History UsefulNotes / JimmyCarter

** In 1952, then-Lieutenant Carter was sent to deal with a partial meltdown at Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories (Ontario, Canada), whereupon he was lowered into the reactor wearing woefully inadequate protective clothing to disassemble it. If that act does not get him on the badass president list, it at least gets him on the "most radioactive president" list.

For decades, Carter remained remarkably healthy despite his advanced age, walking around without a cane, surviving the pancreatic cancer that killed his father and three siblings, and still doing humanitarian handiwork with his own hammer and tool belt, [[HappilyMarried with Rosalynn at his side]]. However, like all people, it couldn't last forever; in February 2023, the Carter Center announced that he had entered hospice care, and that he would spend the last days of his life with his family in retirement. Surprisingly to almost everyone, he's managed to hold on for seven months afterwards.

* Now nearing age 99, Carter is America’s longest-lived President, having surpassed UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush in October 2019. His post-presidential longevity of 42 years and counting has long since surpassed UsefulNotes/HerbertHoover, whose post-presidential career spanned 31 years after leaving office, and lived to the age of 90.

* Now age 98, Carter is America’s longest-lived President, having surpassed UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush in October 2019. His post-presidential longevity of 40 years and counting has long since surpassed UsefulNotes/HerbertHoover, whose post-presidential career spanned 31 years after leaving office, and lived to the age of 90.

For decades, Carter remained remarkably healthy despite his advanced age, walking around without a cane, surviving the pancreatic cancer that killed his father and three siblings, and still doing humanitarian handiwork with his own hammer and tool belt, [[HappilyMarried with Rosalynn at his side]]. However, like all people, it couldn't last forever; in 2023, the Carter Center announced that he had entered hospice care, and that he would spend the last days of his life with his family in retirement.

* Very indirectly referenced in an episode of ''Series/{{Frasier}}'' which has Frasier and Niles publicly endorsing an (inferred) Democratic candidate for office, in which the Democratic candidate for Senate, endorsed as sane by Frasier, casually says he believes in [=UFOs=] as he was once [[AlienAbduction Abducted By Aliens]]. While Jimmy Carter never claimed to have had ''that'' close an encounter, he once filed a UFO report and has since said he is "open-minded" on the existence of [=UFOs=] and possible alien life. Obviously a man with ideas like that was too flaky to go far in politics.

James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) was 39th President of the United States, following UsefulNotes/GeraldFord and preceding UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, and lasting from [[UsefulNotes/TheSeventies 1977 to 1981]].

* Was the first President to be born after [[UsefulNotes/WOrldWarI WWI]].[[note]] Kennedy, Nixon, and Ford were infants when it ended; UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush is only 4 months older than Carter, but wasn't elected until 1988.[[/note]]

Carter launched his 1976 presidential campaign as a long shot against 17 other major candidates for the Democratic nomination, but managed to pull off a DarkHorseVictory in part due to the party's more liberal wing not being able to coalesce around a single candidate, and also because it was felt they needed a candidate who could win the Deep South states that UsefulNotes/RichardNixon had flipped to the Republicans in his two elections. In this he was successful: Carter won all the Southern states except Virginia, making him the last Democrat to carry a majority of the South. Carter narrowly unseated President Ford in the general election, which was attributed primarily to lingering resentment at the Republicans over Watergate (Carter's wholesome outsider image contrasting the corruption inextricably associated with Nixon), and also due to Ford having run a poor campaign and his controversial pardon of Nixon. Carter's victory was the only presidential election won by a Democrat between 1968 and 1988, with the Republicans winning every other presidential election during that timeframe by a landslide.

