Humble peanut farmer Jimmy Carter

OPINION:

For many Americans, remembering former President Jimmy Carter fondly is a challenge.

If we are being honest, his presidency brings us back to dark and difficult times. My first concrete memory is sitting on the skin-scorching vinyl back seat of my mother’s giant blue 1971 Plymouth Fury, waiting for hours in line on the days we were allowed to buy gas.

The only reprieve for us was that child car seats had not been invented yet. And nobody could possibly find the seat belts stuffed deep in the back crevices of the seat with all the lost gumballs, petrified french fries and toy soldiers from our last 17-hour drive to the beach the previous August.

Those gas lines. The ayatollah of Iran pushing America around. That bloodthirsty rabbit chasing our president in a rowboat. American hostages. Heavy sweaters in the White House. Learning the word “malaise” and how you could not spread it on a sandwich.

They were grim times.

Here at the Nuclear Option, we always strive to tell the truth as best we can, no matter how difficult. But we also like to find the silver lining in every situation, such as the fact that car seats had not been invented when millions of American children cooked in the back seats of their parents’ cars while we were forced to wait in gas lines.

As the Lord teaches us, in all things give thanks. You don’t have to be a Sunday school teacher from Plains, Georgia, to know that one.

Also, here at the Nuclear Option, we are connoisseurs of euphemisms. In life, euphemisms often tell a greater truth than the actual truth. 

For example, “planned parenthood” and “reproductive rights” are widely accepted euphemisms for abortion. Certainly, it is an obvious lie to call abortion “planned parenthood” or “reproductive” anything — since abortion is the opposite of those things. The greater truth here is that abortion is so monstrously terrible that even abortion supporters refuse to defend what it actually is.

So, here goes our best effort at silver-lining euphemisms.

Jimmy Carter was a highly successful ex-president.

Truly, no president had a more successful post-presidency. He kept on teaching Sunday school, helped build homes for the poor and devoted his life to eradicating horrifying illnesses in Third World countries.

Mr. Carter was a kind and decent man. He lived a long life and was married for a very long time. In this world, these are great accomplishments.

Mr. Carter lived such a long life that he even outlived the authors of his obituaries, which appeared this week in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian in London. Impressive.

He could throw a baseball. And we are not talking about a lame throw from in front of the pitcher’s mound wearing mom jeans like his pathetic successor Barack Obama. Mr. Carter could throw a moderate heater that looked like a high strike across the plate.

Speaking of that, baseball nerds on the internet have calculated that Babe Ruth hit more home runs in Jimmy Carter’s lifetime than any active major league baseball player alive today has in his entire career. That is a serious accomplishment. At least for Babe Ruth.

Jimmy Carter was a justifiably modest man. Yet he was also highly successful in areas where few people choose to excel.

For example, he was a highly successful starter of government agencies, launching both the Department of Energy and the Department of Education. Where would we as a country be today without the Department of Energy and the Department of Education? Where would you — the American citizen and innocent taxpayer — be today without the Department of Energy and the Department of Education?

Mr. Carter also offered the greatest deal in the history of deals for the Panama Canal. Panama and China are still marveling at their good fortune from that sweet deal.

One undoubtedly good thing you can say about Jimmy Carter is that he did not pardon his brother after his brother got caught up in a massive influence-peddling scheme investigated by the Senate. 

President Biden, of course, pardoned his own son for a much bigger influence-peddling scam earlier this month. As Mr. Biden told reporters Sunday, presidents could learn from Mr. Carter “decency, decency, decency.”

Perhaps the greatest thing you can say about Mr. Carter’s political legacy is that he was an outsider. He did not come from a family of politicians. He did not spend 50 years in the fetid swamp of Washington before finally stumbling blindly into the presidency to make a fortune for his family.

Jimmy Carter came to the White House, a humble peanut farmer from Georgia. And he left the White House a humble peanut farmer from Georgia.

We could do worse.

• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.