carter "being played" says more about that person's preconceived political ideology than Carter's, and identifies them as one of Carter's "political and ideological opponents". How exactly does a swimming rabbit "play" a human being, or frame him as hapless and enfeebled? >The incident with the rabbit became fodder for political and ideological opponents who wanted to frame Carter's presidency as hapless and enfeebled, although the event's proximity to the U.S. release of the comedy feature film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which includes scenes of a killer rabbit slaying humans, led to some people describing Carter as having "fended off a killer rabbit" instead. To get back to the actual point of this discussion, why do you believe that the sensationalized story about Carter "being attacked by a bunny" is more indicative of whether Carter was hapless, enfeebled, or getting played, than the objective historical fact that he bravely and selflessly risked his own life and health by saving a Canadian nuclear reactor after a meltdown? Edit: I saw that. You just edited your comment to tell me that editing my comment (to add more information) is bad form, then you quickly edited your comment again to remove that remark after you remembered that was exactly what you were doing and have already done several times in this discussion, yourself (to change the meaning of your post). And that shows your intellectual dishonesty. So please stick to the discussion topic and reply to the points I raised, instead of hypocritically admonishing me not to do exactly what you've already just done repeatedly (like your "Racism bad" addendum -- we all already know that, but your original "So?" post sounded like you didn't believe that, so you had to add that obvious disclaimer, followed by more racism apologetic non-sequiturs, attempting to excuse Reagan's racism by pointing out that he used to be a Democrat). Denying and making excuses and carrying the water for racism is much worse form than editing comments, but "there you go again", to quote Reagan.
CalChris 5y ago
Reagan was an entertainer for people who wanted entertainment. Carter was a decent man replaced by a vain man.
- drewcoo 5y ago
  They were both neoliberals who pushed deregulation. And both were union-busters. Carter was the beginning of that trend, in fact, putting an end to FDR's legacy. Reagan just did it more palatably, with a smile and a joke.
  - CalChris 5y ago
    Despite being a union member and president of the SAG, Reagan is well known for firing the air traffic controllers. In California, he was against the UFW's grape boycott. As governor, he vetoed the legislation which would have given the farm workers the right to organize. Reagan was unquestionably anti-labor despite perversely being inducted into the Labor Hall of Fame by Trump's Labor Secretary. Carter was the beginning of none of this.
wallfacer120 5y ago
Because voters reason like language models, not like symbolic ais.
UncleOxidant 5y ago
It was mostly due to the Iranian hostage crisis. Every night on TV there was a count "Day 123: America held hostage!" - this was when the ABC news show Nightline with Ted Koppel got it's start. Also, the economy wasn't great. We had inflation - though to be fair that started during the Nixon/Ford admins and was largely due to 1) Vietnam war spending and 2) the Arab oil embargo. Unemployment was also fairly high (around this time the term 'stagflation' was coined.) Carter appointed Paul Volcker as Fed chairman in '79 with the full knowledge that Volcker planned to significantly raise interest rates in order to curb inflation - in fact, Volcker did not expect to be chosen as Fed chairman because he made it clear to Carter in his interview that he would significantly raise rates. By the time of the election the Fed rate was around 13% which began to slow the economy significantly. Add to this that Carter was very honest with the American people that they needed to consume less and develop alternative forms of energy to become less dependent on authoritarian regimes. Well, it was all too much for most of the electorate. Carter did the hard things that needed to be done. Volcker raising interest rates was absolutely the right thing to do and it did quell inflation a few years down the road, but Carter bore the brunt of the immediate political fallout. Carter was thinking further ahead than probably any president in my lifetime (from JFK through Biden). He was the first president to take climate change seriously. If we would've listened to him I think we wouldn't be in a lot of the messes we're in now. But American politics is a short-term game... and it's even moreso now than it was then.
- pstuart 5y ago
  And when discussing that hostage crisis we would be remiss if we did not include the October Surprise that ensured said crisis would hurt Carter: https://jacobinmag.com/2020/01/ronald-reagan-october-surprise-carter-iran-hostage-crisis-conspiracy https://jacobinmag.com/2020/01/ronald-reagan-october-surpris...
spaetzleesser 5y ago
"I just never quite understood why he lost so badly." The hostage crisis probably broke him (the rescue attempt was a total disaster. Not his fault but it looked terrible) plus the inflation fighting Volker did. Reagan was also an excellent communicator. Hard to campaign against a guy like him.
indymike 5y ago
> After just 1 term he remarkably lost to Reagan. American voters are very unforgiving to bad economies and bad foreign policy outcomes. Carter was the victim of both, and Reagan was a formidable candidate.

