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United States News

Former US President Jimmy Carter Turns 100 221

Jimmy Carter reached his 100th birthday Tuesday, the first time an American president has lived a full century and the latest milestone in a life that took the son of a Depression-era farmer to the White House and across the world as a Nobel Peace Prize-winning humanitarian and advocate for democracy. Associated Press: Living the last 19 months in home hospice care in Plains, the Georgia Democrat and 39th president has continued to defy expectations, just as he did through a remarkable rise from his family peanut farming and warehouse business to the world stage. He served one presidential term from 1977 to 1981 and then worked more than four decades leading The Carter Center, which he and his wife Rosalynn co-founded in 1982 to "wage peace, fight disease, and build hope."

"Not everybody gets 100 years on this earth, and when somebody does, and when they use that time to do so much good for so many people, it's worth celebrating," Jason Carter, the former president's grandson and chair of The Carter Center governing board, said in an interview. "These last few months, 19 months, now that he's been in hospice, it's been a chance for our family to reflect," he continued, "and then for the rest of the country and the world to really reflect on him. That's been a really gratifying time."

James Earl Carter Jr. was born Oct. 1, 1924 in Plains, where he has lived more than 80 of his 100 years. He is expected to mark his birthday in the same one-story home he and Rosalynn built in the early 1960s -- before his first election to the Georgia state Senate. The former first lady, who was also born in Plains, died last November at 96. President Joe Biden, who was the first sitting senator to endorse Carter's 1976 campaign, praised his longtime friend for an "unwavering belief in the power of human goodness." "You've always been a moral force for our nation and the world (and) a beloved friend to Jill and me and our family," the 81-year-old president tells Carter in a tribute video filmed in front of Carter's presidential portrait at the White House.
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Former US President Jimmy Carter Turns 100

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  • Happy Birthday (Score:5, Interesting)

    by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @12:00PM (#64831445) Homepage Journal
    While I didn't care for his politics or many of the things during his presidency....I do admire his humanity endeavors.....he seemed to be a good person. He acted to help his fellow man.

    I actually had a brush with fame...meeting him and Rosalyn on Bourbon Street in New Orleans...I guess some time maybe around 1986 or so?

    I was walking down the street, it was slightly crowded on a weeknight...I saw these guys coming towards me with the shades and earphones...and then I saw Jimmy and his wife...I reached forward to shake his hand and he smiled and shook it...said a few words and they were off again....

    Happy Birthday Jimmy.

    It's not easy to make it a 100yrs...congrats on a life well spent so far....

    • I came here to say pretty much what you said, although I never encountered him in person. I didn't like most of his policies, I would have expected more backbone from an Annapolis graduate, but I respect his sincerity and his insistence in doing what's right, not what's expedient. Happy Birthday, Mr. President, and may there be many more!
  • by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @12:16PM (#64831487) Journal

    I have lots of respect for Carter as a humanitarian.... but lately, I've read a lot of revisionist history about his presidency on Reddit and other sites.

    Inflation was TERRIBLE during his term of office, for starters. He's responsible for giving away the Panama Canal, as well as totally fumbling the Iranian hostage crisis (fixed by Ronald Reagan shortly after he took office).

    It's borderline insane people are making claims, now, that he was responsible for giving America a "strong economy" and other nonsense....

    • I mean, yeah, in as much as he's the one that broke it I guess that counts.

      It's a well established historic fact that Ronald Reagan arranged for the hostages to be held until after the election so he could win.

      The fact that didn't end the Republican party for the next 50 years is one of my Country's greatest failures. It's why we're on the brink of a dictator ship.

      As for Carter's inflation response, yeah, he fucked up. It was caused by OPEC (our entire economy was built on cheap gas). He should'
    • by GlobalEcho ( 26240 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @12:56PM (#64831603)

      I have lots of respect for Carter as a humanitarian.... but lately, I've read a lot of revisionist history about his presidency on Reddit and other sites.

      Inflation was TERRIBLE during his term of office, for starters. He's responsible for giving away the Panama Canal, as well as totally fumbling the Iranian hostage crisis (fixed by Ronald Reagan shortly after he took office).

