If Only We had Re-elected Jimmy Carter

[WI_DEM]

Here is a good article from last year:

Given impetus by the 1973 Arab oil embargo, Carter's efforts to begin to wean America off its dependence on fossil fuels, especially imported oil, ground to a halt. The fall of the Shah of Iran, the take-over of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, not only precipitated yet another oil shock, but also proved Carter's undoing, with the connivance of Republican politicians who reportedly cut a secret deal with the Iranians to not release the hostages until the day of Reagan's inauguration. Regardless of the back room politics, the Iranian oil embargo only reemphasized how vulnerable America was to oil blackmail.

It was the "Gipper" who effectively gutted the nation's renewable energy research program, forcing wind and solar energy research to shift to Europe. Germany and Denmark, in particular, are now the world leaders in both technologies, though India and China are both coming on strong.

What if America had kept Carter's pledge to no longer be held hostage of oil politics? When he took office in 1977, America was importing 48 percent of its oil, but by the time he left office, his policies had shrunk this to 40 percent, a drop of 1.8 million barrels a day. Six months before the start of the Iraq-Iran war, Carter came within a hair's breadth of getting important energy legislation passed.

By April 1980, he had gotten much of his second energy package through, including a Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax (with revenues designated for the general Treasury but not for specific energy projects), which would expire in 1993 or before, if the full amount of $227 billion had been collected. But there were two major defeats: Congress overrode a presidential veto of a bill that Congress had passed repealing a $4.62 per barrel oil import fee -- the first time in twenty-eight years that a Congress had overridden a veto by a president from the majority party. It also defeated the Energy Mobilization Board that Carter had proposed to cut through "red tape" in developing new sources of energy
http://featured.matternetwork.com/2010/6/only-we-had-re-elected.cfm

[joeybee12]

1. People forget how Byrd really stuck it to Carter during his presidency...

A perons beholden to dirty coal will do that.

[sweetapogee]

8. agreed

and this is one of the reasons why dems (Obama and Casey) have a lot to worry about with respect to the battle ground state of Pennsylvania in next years election. Discontinuing the old model before inventing the new model is not wise.

[Exultant Democracy]

2. No shit we would be a lot better off. I think he was ham fisted with the middle east

but that came from following the game plan laid out before he was even in office. The one time he went off book can probably be attributed to the fall of the shah.

I wish he had followed his better instincts and not continued to arm monsters who oppressed their own people.

[hifiguy]

3. Had Carter not allowed the brutal deposed Shah into the US

for medical treatment, the embassy takeover may never have happened. With all the money the Shah stole, he certainly could have gotten whatever medical attention he needed in Switzerland or somewhere else. Not that it would have done him much good as he died within months.

"On 22 October 1979, at the request of David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger, President Jimmy Carter reluctantly allowed the Shah into the United States to undergo surgical treatment."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi#Exile_and_death

Carter gave in to TPTB, and effectively ended his own presidency.

[Kahuna]

4. Dems treated Carter like shite the same way they're doing to PBO. nt

[Bigmack]

5. The election of 1980 was the beginning of the end for the US...nt

[moondust]

11. +1

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

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[mdmc]

23. 1

[Fly by night]

6. I may write in President Carter in the TN primary. (Either him or Tom Paine or Nat Turner.)

Having a President who says what he means, means what he says and who has the balls to stick by it would be such a refreshing change from the last 30+ years.

[saras]

7. Personally I suspect he would have been assassinated...

The oil people were primary enemies of his from the moment he was elected, and they are a major cause of his failure to get more done. If they had been more severely threatened by Carter, I think they would have acted.

Of course, Carter had the knack of offending the corrupt everywhere. He was a brutally mean politician when he had to be, but he just saw corruption as inefficient, degrading, and unnecessary. But some say that his political career ended when he suggested that water rights in the West needed to be cleaned up, and the law systematically obeyed.

The media, too, hated Carter with a passion. He contributed nothing to that sense of bizarre theatrical fakeness that the media cultivated in the seventies. Real reporting was already leaving the media for books, before there was an internet as an alternative.

[LaydeeBug]

9. I didn't even read the article yet. KICK AND REC'D ON THAT AWESOME, TRUE TITLE ALONE nt

[Scuba]

10. James Earl Carter stands apart from the crowd...

<a href="http://imgur.com/sTBYW"><img src="" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

[flying rabbit]

12. Says a lot. nt

[Dawson Leery]

13. kick

[Selatius]

22. He looks the least happy of all of the bunch. Gee, I wonder why. nt

[Scuba]

24. I've had that same thought. I think he spends much more effort on personal reflection ....

... than the others. He bears the weight of his responsibilities, while at least some of the others have no conscience.

[Enthusiast]

14. I did my part.

I voted for Carter in 1980.

[Capitalocracy]

15. If only we'd elected McGovern! nt

[redqueen]

16. Huge K&R

I wonder about this regularly.

I hope everyone who voted for ray gun, and all the Dems who didn't support Carter, are very, very happy with themselves.

[baldguy]

18. And if only we had elected Al Gore...

Oh, right. We did!

[NNN0LHI]

19. I bet any new houses that were built today would come with solar panels as standard equipment

Reagan and the GOP hated solar panels.

This country really screwed up back then. And we are still paying for this screw up to this day.

Don

[Magoo48]

20. A man who appeared to walk his talk...

[madokie]

21. It really saddens me when I look back on the Carter Presidency

That was when the pukes really started being nasty toward our Democratic Presidents. Watergate done them in, after that they were not going to be mr nice guy, (if they ever was that is.) Many felt that since Jimmy was from the south he didn't belong in the white house, same in many ways today with our black President. Many feel he just doesn't belong there because he's not a crooked conniving old white man, and they are trying to do all they can to get his ass out as soon as they possibly can, sans hook or crook, it matters not, the end justifies the means. The Puke party stole the '80 election as sure as I'm drinking coffee and typing right now. President Carters policies weren't good for the oily boys, after all it all starts there. We all have to have energy for everything we do, we're over a barrel as they say. President Carter still has my respect, ronnie the saint or either bush damn sure don't though

I'm mostly Caucasian myself. ok
When I say many I mean puklicons

splchk