DSingularity 5y ago

Jimmy Carter. A great president treated like an outcast. If you fight for things like fair elections or against things like apartheid you will be demoted despite your credentials.

hsnewman 5y ago
Only by people who don't want fair elections and apartheid. He was a good president.
- recuter 5y ago
  Only, huh? You know it is quite tiresome this attitude of "if you don't vote like me you're literally pro terrible thing". It is just as annoying as people who would accuse Carter voters of being limp wristed champagne communists. A lot of the people who voted for him the first time around did not vote for him the second time around for a variety of reasons. Primarily his perceived job performance.
  - DonHopkins 5y ago
    “To watch that thing on television, as I did, to see those, those monkeys from those African countries – damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Reagan tells Nixon, who erupts in laughter. A lot of those people voted for Reagan primarily because of his perceived and actual manifest racism and dog whistles, the exact same reason they and the racist children they raised also voted for Trump. How Ronald Reagan’s Racism Helped Pave the Way for Donald Trump’s https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a34733508/reagans-showtime-racism-matt-tyrnauer-ian-haney-lopez-donald-trump/ https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a34733508/reagans-s... >“The Republican Party has consistently used Reagan for their moral authority, but I think that there are many aspects of the Reagan presidency that do not hold up under scrutiny and cannot be used as the basis for a moral argument for Republicanism,” Tyrnauer tells Esquire. The “huge amount of dog-whistle racism that came from Reagan's own lips,” he says, “was under-reported in the time and has been virtually erased from the popular imagination.” >Using archival footage and interviews with journalists, experts, and members of the former president’s circle, including his son Ron Reagan, Sunday’s episode examines the ways in which Reagan utilized racism that tapped into the nation’s oldest bigotries while being just subtle enough to be denied. He kicked off his run as 1980’s Republican presidential nominee with an appearance at the Neshoba, Mississippi county fair, where he professed his commitment to states’ rights. Lauding federalism at a campaign could seem reasonable enough, but the subtext is insidious. Neshoba county was infamous for the 1964 Freedom Summer murders of civil rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, and appeals to states’ rights have long been used to justify southern states’ refusal to enact civil rights measures. By touting himself as a states’ rights candidate near the site of one of the nation’s most famous hate crimes, Reagan offered voters a racism that was both obvious and unspoken. Ronald Reagan: No defence for 'monkeys' remark, says daughter https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49207451 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49207451 >The daughter of the late US President Ronald Reagan has said there is "no defence" for racist comments he made in a 1971 phone conversation. >Newly unearthed tapes reveal Reagan - then Governor of California - described UN African delegates as "monkeys". >His daughter Patti Davis condemned the remarks in a newspaper article. >"There is no defence, no rationalisation, no suitable explanation for what my father said," she wrote. The Myth of the Welfare Queen https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen https://newrepublic.com/article/154404/myth-welfare-queen How a Historian Uncovered Ronald Reagan’s Racist Remarks to Richard Nixon https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-a-historian-uncovered-ronald-reagans-racist-remarks-to-richard-nixon https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-a-historian-uncov... >In a taped call with Richard Nixon, from 1971, that the historian Tim Naftali recently made public, Ronald Reagan described the African delegates to the United Nations in luridly racist terms.Photograph from Bettmann / Getty OPINION: Ronald Reagan is a symbol of systemic racism. It’s time to rename our high school. https://milwaukeenns.org/2020/07/16/opinion-ronald-reagan-is-a-symbol-of-systemic-racism-its-time-to-rename-our-high-school/ https://milwaukeenns.org/2020/07/16/opinion-ronald-reagan-is... Ronald Reagan’s Long-Hidden Racist Conversation With Richard Nixon https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-rea...

quanto 5y ago

Disheartening is to hear that people view Carter as a nice guy but incompetent. "Nice guys finish last." Perhaps it is ingrained in our Western culture that we expect leaders to be aggressive and aggrandizing. Carter is the only modern president to have a successful second career after presidency -- through the Carter Center. He has detractors as all politicians do, but to call him incompetent belies his long and varied career, including the one in this article.

