Word that former President Jimmy Carter decided to forgo any further medical treatment and enter hospice care triggered not only an avalanche of well-wishes for our 39th president but a long-overdue reassessment of his presidency.
At a final breakfast with Democratic leaders, after Carter had lost the 1980 election, House Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-Mass.) reassured the soon-to-be former president: “My heart and my door will always be open to you. History will treat you well.”
O’Neill’s prediction may finally be coming true, but it took a long time to get there. Indeed, as Carter biographer Kai Bird wrote recently in The New York Times, he remains “the most misunderstood president of the last century.”
For the most part, his presidency, cut short after only one term, is considered a total failure. Carter is still portrayed as in over his head, obsessed with petty details, mean-spirited, and out-of-touch with average Americans.
Only now is Carter getting a second look, especially on his years after leaving the White House. Former presidents leave office with a lot of power and prestige, as members of a very small and exclusive club. How they spend their after-Oval Office years is up to them. They can manage the farm, like George Washington; take up portrait painting, like George W. Bush; write books and documentaries, like Barack Obama; or whine, like Donald Trump.
There are no set rules. But the ideal role seems to be twofold: staying on the political sidelines while carving out some role where they can still make a difference. By that measure, Carter is the gold standard. Nobody else comes close.
As former president, Carter traversed the world to monitor elections in 38 countries. He conducted peace negotiations in Haiti, Bosnia, Ethiopia, North Korea, Sudan and other countries. He worked to fight infectious diseases such as Guinea worm disease, malaria and trachoma. He founded the Carter Center in Atlanta to advance human rights. He became a tenured professor at Emory University and taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church. And, of course, Carter became the face of Habitat for Humanity.
What a contrast with former president No. 45. Unlike Trump’s publicity stunt at East Palestine, Ohio, when Carter visited a disaster site, he didn’t parade in front of the cameras handing out baseball caps. He simply donned his work gloves, hard hat and running shoes and, without fanfare, began banging nails and hauling two-by-fours alongside his fellow construction workers.
It’s not just Carter’s post-presidency that deserves a second look, it’s his presidency itself. True, he never seemed quite comfortable in the job. He may have tried to do too much too fast. In some ways, he was ahead of his time. But he achieved far more than he’s generally given credit for.
In foreign policy, he delivered the Camp David peace accords, signed the Salt II Arms control agreement, established trade agreements with China, urged Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank, and made human rights the centerpiece of American foreign policy.
On the home front, Carter championed energy conservation, created the Department of Energy, provided huge tax breaks for solar energy (even put solar panels on the White House roof), was the first president to warn about climate change, and protected more than 100 million acres of wilderness in Alaska.
There’s something else. Talking with historians this week, the phrase that I heard most often was that, more than anything else, Jimmy Carter is a “good man.” And that means something. Nobody ever accused Trump of being a “good man.”
Press is host of “The Bill Press Pod.” He is the author of “From the Left: A Life in the Crossfire.”