      It's borderline insane people are making claims, now, that he was responsible for giving America a "strong economy" and other nonsense....

      I'm old enough to say I was there at the time, and pretty much disagree with you. Maybe I agree on the Panama canal, but that's kind of a minor item.

      With respect to inflation, and the economy, these things operate on a lag to presidential (and congressional) terms. Carter appointed Volcker, and Reagan enjoyed the credit for the corresponding drop in inflation (Reagan extended the tradition of good heads of the Fed with the Greenspan appointment, and I think they've pretty much all been good since Volcker).

      On the hostage crisis, Carter literally sent a commando mission to Iran to rescue the hostages. Totally the right move, and I think it is fair that he lost confidence in the special forces' ability to complete a second attempt mission after that first mission failed without even coming close. Reagan had nothing to do with the hostages' release, outside of just existing.

      The thing I liked least about Carter was how he pronounced "nuclear" as "noo-kyoo-lar". But, given that he had commanded a nuclear sub and become president I have learned to let that one go.

      • The thing I liked least about Carter was how he pronounced "nuclear" as "noo-kyoo-lar". But, given that he had commanded a nuclear sub and become president I have learned to let that one go.

        Carter never held a command in the Navy (and was never a "nuclear engineer"). The closest he got was XO. He never even served on a nuclear sub. While he did, by all accounts, an excellent job as a junior officer and rendered honorable service, his naval career has been wildly exaggerated by many, both for political reasons and in some cases simply becoming a kind of folk "fish story" where things grew out of control from one mouth to another. To his credit, he's always been honest about what he did and did

    • by Targon ( 17348 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @01:09PM (#64831657)

      Too many people give credit to the president who was in office when things are either bad or good. The 1970s were a generally terrible time, you had the mess at the end of Vietnam, high inflation, and that caused a lot of misery. The Fed raised interest rates through the roof, effectively killing the economy to "fight inflation", and it didn't really work. So, Carter being president back then...all the people remember the misery, and that Carter was president. On the flip side, the 1990s, we had the tech sector booming, the Internet surged in popularity and access grew to the point where everyone could get on the Internet, and we had Bill Clinton as president, so Clinton was seen as being wonderful, just because he was president during good times. Reagan came in during good times, but 8 years of Reaganomics and trickle down economics really hurt the economy and put us into a recession, but people remembered the good times before things fell apart.

      It normally will take 4-8 years of a policy being in effect to really see what effect that policy would have. A pro-education president that pushed for improved public schools....we wouldn't see the full impact of THAT for over 20 years, because we would then see what would happen if children had properly funded schools from the very beginning.

    • by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @01:20PM (#64831685) Homepage

      I have lots of respect for Carter as a humanitarian.... but lately, I've read a lot of revisionist history about his presidency on Reddit and other sites.Inflation was TERRIBLE during his term of office, for starters.

      Not really sure you can blame Carter here. Inflation was terrible before he took office, too. Nobody remembers Gerald Ford's solution to inflation? Giving out pins that said "W.I.N." (for "Whip Inflation Now"). The consensus among economists is that it was Paul Volcker's actions with the Fed in 1979 that finally tamed inflation, and he was appointed by Carter.

      He's responsible for giving away the Panama Canal,

      as well as totally fumbling the Iranian hostage crisis (fixed by Ronald Reagan shortly after he took office).

      Given that the hostages were released by Iran on January 20, literally the same day Reagan was inaugurated, there's really no way to credit Reagan with "fixing" the hostage crisis.

      It's borderline insane people are making claims, now, that he was responsible for giving America a "strong economy" and other nonsense....

      I haven't made that claim, but I don't see why that would be "insane". The actions a president does take effect over a period of years, and it's hard to disentangle which of many actions causes which economic result years later. But I would certainly credit Volcker's taming the inflation crisis as playing a significant role in giving America a strong economy. (And the fact that Carter, unlike previous presidents, didn't start any wars helped, too-- wars are expensive).

      • Given that the hostages were released by Iran on January 20, literally the same day Reagan was inaugurated, there's really no way to credit Reagan with "fixing" the hostage crisis.

