Why the worst?
Jimmy Carter's presidency opened with the highest of hopes and has ended in low ignominy. Four years ago this fresh-faced man who had come galloping out of Georgia to seize Washington, who had jumped clean over the hurdles and fences of traditional American party politics, who had leaped from a peanut farm to the White House, entered Upon a disordered but enviable estate. President Nixon had brought the reputation of the presidency and the selfconfidence of the United States down into a deep trough. President Ford had done what he could to restore respect to the presidency and self-respect to the country, but what Ford could do was evidently not good enough. Many disliked Carter for his conceit, his assumptions of moral superiority, his air of innocence, his sharp intelligence, his appearance of insufficient weathering in the harsh and variable cliinate of American politics. Many idolised him, seeing him as the White Knight who would bring honesty, decency, and cleanliness into the Augean stables of Washington. The rest hoped for the best and feared the worst. Four years on, none who had disliked him from the beginning and like him; had any reason to have learned to live with him those who had idolised him had seen all too Clearly his feet of clay; and those who had hoped and feared had found that their fears had been realised more than their hopes.
Carter's four years have amounted to an undistinguished Presidency. Its peak was undoubtedly Camp David. This was a venture of spirit and courage. Carter is also entitled to take what credit he feels he can afford for having kept the United States at peace and for having had no American lives lost in military action during his Presidency, save for the few casualties of the abortive hostage rescue attempt. He negotiated SALT II with the R t ussians; but he did not secure the treaty's endorsement by he Senate. The treaty is now a dead duck, and Carter's tai ure to get it past &Democratic Senate is a very large l b emish on his record. At home he failed to deal with the Crucial problems of inflation and of energy.He was no more successful or adept at leading and giving confidence to the Western alliance abroad than he was at invigorating his own country. During his presidency the United 'States and the West saw the Soviet Union substantially increase its military and naval might without any impressive or useful response being offered. The last third of his presidency was marred and ruled by Iran's .Islamic revolution, the flight of the Shah and the seizure of the American hostages in Iran. The storming of the American embassy on 4 November 1979 was in itself a very nasty piece of terrorism; what made it disgusting was the endorsement of the terrorism by the people in Iran who since the Islamic revolution have passed for the authorities. From then until this week Iran has been enabled to subject the United States, and by association the West, to a constant stream of indignities and abuse. President Carter's concern for the lives of the hostages has been at the expense of the authority of the United States and the well-being of the Western alliance. The unseemly haggling over the final ransom terms ended in Iran imposing a final humiliation upon Carter and his presidency. The hostages were not released in time for Carter as President to welcome them to safety, and Teheran radio crowed that not even what they termed America's 'final surrender' would give 'clowning' President Carter this sop. It is to be hoped that neither President Reagan nor any subsequent American president will stoop as President Carter did by negotiating with regimes which praise and honour their terrorists, which abuse very necessary diplomatic conventions, and which demonstrate their unfitness to belong to the comity of nations. President Carter made much, during his presidency and in his farewell to it, of his concern with human rights. This is a noble concern: but what good has he done for human rights during his tenure of the world's most powerful office? His words have been more ambitious than his deeds. 'Why not the best?' he asked us in his autobiography, published before he betame President. The best may be too much to hope for in presidents. The question we must ask ourselves, now that the final degrading days of the end of Carter's presidency are over, is not 'Why not the best?' but, rather, 'Why the worst?'
Previous page