Carter began his political career in the Georgia state senate, and after an unsuccessful run for governor in 1966, was elected on his second attempt in 1970, positing himself as a segregationist to win popular support the second time around before revealing his actual left-wing politics during his victory speech, to the audience's shock.[[note]]The people who supported Carter's actual politics meanwhile weren't as thrown off: he privately confided with his supporters about his plans at the start of his 1970 campaign, warning them that he'd be saying a lot of things they wouldn't like and that pretending to be a segregationist was the only way he could move votes in the ''very'' southern state of Georgia.[[/note]] After an attempt to become running-mate to George [=McGovern=] at the 1972 presidential election ended in failure, Carter decided to instead position himself for the top job at the next election, and earned a DarkHorseVictory in part due to the party's more liberal wing not being able to coalesce around a single candidate, and also because it was felt they needed a candidate who could win the Deep South states that UsefulNotes/RichardNixon had flipped to the Republicans in his two elections. In this he was successful: Carter won all the Southern states except Virginia, making him the last Democrat to carry a majority of the South. The end result was a close and surprising win for Carter, which was attributed primarily to lingering resentment at the Republicans over Watergate (Carter's wholesome outsider image contrasting the corruption inextricably associated with Nixon), and also due to Ford having run a poor campaign. Carter's victory was the only one the Democrats would win between 1968 and 1988, with the Republicans winning every other Presidential election during that timeframe by a landslide.

Considering that his presidency happened over forty years ago, a look around the Internet will astonish many readers with just how much of a polarizing figure Jimmy Carter continues to be. Conservatives declare that his watch was a mess, while liberals assert that he ''[[MisBlamed inherited]]'' [[MisBlamed a mess]]: the huge UsefulNotes/VietnamWar deficit, an economy that for the first time ''ever'' suffered rampant inflation ''while stagnating'' (which led to the portmanteau "stagflation" to be coined to describe it), and [[AudienceAlienatingEra a national post-Vietnam, post-Watergate funk]] which was described as a "malaise" -- a word that is hung around his neck by conservative commentators (and ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'') to this day, [[BeamMeUpScotty though Carter himself never actually used it]]. "Stagflation" was exacerbated by the 1979 oil crisis; long gas lines and high energy costs contributed to the national unhappiness. In an attempt to lead by example, the President lowered the thermostats in the White House and donned sweaters to keep warm instead -- which, for many, became a hated symbol of the lifestyle sacrifices which they believed his policies had made necessary.

That said, much of Carter's popularity with liberals came ''after'' his administration. Carter ran as a centrist Democrat with a platform on Christian values and small government not dissimilar from that of UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan four years later. Unlike previous Democratic Presidents, Carter pivoted away from the welfare policies of the New Deal and Great Society in favor of deregulation and privatization, which angered many liberals within his own party. He was considered a micromanager who had a limited White House staff and difficult relations with both his own cabinet and Congress.[[note]]The health care reform debate collapsed in part because of disputes between the White House and Congress with Carter aiming for expanded private insurance whereas Senator UsefulNotes/TedKennedy preferred a government-owned single-payer insurance.[[/note]] In 1980, Carter faced a strong primary challenge from UsefulNotes/TedKennedy, who ran on the idea that Carter had sold out the Party's progressive wing. Carter secured his nomination in the last brokered convention to date.[[note]]UsefulNotes/WalterMondale went into the 1984 Democratic convention without a majority of delegates, but the second place challenger, Gary Hart, made no serious effort to contest his nomination at the convention.[[/note]]

On the foreign policy front, meanwhile, the UsefulNotes/{{Iran}}ian Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent protracted holding of American hostages seemed to many to demonstrate the feebleness, incompetence and ineptitude of the Carter administration's foreign policy, an impression by no means dispelled by a bungled attempt to free the hostages by force. In fairness, the reason that Operation: EAGLE CLAW was aborted before it ever reached the US Embassy was mechanical issues, such is the [[HellishCopter fickleness of helicopters.]] Still, the inadequacy of his response to an act of war was emblematic of his presidency. (Conspiracy theorists have held that there was an arrangement between the Ayatollah and the Reagan campaign as the hostages were released on Inauguration Day 1981, [[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste almost immediately after Reagan had taken the oath]].) Carter's term also saw the Soviets deploy better [[UsefulNotes/FromRussiaWithNukes nuclear weapons]] and [[UsefulNotes/SovietInvasionOfAfghanistan invade Afghanistan]], resulting in the SALT II arms control treaty not being put before the Democratic-controlled Senate. And, again emblematically, Carter withdrew the USA from the 1980 Olympics. Both the Iranian Revolution and Soviet-Afghan War lead to him formulating the Carter Doctrine and green-lighting Operation Cyclone. The former declared that the United States will do anything to defend its Middle Eastern interests and the latter allowed the funding and arming of anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen. Both of these policies expanded and continued by his successors, which unfortunately lead to the US being embroiled in Middle Eastern conflicts like the controversial UsefulNotes/WarOnTerror.

