Carter, one of our last great presidents
A look back at Jimmy Carter's morality and the absence of morality in American politics today, from Arkansas' Senator Tom Cotton to President Joe Biden's failings.
By Ray Hanania
FREE/Politics Presidents/Saturday Jan. 18, 2025
Jimmy Carter wasn’t a great politician, but he was a good person who was honest, moral, and had strong religious faith. Carter respected humanity and favored those with true needs.
As a politician, he couldn’t navigate Washington D.C.’s political slime – what some call “the Swamp” -- to achieve all of his moral visions. But at the end of the day, when he was president, you knew he tried to do the right thing.
Carter had a caring personality as president. He trusted in goodness to overcome evil, but his only mistake is that while good often overcomes evil, it can take a lot longer than desired.
I met and interviewed him when he came to Chicago as he approached his re-election, introduced to him by Congressman Marty Russo.
Carter was the guest of honor speaker at a fundraiser by Chicago Mayor Jane M. Byrne, who rose to office on a wave of “reform” against the “cabal of evil men” who had “fastened” themselves to corrupt Chicago politics. Less than a year in office, Byrne abandoned reform and embraced the cabal, and took the helm of the Chicago Machine.
Carter was wary of Byrne’s controversial politics but still held his hand out to support Chicago’s needs. He accepted, on her word, a promise to endorse him. But, like everything in Chicago, the meaning of words are overshadowed by the intentions. Byrne said, “If the election were held today,” she would endorse Carter for president.
Weeks later after “today” had passed, Byrne, who had a “whim of steel,” embraced and endorsed Senator Ted Kennedy for president at another fundraiser.
A realist, Carter shrugged off Byrne’s perjury and went on to win the Democratic nomination for a 2nd term, only to lose to California Governor Ronald Reagan who had the backing of Iran’s evil Ayatollahs.
Honesty killed his re-election but he went on to live with that fact with his head held high, respected for his commitment to honesty.
You can’t say that about many of our most recent presidents or members of Congress. Most members of Congress have sold their souls to the new “evil cabal,” Political Action Committees that put their interests above the interests of America, like the Insurance lobby, the banking lobby and foreign lobbies like that of Israel.
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas is the antithesis of Carter. Cotton is owned by Israel’s rightwing government, bought with only $237,000 in PAC donations.
Cotton is leading the charge to remove Tiktok because Tiktok is one of the only places where truth isn’t censored and you can actually see Israeli soldiers shoot and kill women and children.
The rest of the mainstream news and social media have been bought off, too and avoid sacred cows that anger influential constituencies and lobbyists.
Cotton says Tiktok is feeding info to China but isn’t worried about the info streaming from all of other social media services like the Chinese-owned “Red Note,” nor other more corrupt social media like X, Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram.
Fortunately, as America loses one president to the White House in the sky, we get another. President Donald Trump has vowed to block Cotton’s effort to shutdown Tiktok, which is a good thing.
Trump’s return is, ironically, refreshing to the exit of his predecessor, Joe Biden. Biden was a horrible and weak president who was beloved by the Liberal media.
Instead of going out with class, the way Carter did, enhanced by living a moral life, Biden left a legacy that will inspire every criminal. Biden pardoned more criminals than any predecessor.
Among those include: Pennsylvania Judge Michael Conahan, convicted in 2011 for sending children to for-profit detention centers in exchange for millions in kickbacks; and American Senior Communities CEO James Burkhart who swindled seniors out of millions intended for their nursing home care to pay for his own luxurious life.
He also commuted the death sentences of 37 of the 40 mass murderers on death row. The three he skipped were so hated he didn’t want to sully his “legacy” – the Tree of Life killer, the Mother Emanuel Church killer, and the Boston Marathon killer.
Biden is disgusting and I am glad he departs on Monday, Jan. 20, 2024.
I don’t know if Trump will be better, but I am sure the biased news media will do everything to micro-report everything Trump does in the most negative way possible.
For fans of my YouTube video podcast with former Congressman Bill Lipinski,” “Two Guys on Politics,” this week’s episode launches our 4th Season and elaborates on many of the topics from Carter’s humanity to Joe Biden’s failings, to the opportunity that Donald Trump has to do good.
We also discuss the hypocrisy of the hearings on Trump’s cabinet nominees, who are being slandered by Democrats, who have troubles of their own that set them so far away from the moral Bar that Carter set during his 100-year-long life.
Lowlife politicians like Senator Tim Kaine, who blasted Pete Hegseth’s alleged sexual problems but was loudly silent when it came to Bill Clinton’s sexual predatory actions. Kaine was Hillary Clinton’s VP running mate in her failed bid to be president in 2016.
And then there is another lowlife, Adam Schiff, who was behind the great slander against Trump in which he falsely argued Trump was controlled by the Russians. The accusation and the so-called “Russia Dossier” was phony but it became the foundation of Democrat and news media attacks against Trump, discredited only after Trump lost to Biden.
You can watch the Video Podcast by CLICKING THIS LINK or using the video widget below.
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