It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment or the courage to pay the price . . . One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms . . . One has to embrace the world like a lover. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.
- Morris West, The Shoes of the Fisherman
There aren’t a lot of American elected officials, especially presidents, who qualify as “full human beings.” Abe Lincoln comes to mind; maybe Harry Truman. The list is not long.
Jimmy Carter measures up. People like to say he was “the best ex-President ever.” I agree. There is wisdom to his post-presidential years – 42 of them and still counting. According to The Independent Carter was “a better man than he was a president.”
There is his significant, public post-presidency record. Carter built an institution that supports democracy around the world. He has gone on global missions, quietly, seriously, as the supreme election and human rights observer. Along with Gen. Colin Powell and Sen. Sam Nunn, he negotiated a stand down by the Haitian government that made a military invasion of Haiti unnecessary in 1994 and, briefly, restored a democratic government. This after years of his investmen in democratic politics in Haiti. As part of the Haiti working group in the Clinton White House, I followed his patient work closely.
He gave global meaning and expansion to the work of Habitat for Humanity. Not by funding a foundation or sitting on the Board. By raising a hammer, year after year, putting his body where his support sent him.
His presidency is judged as “mixed” and not very successful. It had its flaws, as all presidencies do. Just ask Bill Clinton whose personal peccadillos tarnished his. Or Barak Obama, who was scandal-free and a great orator, but struggled to be effective in working with the Congress. Carter had his struggles, too. He was often criticized for paying more attention to detail than was useful. One of my predecessors at OMB recounted to me the number of hours he had spent with Carter in the Oval Office, going through the defense budget line-item by line-item. – a highly unusual intrusion of the Oval Office into budgeting details. Or personally approving requests to use the White House tennis court. And his record in working with the Congress was, at best, mixed.
We need to remember that his presidency also had significant accomplishments. Rare among presidents he succeeded in terminating a major military hardware system, the B-1 bomber. I worked that process on the outside and remember standing on one side of the House entrance buttonholing members as Air Force lobbyists stood on the other side working toward the same goal. We won (though Reagan revived it later). He put the question of energy security and alternative energy options on the nation’s table – it has taken years to fulfill that promise. He reached a significant arms control treaty with the Soviet Union. He brokered the first diplomatic breakthrough ending Israel’s isolation in the Middle East. He achieved a major nuclear arms control agreement with the Soviet Union. But for the October meddlingof the Reagan campaign, he might have ended the hostage crisis in Iran.
These are all worthy considerations in evaluating Jimmy Carter. They do not explain the core of his merit, why he has become an iconic figure in the ranks of American ex-presidents. One need to look to what Morris West described. Carter was willing to pay the price of being human.
Most presidents conceal their humanity. Standing on the tall pedestal is too attractive; to be human would diminish and tarnish the reputation. Being ready to be vulnerable, publicly, is rarely presidential. Carter was, if anything, willing to let the warts show, to lust in his heart and let go of it. To do the things he loved to do (and was good at) like democracy travel, human rights, and hammering nails.
To accept his pain and let that show, too – his cancer, old age, and, finally, hospice care. Not to wallow in it projecting suffering in the search of pity. Dealing with his pain with grace. Above all, to accept life and death, as it comes.
To live his values and principles directly, simply, the values of his faith. Showing that faith in deeds and Sunday school teaching. Unlike way too many loud voices of American politics, living his values instead of hammering others over the head with judgment and shaming. Living his compassion, joy, and kindness. Living the love he had for Rosalyn and his family
To make mistakes, accept them, live through them. There is no way for me to know, but I would not be surprised to learn he knew every shadow he had, accepted them, moved on.
None of this makes him a God, perfect, or better than anyone else. But virtually no other president has been so fully, openly flawed, and perfectly imperfect. It makes him fully human.
A gorgeous life beautifully narrated. Thank you. And, for the West quotation. I have never wavered in my praise for President Carter when hoards demonized his misuse/misapplication of the term apartheid as it applies to specific policies of Israel in the occupied territories. Inside the Green Line? No, to the best of my understanding. In the OT, hell, yes. Seen with my eyes when driven on apartheid roads swerving the cantons some of which I visited with human rights groups and with an Israeli teacher of "democracy" in public schools. The job no longer exists... I want to lift up "Miss Lillian" – Jimmy's Carter's mother whose own life journey, ethics, and social behaviors surely informed his own.
+ I liked his move out of the Southern Baptist church, protesting their treatment of women. Putting solar panels on the White House roof was good too. I did not like his presidential staffers' tactics—they seemed to be the Bad Guys for him and did that well. Like getting the NYPD to declare the 1980 Dem Convention hall full when it wasn't, making sure Carter supporters got the word and filled the seats before anyone else could get in. I was Press, waving both a press card and an invite from a Congress member to get in. Guy next to me said, I AM a Congressman and I can't get in either.