The emphasis that the Carter administration placed on human rights garnered respect even among his political opponents who never doubted the sincerity of Carter's intentions. More than a few people argue that Carter was essentially a nice guy [[ThePeterPrinciple who was good at humanitarianism and charity work, but was saddled with a job that he wasn't prepared for, at a bad time to have it]]. Carter's former speechwriter Jimmy Fallows [[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1979/05/the-passionless-presidency/308516/ has opined]] that Carter's administration suffered from his lack of vision and an over-reliance on yes-men. People will say that he would have made a better Secretary of State than a President of the United States.

Satirical media portrayals of Carter focused on his southern-ness, ranging from portrayal as an incongruous SouthernGentleman out of place in a savvier Washington, to an out-and-out hickish bumpkin; his toothy smile became iconic. The "Redneck President" conception fell a bit out of favor once the nation was introduced to Jimmy's brother, Billy Carter, who generally fit the stereotype a lot better, putting Jimmy in the role of the straight man. Given that the former president is still alive and working for diplomacy and Habitat, a lot of portrayals reference this. In the states of the former Confederacy, he was widely known as "The South's Revenge."

* The man himself appears (as StockFootage) in the GainaxEnding to Season 3 of ''Series/TheHeartSheHoller.'' Everyone who hasn't been KilledOffForReal (and their {{doppelganger}}s) sit down to watch his "Crisis of Confidence" speech. He says his entire speech, [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs while weird things happen to the audience.]] [[NoEnding And then it just sort of ends.]] Despite being StockFootage, [[BillingDisplacement his name appears first in the credits.]]

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) was 39th President of the United States, following UsefulNotes/GeraldFord and preceding UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan, and lasting from [[UsefulNotes/TheSeventies 1977 to 1981]].

* Was the first president to be referred to by a diminutive of his given name in official White House/public correspondence, all of which referred to him as "Jimmy Carter" as opposed to "James E. Carter". To put it in context, even though 42nd president UsefulNotes/BillClinton was known to the public as "Bill", his official public correspondence still referred to him as "William J. Clinton".

* VindicatedByHistory: Carter's 2006 book ''Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid'' was extremely controversial when it was first published due to his characterization of UsefulNotes/{{Israel}} as an apartheid state not unlike [[UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra pre-1994 South Africa]]. Carter received heated criticism across the political spectrum (as both parties expressed unconditional support for Israel at the time), was called an antisemite and spent the rest of the 2000s OvershadowedByControversy as a result. Come TheNewTwenties, multiple prominent human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have characterized the situation in Israel as amounting to apartheid while the United Nations has commissioned studies to decide for itself whether or not the situation in Israel amounts to apartheid, leading to a reappraisal of the book as having been ahead of its time.

* He is currently one of the only two living former US Presidents eligible for reelection, as three of them (Clinton, Bush Jr, and Obama) fulfilled the Constitutionally-imposed maximum of two terms. Granted, it's unlikely that Carter will try to run again, given his advanced age. [[note]]UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump is currently the only other former president eligible for reelection.[[/note]]

* VindicatedByHistory: Carter's 2006 book ''Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid'' was extremely controversial when it was first published due to his characterization of UsefulNotes/{{Israel}} as an apartheid state not unlike [[UsefulNotes/TheApartheidEra Pre-1994 South Africa]]. Carter received heated criticism across the political spectrum (as both parties expressed unconditional support for Israel at the time), was called an antisemite and spent the rest of the 2000s OvershadowedByControversy as a result. Come TheNewTwenties, multiple prominent human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have characterized the situation in Israel as amounting to apartheid while the United Nations has commissioned studies to decide for itself whether or not the situation in Israel amounts to apartheid, leading to a reappraisal of the book as having been ahead of its time.

For decades, Carter remained remarkably healthy despite his advanced age, walking around without a cane, surviving the pancreatic cancer that killed his father and three siblings, and still doing humanitarian handiwork with his own hammer and tool belt, [[HappilyMarried with Rosalynn at his side]]. However, like all people, it couldn't last forever; in 2023, his family announced that he had entered hospice care, and that he would spend the last days of his life with his family in retirement.

