Mediocre at practical politics, his superlatives were unbending moral imperatives, practically applied.  Some presidents receive a boost with the cards. Fate dealt Carter a difficult hand, Oil and Iran. His presidency was marked by the first appearance of limits to the American dream of unlimited growth. It fell to Carter to deliver this message while we waited in the gas lines of the 1979 oil crisis.

As well, the humiliation of the Iran hostage crisis underlined limits to American power.  Americans felt demeaned by helpless unpreparedness. Invisibly, the Carter administration, under the supervision of national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, initiated the long term development of special ops capability, something which simply did not exist at the time.

A significant part of the electorate tends to grade a presidency on the prompt delivery of entitlements such as prosperity and respect among nations. To these voters, unwilling or unable to understand that this fulmination of events would require years of effort in response, the Carter presidency was poorly regarded.

The political naivete of the “Plains Mafia” reinforced the above, resulting in a one-term presidency. I never shared this view. Historians continue to  revise his score upwards, with the delayed realization that he was the right man for the jam we were in.

Regardless of what you think of Carter’s presidency, he doesn’t need our charity. He made his own.