Happy 90th Birthday, Jimmy Carter

I was dead wrong about Jimmy Carter.

I never would have thought I’d say it, but I’ll be glad when the run for 2016 begins in earnest, no matter who is in it – dare I say, even if it’s Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. At least then I can start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of Barack Obama’s administration. God, what an awful thought: Hillary or Jeb.

At any rate, I’m not sure I should be voting. The only time I ever voted Republican was for Gerald Ford. Gerald Ford! who famously pardoned that crook Nixon to save the sensibilities of the country. What a precedent that was. And it taught me to vote for whomever I thought was the best person for the job ever after, no matter whether he or she was on the ballot or not.

The reason I voted for Gerald Ford that year was because I was so leary of anyone nearing the office who made God part of his public speeches. That scared me more than anything. And that was Jimmy Carter.

Now I look back at all the ex-presidents and have to admit that there stands Mr. Carter alone amongst them who has gone out every day of his post-presidential life doing good works, Doing Christian works, not just giving them lip service, without being paid for it, and with apparently no self-interest. He may well have said some things and backed some things post-presidentially that gave me a shiver, but none come to mind at the moment. I don't agree with his objection to abortion that is not medically necessary, but he did uphold Roe v. Wade when president.

He did some great things as president, and since then he’s made some very public moral stands that probably sent his fundamentalist compatriots into tailspins.  And he's been very publicly critical of Obama's Guantanamo/torture/citizen surveillance programs. We should be so lucky again as to have a man (or woman) of that disposition – to do things for others, to try to do the right, rather than the politically expedient thing -  rather than to line his own pockets or gain power over his fellow man – make it into the White House. We won’t see it in our lifetimes. No one of that sort will get within a light year of the office – or want to, I imagine.

I WOULD like to see him return his Nobel Peace Prize in protest of Barack Obama’s receiving – and thereby sullying – the same.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Jimmy.