Nowadays, Carter remains remarkably healthy despite his advanced age, walking around without a cane, surviving the pancreatic cancer that killed his father and three siblings, and still doing humanitarian handiwork with his own hammer and tool belt, [[HappilyMarried with Rosalynn at his side]].

Considering that his presidency happened over forty years ago, a look around the Internet will astonish many readers with just how much of a polarizing figure Jimmy Carter continues to be. Conservatives declare that his watch was a mess, while liberals assert that he ''[[MisBlamed inherited]]'' [[MisBlamed a mess]]: the huge UsefulNotes/VietnamWar deficit, an economy that for the first time ''ever'' suffered rampant inflation ''while stagnating'' (which led to the portmanteau "stagflation" to be coined to describe it), and [[DorkAge a national post-Vietnam, post-Watergate funk]] which was described as a "malaise" -- a word that is hung around his neck by conservative commentators (and ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'') to this day, [[BeamMeUpScotty though Carter himself never actually used it]]. "Stagflation" was exacerbated by the 1979 oil crisis; long gas lines and high energy costs contributed to the national unhappiness. In an attempt to lead by example, the President lowered the thermostats in the White House and donned sweaters to keep warm instead -- which, for many, became a hated symbol of the lifestyle sacrifices which they believed his policies had made necessary.

* NeverLiveItDown:
** The 1979 [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident "Killer Rabbit" incident]]. Carter's perceived fear of a bunny rabbit was seized upon by his opponents and used to ruthlessly mock him and illustrate how weak and feeble of a leader he was.
** One of Carter's most memorable speeches is his 1979 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy5U68FgZcQ&t=334s&ab_channel=Speeches "Crisis of Confidence" speech]], in which he addressed the ongoing energy crisis and what he perceived as the American public's loss of faith in their nation. While the speech received a moderately positive response at the time, it later became dubbed as the "malaise speech" and held up as an illustration of the CrapsackWorld nature of the country during Carter's presidency and his inability to improve it. Presidential historians cite the speech as an example of what they perceive to be Carter's fundamental flaw - he more often wound up lecturing the country rather than leading it.

* Now age 97, Carter is America’s longest-lived President, having surpassed UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush in October 2019. His post-presidential longevity of 40 years and counting has long since surpassed UsefulNotes/HerbertHoover, whose post-presidential career spanned 31 years after leaving office, and lived to the age of 90.

* ButtMonkey: Carter was the go-to President to use as the butt of jokes until UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush came along, so many media portrayals of Carter from the 80s and 90s characterize him in this manner or otherwise portray him as a loser. ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' took it UpToEleven.

That said, much of Carter's popularity with liberals came ''after'' his administration. Carter ran as a centrist Democrat with a platform on Christian values and small government not dissimilar from UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan four years later. Unlike previous Democratic Presidents, Carter pivoted away from the welfare policies of the New Deal and Great Society in favor of deregulation and privatization, which angered many liberals within his own party. He was considered a micromanager who had a limited White House staff and difficult relations with both his own cabinet and Congress.[[note]]Most notably, during the debate over health care reform, Carter rejected the single-payer option championed by Senator UsefulNotes/TedKennedy and progressives in favor of market-based approach despite the single-payer proposal being more popular.[[/note]] In 1980, Carter faced a strong primary challenge from UsefulNotes/TedKennedy, who ran on the idea that Carter had sold out the Party's progressive wing. Carter secured his nomination in the last brokered convention to date.[[note]]UsefulNotes/WalterMondale went into the 1984 Democratic convention without a majority of delegates, but the second place challenger, Gary Hart, made no serious effort to contest his nomination at the convention.[[/note]]

