Smash the Reagan vs Carter myth!!!!!

[lanparty]

OK, we know that Reagan's persona is a myth. Let's hear all the reasons why Carter was a better president than Reagan.

Liberals stop hiding. I have no illusion that Carter was a GREAT president. But our reason and sensibility has made OUR guys look miniscule compared to the PT Barnum like promotion of Reagan and the two Bushes.

So I'll start:

1) Carter actually WAS a fighter pilot.
2) Carter didn't trade hostages for arms.
3) Carter didn't ENCOURAGE and FUND terrorism like Reagan did!!!!
4) Carter DEFEATED gas lines with his efficiency, conservation and alternative energy initiatives.
5) Carter didn't increase the deficit by a factor of ONE THOUSAND, like Reagan did.
6) Carter didn't throw mental patients into the street subsequently kicking off crime waves.
7) Carter didn't smuggle drugs into our inner cities like Reagan followers did!!!!
8) Carter held a degree in nuclear engineering and was EXTRAORDINARILY competent. Reagan and Bush 2 are/were mental midgets!!!!


My single negative of Carter ....
He admitted the Shaw of Iran to the United States. The guy was a brutal dictator. He didn't put the Shaw IN POWER (Eisenhower) but he DID protect the guy.

So lets hear all the reasons why CARTER was a MUCH BETTER president than REAGAN!!!!!

[burythehatchet]

1. He tried to purge the CIA of the roaches that GHW re-assembled into his

private CIA and who are back imbedded in the govt.

[camby]

2. You already gave the reasons

so CONGRATS! BUT... why is Carter not revered as Reagan is? BECAUSE we Americans like FLASH over substance; GLAMOUR over grit; SOUND BYTES over in-depth analysis. In other words, Reagan gave us exactly what we wanted. Carter, to his everlasting credit, gave us THE TRUTH.

[camby]

3. And of course

We already know that WE CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[trotsky]

5. And that's of course why Mondale lost too.

He gave us the truth. Ronnie's deficits were going to kill this country. One way or another, taxes were going to have to be raised. Mondale said he would, and got trounced. Reagan said he wouldn't, and then did. The liar is more revered than the honest man.

[tekriter]

6. Sorry - but are you sure Carter was a fighter pilot?

His biography indicates he was a nuclear submarine officer.

[No2W2004]

11. Right:

Remember "Attack of the 50ft President"?

"I'm a nuclear engineer and I'm pretty worried"

[Spinzonner]

7. Got a few myths of your own there

Carter was a submarine officer, not a fighter pilot

[lanparty]

20. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

I saw a picture of Jimmy Carter in full flight regalia in a jet on an animation from www.takebackthemedia.com. I dunno if that was a photo op or not. I cannot find the animation on the site now. It was the AWOL-Bush one featuring "Fortunate Son" in the background.

[MikeG]

8. Ask what Carter allegedly did to ruin the economy.

He passed a capital gains tax cut.
He cut spending.
He began rebuilding the military.
He let the Shah in because Kissinger asked him to.

What did he do that they didn't like?

[Freddie Stubbs]

22. You make him sound like one of those moderate DLCers

;)

[JHB]

25. What they didn't like about Carter:

The Panama Canal: Carter honored the treaty when our "lease" on the canal zone was over. Conservatives said "it's ours, Period." and wanted to treat the canal treaty as just another Injun treaty, to be broken when inconvenient;

"Losing" Nicaragua: Why, he allowed International Communism to gain a foothold directly on the North American continent itself (Somoza? sure he was a sonovabitch, but was OUR sonovabitch and should have been supported).

"Losing" Iran: another "our sonovabitch" whom Cater failed to support.

The hostage crisis: just made us look weak, especially when he blew the rescue mission.

SALT treaty: bet'cha didn't know Carter was going to unilaterally disarm the US so Moscow could waltz right on in...

[never cry wolf]

9. I thought Carter

was navy, mostly submarines, not a pilot.

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq60-14.htm

[TriMetFan]

10. Carter was a Great President and A Great Man.

When I talk to people who voted for Reagan, they can knee themselves in the A$$ for doing so.