        I don't know if it's true or not, but what I heard at the time is that Reagan had made it clear that if the hostages weren't released before he took office he wouldn't honor any of the agreements with Iran and negotiations would have to start over. That's why the hostages were released when they were because they didn't want t
        • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

          There weren't any agreements with Iran for Reagan to not honor.

          Would make sense that the Iranians wouldn't want to negotiate with Reagan, but the Iranians were in fact the main reason Reagan became president in the first place. And, for that matter, they showed no signs of sense, then or since.

    • by seeker ( 9636 )

      Carter's best work was after his presidency, such as Habitat for Humanity.

      As a President which I saw first hand he:
      - created an economy later called Stagflation which strangled the US economy
      - that led to a cycle of staggering inflation and high interest rates
      - was defeatist in the competition with the USSR
      - generally appeased opponents of any flavor: USSR, OPEC, Panama, communist funded European nuclear freeze groups to mention a few
      - his weakness as a leader led to the Iran hostage crisis: they were confi

    • Maybe there's some kind of inverse relationship there. Great person, poor President, or great President, terrible person.

    • by methano ( 519830 )
      Talk about revisionist history! Reagan didn't fix shit other than to be someone other than Carter. Iran let the hostages go when Carter left office as a final poke in the eye for letting the Shah go to the hospital in the US. The Iranians would have freed the hostages if a turnip had become president. Carter was blindsided by the Iranians because he was listening too much to Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziski, who was an over the top anti Soviet. And the shitty Shah was also anti-Soviet, kinda. And I've never mis
    • I have lots of respect for Carter as a humanitarian.... but lately, I've read a lot of revisionist history about his presidency on Reddit and other sites.

      Inflation was TERRIBLE during his term of office, for starters.

      Inflation happens due to many different factors, the current executive isn't really among them.

      He's responsible for giving away the Panama Canal, as well as totally fumbling the Iranian hostage crisis (fixed by Ronald Reagan shortly after he took office).

      It's borderline insane people are making claims, now, that he was responsible for giving America a "strong economy" and other nonsense....

      How did Reagan fix the Iranian hostage crisis? The deal to release them was made by Carter, they hostages probably had to stay in captivity longer just so they were released when Reagan took office.

      Note, I don't think it's the case that Reagan scuttled the negotiations to influence the election [wikipedia.org] (way too risky, though Iran might have wanted Carter defeated for their own reasons). But there's no reason to give Reaga

      • And for that matter, Reagan "fixed" the inflation by following Carter's policies (ie, Paul Volcker was hired by Carter).
    • I have lots of respect for Carter as a humanitarian.... but lately, I've read a lot of revisionist history about his presidency on Reddit and other sites.

      Inflation was TERRIBLE during his term of office, for starters. He's responsible for giving away the Panama Canal, as well as totally fumbling the Iranian hostage crisis (fixed by Ronald Reagan shortly after he took office).

      It's borderline insane people are making claims, now, that he was responsible for giving America a "strong economy" and other nonsense....

      Yep. He simply wasn't a good president.

      Good man, maybe ... would have made a good powerless "head of state" in a different sort of country.

  • But he was born before the Great Depression started...

  • by GlennC ( 96879 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @01:29PM (#64831711)

    He may not have been a good President but at least he was honest.

    In my opinion, Jimmy Carter was the last honest and ethical person to hold the office of President of the United States.

    It's been a parade of lying amoral corporate whores ever since, with a demented con man who wants to return to office thrown in the mix.

    This is what happens after decades of having to choose between the lesser of two evils, I guess. Whatever happens next is yet to be seen but I'm pretty sure we're close to the end of the United States, although I welcome any evidence to the contrary.

    • At least I never had to hear W weepily tell America how he hadn't actually cheated on his wife but had "sinned in his heart." Honest or not, that's really inappropriate for a Presidential address.
  • by YetAnotherDrew ( 664604 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @01:36PM (#64831737)
    Presidents get to keep their title. It's not as if "President Carter" is dead-naming him.

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