On the foreign policy front, meanwhile, the UsefulNotes/{{Iran}}ian Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent protracted holding of American hostages seemed to many to demonstrate the feebleness, incompetence and ineptitude of the Carter administration's foreign policy, an impression by no means dispelled by a bungled attempt to free the hostages by force. In fairness, the reason that Operation: EAGLE CLAW was aborted before it ever reached the US Embassy was mechanical issues, such is the [[HellishCopter fickleness of helicopters.]] Still, the inadequacy of his response to an act of war was emblematic of his presidency. (Conspiracy theorists have held that there was an arrangement between the Ayatollah and the Reagan campaign as the hostages were released on Inauguration Day 1981, [[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste almost immediately after Reagan had taken the oath]].) Carter's term also saw the Soviets deploy better [[UsefulNotes/FromRussiaWithNukes nuclear weapons]] and [[UsefulNotes/SovietInvasionOfAfghanistan invade Afghanistan]], resulting in the SALT II arms control treaty not being put before the Democratic-controlled Senate. And, again emblematically, Carter withdrew the USA from the 1980 Olympics. Both the Iranian Revolution and Soviet-Afghan War lead to him formulating the Carter Doctrine and green-lighting Operation Cyclone. The former states that the United States will do anything to defend its self-interests in the Middle East and the latter allowed the funding and arming of anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen. Both of these policies expanded and continued by his successors, which unfortunately lead to the US being embroiled in Middle Eastern conflicts like the controversial UsefulNotes/WarOnTerror.

Still, his term saw a lasting (if somewhat frosty) peace negotiated between Israel and Egypt, having sponsored a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at Camp David. The only significant and lasting peace settlement in the modern Middle East, it's so well-respected that even Egypt's new post-revolution government is honoring it. His administration negotiated the return of the Panama Canal to {{UsefulNotes/Panama}} at the end of the 20th century. Additionally, later reviewers have observed that his long-sighted economic policies ultimately paid off over the next decade, and that much of the economic resurgance seen under UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan is more accurately described as Carter's policies succeeding despite Reagan's own policies.

Still, his term saw a lasting (if somewhat frosty) peace negotiated between Israel and Egypt, having sponsored a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at Camp David. The only significant and lasting peace settlement in the modern Middle East, it's so well-respected that even Egypt's new post-revolution government is honoring it. His administration negotiated the return of the Panama Canal to {{UsefulNotes/Panama}} at the end of the 20th century. Additionally, a few on the Left might claim that his economic policies may have paid off in the next decade and that their success had been wrongly attributed to UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan.

Carter has had one of the most active post-presidencies of any former president, founding the Carter Center to work toward peace, which helped him win a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. (Contrary to popular opinion, Carter didn't win in 1978 for negotiating the Camp David Accords; rather, Begin and Sadat each won.) His work with charities such as Habitat for Humanity gives him the interesting designation of causing people to like him better for his post-presidency activities than the ones during his presidency. His 2014 project was supporting the eradication of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis guinea worm]], a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases Neglected Tropical Disease]]-causing parasite now found mainly in South Sudan and Chad. The efforts have been largely successful, with just 27 cases in 2020 (down from ''millions'' in the 1980s). It will most likely be the second human disease[[note]]third overall; the rinderpest virus, which infects only cattle and other even-toed ungulates, was the second to be eradicated following smallpox[[/note]] and the first parasitic disease to be completely eradicated.

* StillTheLeader: As of 2022 he is immensly more liked and remembered for his 40+ years as an ex-president and his charities, rather than his rather lack-luster one-term presidency.

Carter began his political career in the Georgia state senate, and after an unsuccessful run for governor in 1966, was elected on his second attempt in 1970, positing himself as a segregationist to win popular support the second time around before revealing his actual left-wing politics during his victory speech, to the audience's shock[[note]]the people who supported Carter's actual politics meanwhile weren't as thrown off: he privately confided with his supporters about his plans at the start of his 1970 campaign, warning them that he'd be saying a lot of things they wouldn't like and that pretending to be a segregationist was the only way he could move votes in the ''very'' southern state of Georgia[[/note]]. After an attempt to become running-mate to George [=McGovern=] at the 1972 presidential election ended in failure, Carter decided to instead position himself for the top job at the next election, and earned a DarkHorseVictory in part due to the party's more liberal wing not being able to coalesce around a single candidate, and also because it was felt they needed a candidate who could win the Deep South states that UsefulNotes/RichardNixon had flipped to the Republicans in his two elections. In this he was successful: Carter won all the Southern states except Virginia, making him the last Democrat to carry a majority of the South. The end result was a close and surprising win for Carter, which was attributed primarily to lingering resentment at the Republicans over Watergate (Carter's wholesome outsider image contrasting the corruption inextricably associated with Nixon), and also due to Ford having run a poor campaign. Carter's victory was the only one the Democrats would win between 1968 and 1988, with the Republicans winning every other Presidential election during that timeframe by a landslide.

