A great man is a good man.

Jimmy Carter was both.

He was tough and deeply ethical, the opposite of the thin-skinned immoral lech on his way into the White House, our House, once again. Like Obama, like Biden, he did the right thing or best thing even when at times he knew it was not the popular thing. But most of all, he cared. He put the US on a path to real greatness, only to see much of his progress and our middle class and environmental protections dismantled by his cynical successor.

Seeking to know the history and reality of his life beneath the do-goodering, I read a biography of him two years ago. Full of sharp criticism and admiring plaudits both, it left me with the feeling that he was as good a human as we think he was, but tough and smart, too.

His passing is our loss but a wonderful opportunity to recall a time when ethics mattered. Do they matter to you, today?

~

A few comments:

“Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House. Reagan took them down when he was in office.”⁠
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“When the first OPEC oil crisis happened in the 1970s, Jimmy Carter got on TV and gave a speech in which he warned Americans that our petrol-driven consumer lifestyle was unsustainable, that being dependent on foreign oil would lead to conflict, that we needed to find environmentally-friendly sources of energy to keep our planet healthy.⁠
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If we’d taken his advice back then, we’d live in a much better world. But instead, that was the moment when he lost the Presidency for good.”⁠
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“He made the mistake of telling people things they did not want to hear. People only love the “tell it like it is” thing when it lines up with what they already believe or when it might hurt people they don’t like.” #jimmycarter