Was Jimmy Carter America’s best ex-president?

What did the commentators say?

Taking office in 1977 as a relative unknown – and sometimes derided as “Jimmy Who?” – Carter’s “unfamiliarity with Washington was seen as a virtue after the Watergate and Vietnam war years”, said The Guardian.

Yet hopes for his presidency were “dashed” by several economic and foreign policy crises, “starting with high unemployment and double-digit inflation and culminating in the Iran hostage crisis”. A “botched” rescue attempt left eight US servicemen dead, only further feeding growing doubts about Carter’s leadership. The hostages would be released in 1981, minutes after Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th president of the United States.

After leaving office, Carter “became dedicated to promoting democracy, monitoring elections, building homes with Habitat for Humanity and eradicating disease in some of the world’s poorest countries”, said NPR. In 2002, he won the Nobel Peace Prize, “an honour some said he had earned a quarter century earlier when he negotiated the Camp David accords”, said NPR. He ended his acceptance speech with a plea for peace: “War may sometimes be a necessary evil, but no matter how necessary, it is always evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.”

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, has died aged 100.

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The “common view” is that Carter was a better global leader after his presidency; a judgement that is said to have “annoyed” Carter. In more recent years, however, “his allies relished him living long enough to see historians reassess his presidency”.

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What next?

Carter will be honoured with a state funeral in Washington on 9 January, a national day of mourning in the US. He will then be buried in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, next to his late wife, Rosalynn.

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