That said, much of Carter's popularity with liberals came ''after'' his administration. Carter ran as a centrist Democrat with a small government platform not dissimilar from UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan four years later. Unlike previous Democratic Presidents, Carter pivoted away from the pro-welfare policies in favor of deregulation and austerity, which angered many liberals within his own party. He was considered a micromanager who had a limited White House staff and difficult relations with both Congress and his own Cabinet.[[note]]During the debate over health care reform, Carter rejected the single-payer option from Senator UsefulNotes/TedKennedy in favor of market-based approach despite Kennedy's proposal being more popular. The two would blame each other for the failure of health care reform.[[/note]] In 1980, Carter faced a strong primary challenge from UsefulNotes/TedKennedy, who ran on the idea that Carter had sold out the Party's progressive wing. Carter secured his nomination in the last brokered convention to date.[[note]]UsefulNotes/WalterMondale went into the 1984 Democratic convention without a majority of delegates, but the second place challenger, Gary Hart, made no serious effort to contest his nomination at the convention.[[/note]]

That said, much of Carter's popularity with liberals came ''after'' his administration. Carter ran as a centrist Democrat, on a small government platform not dissimilar from UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan four years later, and alienated many liberals within his own party. He was considered a micromanager who had a limited White House staff and difficult relations with both Congress and his own Cabinet. In 1980, Carter faced a strong primary challenge from UsefulNotes/TedKennedy, who ran on the idea that Carter had sold out the Party's progressive wing. Carter secured his nomination in the last brokered convention to date.[[note]]UsefulNotes/WalterMondale went into the 1984 Democratic convention without a majority of delegates, but the second place challenger, Gary Hart, made no serious effort to contest his nomination at the convention.[[/note]]

On the foreign policy front, meanwhile, the UsefulNotes/{{Iran}}ian Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent protracted holding of American hostages seemed to many to demonstrate the feebleness, incompetence and ineptitude of the Carter administration's foreign policy, an impression by no means dispelled by a bungled attempt to free the hostages by force. In fairness, the reason that Operation: EAGLE CLAW was aborted before it ever reached the US Embassy was mechanical issues; such is the [[HellishCopter fickleness of helicopters.]] Still, the inadequacy of his response to an act of war was emblematic of his presidency. (Conspiracy theorists have held that there was an arrangement between the Ayatollah and the Reagan campaign as the hostages were released on Inauguration Day 1981, [[LetNoCrisisGoToWaste almost immediately after Reagan had taken the oath]].) Carter's term also saw the Soviets deploy better [[UsefulNotes/FromRussiaWithNukes nuclear weapons]] and [[UsefulNotes/SovietInvasionOfAfghanistan invade Afghanistan]], resulting in the SALT II arms control treaty not being put before the Democratic-controlled Senate. And, again emblematically, Carter withdrew the USA from the 1980 Olympics. Both the Iranian Revolution and Soviet-Afghan War lead to him formulating the Carter Doctrine and green-lighting Operation Cyclone. The former states that the United States will do anything to defend its self-interests in the Middle East and the latter allowed the funding and arming of anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen. Both of these policies expanded and continued by his successors, which unfortunately lead to the US being embroiled in Middle Eastern conflicts like the controversial UsefulNotes/WarOnTerror.

The emphasis that the Carter administration placed on human rights garnered respect even among his political opponents; even most conservatives do not doubt the sincerity of Carter's intentions. More than a few people argue that Carter was essentially a nice guy [[ThePeterPrinciple who was good at humanitarianism and charity work, but was saddled with a job that he wasn't prepared for, at a bad time to have it.]] Carter's former speechwriter Jimmy Fallows [[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1979/05/the-passionless-presidency/308516/ has opined]] that Carter's administration suffered from his lack of vision and an over-reliance on yes-men. People will say that he would have made a better Secretary of State than a President of the United States.