This is a day to celebrate as the 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) has reached the magic age of 99 today, despite being in hospice and rejecting medical treatment.
His wife, Rosalynn, is 96 and in early stages of dementia, but their 77 year marriage endures.
No one who is President will ever reach this major achievement of Carter, and one can be certain that assessments of his Presidency, often quite critical, will become more reflective and positive in the future, as Carter actually had a number of policies that have endured.
These include the Camp David Accords (the Israeli-Egyptian Treaty); the Panama Canal treaties; the promotion of human rights around the world; major initiatives on the environment, making Carter the greatest one term President on that issue, and number 3 overall in the assessment of environmental historians, only trailing Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon; and the creation of three cabinet agencies in Health and Human Services and Education (dividing the Health, Education, and Welfare Department created under President Dwight D. Eisenhower); and the Department of Energy, created in the midst of the Oil Crisis of the late 1970s. He also added less to the national debt than any modern President.
Joe Biden was the first US Senator to endorse Jimmy Carter in 1976, when many thought Biden was crazy to do so, as no one saw Carter as a likely nominee of his party or President of the United States. The two men share many common traits.
And Carter has said his favorite President is Harry Truman, who like Carter and Biden, has often been underrated and underestimated.
One could say the three men—Carter, Biden, and Truman—are in many ways, the most decent Presidents since World War II.
And one more point: These three men have never been cited as those who have cheated on their wives, and their marriages endured without scandal!
Jimmy Carter also has been the true example of a “good Christian”, as he has practiced the decency and compassion promoted by Jesus Christ.
Carter is a wonderful, compassionate, decent human being, and there are very few Presidents who fit that description!
So as a nation, let us celebrate this great man–Jimmy Carter–the total opposite of the most crooked and horrendous President of the United States in its history–Donald Trump–who still poses a threat to American democracy as we near the 250th anniversary of American Independence in 2026!