throwaway936592 5y ago
willnonya 5y ago
It's a fallacy to believe that intelligence or competency in one field translates to competency in all fields. An admittedly intelligent and nice guy he wasn't a particularly competent president. Looking at his term through the lense of sympathy rather than history gives a distorted picture.
- coolso 5y ago
  > Looking at his term through the lense of sympathy rather than history gives a distorted picture. In light of comparisons of the current President to him, the current meme seems to be to consider Carter “an actually very good, misunderstood President” in the hopes of neutering the insult.
- DantesKite 5y ago
  Herber Hoover is a brilliant example of this. Great engineer. Terrible president.
  - jhbadger 5y ago
    Also translator (with his wife Lou) of Latin into English -- specifically Agricola's De Re Metallica (an early treatise on mining). Their 1912 edition (obviously published long before his presidency) is still the most common English translation of the work to this day.

blantonl 5y ago

I would imagine that in military and defense circles, there are hundreds of highly classified nuclear incidents that we'll never, ever know about in our lifetimes. The work and materials that these folks worked with in the 50's and 60's were probably so outrageously dangerous that it would bend the mind to think what they were capable of accidentally doing and how much destruction and mayhem that was/could have been caused due to a mistake.

robonerd 5y ago
Close calls can certainly be hidden, but serious nuclear accidents that result in appreciable release of radioactive materials are another story. Those are very hard to hide for long (there have certainly been attempts though.) I think by now we know about about most of the accidents. For instance, the British government initially tried to cover up the Windscale fire, but they couldn't hide the release of Polonium.
mixmastamyk 5y ago
See the Santa Susana field lab and other coverups. Dark of the Valley is a recent doc on the situation. In short, they built a reactor in the hills in a simple building without containment. Worked fine until it exploded.

DonHopkins 5y ago

Jimmy Carter will always be my favorite Amazing Colossal President, as Rodney Dangerfield described in the SNL "The Pepsi Syndrome" sketch: https://m.facebook.com/tapewrecks/videos/the-pepsi-syndrome/533858710873763/ https://m.facebook.com/tapewrecks/videos/the-pepsi-syndrome/... https://snltranscripts.jt.org/78/78ppepsi.phtml 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

mixmastamyk 5y ago
This was a great skit, just recently was introduced to it on this very site. May have seen it as a child, it certainly reminds me of that time.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  Bill Murray + Richard Benjamin + Tom Davis + Al Franken + Dan Aykroyd + Laraine Newman + Garret Morris + Jane Curtin + Rodney Dangerfield + Gilda Radner What could POSSIBLY go wrong??? ;)

wallfacer120 5y ago

Jimmy Carter rocked -- the image of him as weak or mealy-mouthed is the complete opposite of correct. Read about how he dealt with the Iranian hostage crisis, he had iron principles and nerves of steel. Reagan, on the other hand, got utterly played by the Iranians. The fact that Carter was a genius is pretty cool too.

drewcoo 5y ago
I don't think the October surprise was "getting played by the Iranians." Nor was Iran-Contra. Reagan was connected, with a VP ex-CIA chief, no less. Carter is known for his "crisis of confidence" speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IlRVy7oZ58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IlRVy7oZ58
antattack 5y ago
Carter's administration supplied US arms to Indonesia fighting East Timor: "I saw intelligence that came from hard, firm sources in East Timor. There were people being herded into school buildings and set on fire. There were people herded into fields and machine-gunned. ... We knew the place was a free-fire zone and that Suharto was given the green light by the United States to do what he did. We sent the Indonesian generals everything that you need to fight a major war against somebody who doesn't have any guns. We sent them rifles, ammunition, mortars, grenades, food, helicopters. You name it; they got it. ... None of that got out in the media. No one gave a damn. It is something that I will be forever ashamed of. The only justification I ever heard for what we were doing was the concern that East Timor was on the verge of being accepted as a new member of the United Nations and there was a chance that the country was going to be either leftist or neutralist and not likely to vote [with the United States] at the UN."[1] [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_invasion_of_East_Timor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_invasion_of_East_Ti...
- wallfacer120 5y ago
  What is it that you think this proves?
Maursault 5y ago