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History’s Greatest Monster, or America’s Last Great President?
Despite “The Simpsons” saying the former, it turns out that Jimmy Carter was the latter
By William S. Bike
In Season 4, Episode 21 of The Simpsons, when Springfield’s Mayor Quimby unveils a statue of former President Jimmy Carter, somebody in the crowd yells out, “He’s history’s greatest monster!”
During Carter’s presidency and in his immediate post-presidential years, many in the government and media establishment certainly treated him that way. However, once he established the Carter Center and started building homes for poor people, the establishment narrative morphed to “Carter was a lousy president, but he had the greatest post-presidency career of anyone.”
The part about Carter’s post-presidency is certainly true. The part about his presidency is not. In fact, although historians and most of the establishment talking heads do not place him there, Carter should be ranked among the near-greats. Carter may have been no Franklin D. Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln, but his record compares favorably to those historians rank as great in their own way, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Dwight Eisenhower.
What makes a president great
