I have a personal family connection to the Canal. My Grandfather was a Navy Commander and the Paymaster for the Canal Zone up until the beginning of WW II, IIRC the dates. My Dad spoke of living there as a kid. My Mom just gave me my Grandfather's carved ebony elephant that he picked up on the day he was returning to the States, about a month ago. There is a special story attached to this elephant. He had walked by a shop that had it on display and he asked over and over again how much the elephant would cost. This went on for a couple of years. On his last day there, he stopped by the shop to ask about the elephant saying that it was his last day there. The shop owner smiled and gave it to him.
So the Canal has always been in the main for me with the family history and it was always in the news because of all the chaos that ensued, some of it mentioned in your PDF. Its been a political football forever and became a moot, but not forgotten point once Carter negotiated his own treaty and sealed the deal.
That Ford, Nixon and Kissinger were into the deal does nothing to shield Carter from doing the actual deed. Reagan was strongly opposed to it.
How about the other such situations where successive Presidents made promises, such as moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem ? It was Trump who finally did it. How empty where all the previous promises made, including the ones regarding the Canal ?
Regardless, there is still the Iran Hostage situation and the inflation that is still a large part of Carter's Presidential legacy.
I did say that he was a good man, and meant it. But he was also a terrible POTUS as considered from certain POV's. The two are not mutually exclusive. There are good reasons for why he only served one term. I was in my late 20's then, so I was an adult paying attention as it went down and lived through it.
You have your thoughts and I have mine. We disagree. Do we agree to disagree and respect each other's views ? Or not ? How deep do you want to go ?
âElected in the shadow of Watergate, Jimmy Carter promised voters that he would always tell the truth. And he did â advocating for the public good, consequences be damned.
He believed some things were more important than reelection - things like integrity, respect, and compassion. Because Jimmy Carter believed, as deeply as he believed anything, that we are all created in Godâs image.
Whenever I had a chance to spend time with President Carter, it was clear that he didnât just profess these values. He embodied them. And in doing so, he taught all of us what it means to live a life of grace, dignity, justice, and service. In his Nobel acceptance speech, President Carter said, âGod gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace.â He made that choice again and again over the course of his 100 years, and the world is better for it.â
âMy father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love. My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs.â
Or incite an insurrection to overthrow the US government in an attempt to stay in power.
Or lie to the American people every time he opened his mouth.
After his term he spent the rest of his life selflessly working to make it a better world, and succeeding in what ways he could. Without making it about himself or enriching himself.
Go ahead and pick over his bones. Itâs what you do best.
Never understood why he was so reviled. Seemed like one of your better Presidents.
Well there are a few reasons.
His handling of the seizure of our embassy in Iran and the hostages. That event was the reason for the creation for the show Night Line on ABC. It was hosted by Ted Koppel who vowed to keep on it daily until the hostages were released. Each show began with the count of how many days it had continued. The show continued on for many years afterwards.
Before that, in case you haven't been paying attention to the news o de day, he gave away the Panama Canal which very shortly was placed in China's hands to "manage" it.
There are others but those are the two biggies.
Oh, and inflation to a degree not seen before (20% mortgage rates) and now we have a repeat with Biden ...
Never understood why he was so reviled. Seemed like one of your better Presidents.
Certainly one of the better men to hold the office. His legacy was besmirched by many much smaller men who couldn't understand his compassion and empathy for the world beyond him.
He seemed like a bit of a bumpkin after the machinations of the Nixon administration so it was easy to poke fun. Plus his brother was a bumpkin who took money from Libya. He never had a lot of friends in DC who would go to bat for him. And Reagan came along and made a mockery of Carter's honesty-first policy.
Mostly Reagan though. He'd spent a lot of time carping about Carter before he finally got the nomination, keeping the attention on Reagan.
I voted for that sob twice. Now I know better. Hence he will forever be known as Ronald F*cking Reagan to me.
Never understood why he was so reviled. Seemed like one of your better Presidents.
He seemed like a bit of a bumpkin after the machinations of the Nixon administration so it was easy to poke fun. Plus his brother was a bumpkin who took money from Libya. He never had a lot of friends in DC who would go to bat for him. And Reagan came along and made a mockery of Carter's honesty-first policy.
Mostly Reagan though. He'd spent a lot of time carping about Carter before he finally got the nomination, keeping the attention on Reagan.
âThere are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.â
âThere are two paths to choose. One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.â
