Worst President?

Last week Jimmy Carter suggested that George Bush is the worst president. This is ironic when Carter's own administration is examined.

Carter is best remembered for the peace he negotiated between Israel and Egypt. While this was significant, he was the least important of the three involved. Also, the peace has held to the extent that no Egyptian tanks have tried to invade Israel but most of the violence in Gaza is committed with arms smuggled in from Egypt, a fact that the Egyptian government does little to stop.

What else happened in the world during 1977-1980? Three million people died in Cambodia. South America became generally unstable due to communist rebels and coups. Many of these were inspired by Catholic missionaries who taught "liberation theology". This held that Christ was the first Marxist and that his talk if heaven was actually a call to create a secular heaven on earth through communist revolution. Carter did nothing to stop any of this.

Then there were two events whose repercussions are still with us. The first was the Iranian revolution. This was in two parts. The first part overthrew the Shah and created a democratic government. This was in 1978. In January, 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini announced that he was returning to Iran. The new government ordered the army to stop him but, at Carter's insistence, Khomeini was allowed in the following month. The democratic government collapsed immediately and the current theocratic government was created. In a few months and with Carter's encouragement, Iran went from a pro-US government to an anti-US one.

A major news story over the weekend was about violence between the groups Fatah and Hamas. Violence between the PLO and Hamas has been going on in Gaza for the last few weeks, also. This is relevant because Hamas was created and is funded by Iran

Then there was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Carter's only response to this was to boycott the Moscow Olympics and to cancel a said of grain to the USSR (which hurt US farmers more than the Russian army). The invasion of Afghanistan started a chain of events that led directly to 9/11. Many liberals have tried to blame President Reagan for supporting the Islamic groups that eventually created the Taliban but Carter was the first to aid them.

No discussion of the Carter years would be complete without mentioning the US economy. Inflation was the highest in my lifetime - around 12% annual with monthly surges of 1.5% (18% annual). Inflation has been below 3% for so long that people forget how devastating high inflation can be to a lifetime's savings. Productivity was at a low point and unemployment was high.

It is hard to think of a president who had so many failures during his administration and whose successes have been so mixed. Carter's current reputation as the best ex-president comes mainly from his work building houses for Habitat for Humanity. His recent book "Peace not Apartheid" and his recent comments about Bush show that the years have not increased his understanding of world affairs.