A visionary as president

By Peggy Perkins

Those old enough to remember the Carter administration are just as likely to recall stagflation, gasoline price hikes, and the Iran hostage crisis as they are the Middle East peace accord Carter brokered at Camp David or his forward-thinking environmental policies. With the perspective of time, it is now clear that President Carter was a gifted leader.

It’s been said that it is easy to lead American people where they want to go, but it takes vision to lead them where they don’t.  Carter faced down Republican threats that his party would pay at the polls for “giving away” the Panama Canal. Amid prognostications that the Panamanians would be unable to run the canal without US help, he signed the Panama Canal Treaties that ended decades of pseudo-colonial domination of a neighboring country.  Relations with Latin America improved, security threats to the canal ended, and the canal was returned to profitability.

With skyrocketing oil prices, cardigan-clad President Carter appeared in a televised fireside chat to urge us to turn down the heat and put on a sweater to conserve fuel and bolster American energy independence.  New government policies on safety and fuel emissions incentivized automobile manufacturers to produce more environmentally friendly cars that today are the core of the industry.

In his single term, President Jimmy Carter appointed more African-American judges to the federal courts than all the presidents who preceded him put together. His labor with Habitat For Humanity is legendary.  In 2002, Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize for health education, disease prevention and election observation accomplishments in Latin America.

Many say his presidency was ineffective. Time has shown him to have been an internationalist, an environmentalist, a small “d” democrat who put principles before partisanship.

Perhaps say instead that President Carter was ahead of his time. 

Peggy Perkins resides in Winder