[warrior1]

13. Jimmy Carter was a Great President.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jc39.html

After seven years' service as a naval officer, Carter returned to Plains. In 1962 he entered state politics, and eight years later he was elected Governor of Georgia. Among the new young southern governors, he attracted attention by emphasizing ecology, efficiency in government, and the removal of racial barriers.



http://www.nobel.se/peace/laureates/2002/
The Nobel Peace Prize 2002
"for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development"


Jimmy Carter

USA

39th President of the United States of America
b. 1924


http://www.habitat.org/how/carter.html
As President of the United States, Jimmy Carter was deeply committed to social justice and basic human rights. He and his wife Rosalynn left the White House in search of meaningful ways to contribute in these areas. In addition to promoting peace and human rights through the nonprofit Carter Center in Atlanta, they lead the Jimmy Carter Work Project (JCWP) for Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) one week each year.

Jimmy Carter Work Project

Jimmy Carter's involvement with Habitat for Humanity International began in 1984 when the former president led a work group to New York City to help renovate a six-story building with 19 families in need of decent, affordable shelter. That experience planted the seed, and the Jimmy Carter Work Project has been an internationally recognized event of HFHI ever since.

snip

[stavka]

12. I though there were two versions of this filmed....

...Like Godzilla Vs King Kong

In the Blue States and on College campuses they released a version where Carter won, in the Red states they just lowed taxes and blamed black people for their own problems or blamed mexicans or blamed jews - if that area was close enough to New York to actually read.

[T Town Jake]

14. President Carter...

...had a huge task on his hands trying to clean up the mess Nixon/Ford left him with after eight sorry years of mis-rule. But people weren't patient enough to wait for long term results, unfortunately, and we ended up with Reagan.

[CaliforniaLady]

16. You nailed the main reason Carter couldn't get re-elected!

Four more years would have given Carter a much better legacy as a president.

I still don't understand how Reagan won 49 states against Mondale.

[Hammie]

26. Yes and no

The economy was in wicked bad shape when Carter got it, but he didn't even pretend to be fixing it. I was still pretty young at the time, but I've got pretty clear memories of Carter on TV informing the American people that the days of expecting our children to be better off than we are were over. If he did something to fix it, it was a complete accident because at the time he was telling everyone that it was going to get worse.

[Jose Diablo]

15. Carter was a good President and you gave the reasons

I think the reason he wasn't re-elected was because Reagan's campaign people made Carter appear weak. Sound familiar?

During the Iran Embassy Hostage situation Carter was not able to get the hostages released. Of course, now we know (or suspect) Reagan's people cut a deal with Iran to not release the hostages until after Reagan was president. These people are real slime balls.

At the time though, nobody knew people were working behind the scene to sabotage Carters efforts to negotiate the release of the hostages. People in our own government were undermining the president to get another president elected. Talk about treason.

Now we have the same ba*tards there now.

[JP Belgium]

17. you could add a minor detail...

Nobel Prize

[anti_shrub]

18. Have any of you seen the horrid smear book out now?

Saw it on an endcap at Media Play yesterday, about how Carter was our worst president ever and how he coddled terrorists.

I'm not a huge Carter fan (most of what he did that I champion came after his Presidency) but to claim he was the worst ever? How disgusting.

[SharonAnn]

19. He only permitted the Shah into the US for medical treatment and

then he had to leave.

[iverglas]

21. Carter was an honourary pallbearer

... at former Cdn Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's funeral:



while former Cdn PM Brian Mulroney gave a eulogy at Ronald Reagan's funeral:



(Okay, Ronnie wasn't quite dead in that pic, but I can't find one yet of the funeral.)

Howzat?

(Not that I don't have at least as many qualms about Trudeau as USAmerican progressives would have about Carter ... but I probably hate Mulroney about as much as y'all hate Reagan!)

;)

[neoteric lefty]

23. What does 1) have to do with being a great president???

Quote:

1) Carter actually WAS a fighter pilot.


I am not too keen on Reagan's service during World War II beyond the story of him making stuff up about concentration camps. Yet, why is military service help make a person a better president versus someone who didn't serve? I am not asking about making a person more qualified to be president, but I am asking how would that make him/her better.

[napi21]

24. He survived the attack of the Pubs!

I remember, shortly after he was elected, the Pubs went after him for how he got his money, intimating it had something to do with illegal funds and his peanut farm.

I also remember Carter turned over all the records, made a public statement that he had absolutely NOTHING to hide, and.....guess what? He didn't! Those morons didn't find anything and had to crawl back under their rocks.

I also remember, during the 2000 campaign, hearing people speculating on just what the American people really want in a President. "The stories about wanting an honest, good, & religious President can't be right....they already had one in Jimmy Carter, and they didn't like him either!!!"