{"id":4910,"date":"2014-10-31T00:00:12","date_gmt":"2014-10-31T05:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=4910"},"modified":"2014-10-31T11:34:03","modified_gmt":"2014-10-31T16:34:03","slug":"what-to-make-of-jimmy-carter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/?p=4910","title":{"rendered":"WHAT TO MAKE OF JIMMY CARTER?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I have not been a big fan of Carter’s for many years, but Randall Balmer’s fine book stopped me a bit short.\u00a0 Here is my interview with Balmer.\u00a0 It will appear tomorrow on Jesus Creed:<\/strong><\/div>\n
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I first heard of Randall Balmer during my studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.\u00a0 Later, we met for lunch in New York City.\u00a0 We both are TEDS graduates and have done specials for PBS, so it seemed like the thing to do.\u00a0 Randy\u2019s PBS series, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory<\/i>, was nominated for an Emmy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Balmer is a gifted writer of over a dozen books and currently teaches at Dartmouth College.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: I\u2019ve read several presidential biographies, but must confess that I avoided Carter until now.\u00a0 Carter\u2019s bland predictability didn\u2019t draw me.\u00a0 I guess I want more drama in my presidents, at least in reading books about them!\u00a0 What led you to tackle this rather vanilla president?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Balmer: Historians have an axiom that history is written by victors, and that has been the case with Jimmy Carter, especially in relation to his successor as president, Ronald Reagan. For more than three decades now, we\u2019ve been hearing about the so-called Reagan Revolution and how Reagan saved America from the \u201cmalaise\u201d of the Carter years. I\u2019ve always believed that the achievements of the Reagan administration were exaggerated and that Carter\u2019s presidency was undervalued. One of the beauties of the historical profession, however, is that we revisit the past\u2014and previous interpretations\u2014every few years. We sort through the evidence once more and try to look at it with fresh eyes. Jimmy Carter is finally getting a second look\u2014and I hasten to add that I\u2019m not the only historian who is doing this. Others are also reevaluating the Carter presidency, and while almost no one regards the Carter years as an unalloyed success, Carter looks a little better in hindsight than he did at the time, especially his efforts at creating a climate for peace in the Middle East and his persistent warnings about America\u2019s profligate consumption of energy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My interest in Jimmy Carter dates to the early 1970s when he first came on the national stage. I was an undergraduate at Trinity College at the time, and I remember being astonished that a politician who was increasingly being taken seriously as a presidential candidate characterized himself as a \u201cborn again\u201d Christian. This was the language we used to describe ourselves, of course, but what struck me was that Carter was so unabashed about that self-description. I was, to say the least, intrigued, as much by Carter himself as by the possibility that other evangelicals might finally awaken from their apolitical torpor and reclaim their own tradition of progressive social and political values.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: Like your former professor at Princeton, John Wilson, I came away with a newfound appreciation for Carter.\u00a0 Did that happen in any significant way for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Balmer: It\u2019s difficult not to be impressed with Carter if you look seriously at his life, his priorities, and his accomplishments. My favorite quote about Carter comes from James Laney, the former president of Emory University, who said about Carter that he was the only man in history for whom the presidency was a steppingstone. I think that pretty much captures Carter\u2019s activities since leaving the White House, but, as I say, I think his accomplishments as president\u2014the Panama Canal treaties, a recalibration of American foreign policy, environmental preservation\u2014were anything but negligible.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: Your book gives a balanced portrait of Carter.\u00a0 You don\u2019t pull your punches about his missteps and you don\u2019t downplay how disastrous some of his decisions were.\u00a0 When you spent time with the president, did he try to push back on any of your critical assessments of his presidency?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Balmer: Carter took issue with my characterization that, as an outsider to Washington, he had a vexed relationship with Congress. He pointed to a study that showed that, with the single exception of Lyndon Johnson, Carter had a more productive relationship with Congress than any modern president. He\u2019s right, of course, although toward the end of his presidency that relationship soured somewhat, especially when Edward Kennedy effectively broke with Carter in order to challenge the incumbent president for the Democratic nomination in 1980.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: Throughout your book, Carter\u2019s work ethic, attention to detail, and courage on racism stand out.\u00a0 His attention to detail seemed to fulfill the truth of the old adage that \u201cyour greatest strength can be your greatest liability.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Balmer: Yes, there\u2019s some truth to that. As president, Carter, I think, was overwhelmed by the scale of the job. While a state senator, he had promised to read every bill that came before the Georgia State Senate, and he tried to bring that attention to detail to the presidency. Several people told me that they had seen Carter\u2019s glosses on the federal budget; he had actually tried to scrutinize expenditures line by line. And then there\u2019s the famous incident where Carter was actually keeping the log for the White House tennis court.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: Given your three characteristic definition of what makes a person an Evangelical (yours being slightly different from David Bebbington\u2019s), do you think it is possible to also use evangelical as an adjective as in evangelical Roman Catholic or evangelical Orthodox?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Balmer: With all respect to David, I think his definition is unnecessarily recondite. If an evangelical is characterized by \u201cbiblicism,\u201d for instance, \u201ccrucicentrism\u201d is redundant; \u201ccrucicentrism,\u201d after all, is at the heart of the Bible. I prefer a more functional, trinitarian definition: An evangelical 1) believes that the Bible is God\u2019s revelation to humanity; 2) believes in the centrality of conversion; and 3) honors the mandate to evangelize. I see no reason why that definition cannot apply to Roman Catholic or Orthodox believers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: Douglas Brinkley titles his 1999 biography of Carter, The Unfinished Presidency<\/i>.\u00a0 It seems you would concur with Brinkley\u2019s assessment.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Balmer: Yes, David Brinkley\u2019s book is excellent. Although I take the argument in a slightly different direction, I think we agree that the reason Carter has been so productive as an ex-president is that he wanted to complete some of the initiatives he undertook as president. Carter, in fact, told me that in so many words. He said he doubted he would have been so active since leaving office had he won a second term in 1980.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: You include the text of Jimmy Carter\u2019s so-called malaise speech.\u00a0 I was amazed how vulnerable Carter was about his failures.\u00a0 Do you know of any other modern president who was that candid?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Balmer: No, I think it\u2019s pretty much unprecedented. The only episode that comes close, I suppose, is Bill Clinton\u2019s acknowledgement of culpability in the Monica Lewinsky episode. But that, of course, was a different matter from Carter\u2019s \u201cCrisis of Confidence\u201d speech. Carter was remarkably honest about both himself and his nation\u2014and his political enemies used it mercilessly against him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Moore: You cover a lot of terrain in Redeemer: the Life of Jimmy Carter<\/i> even though it is barely over 200 pages.\u00a0 What do you hope readers would take away from your book?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Balmer: I hope readers come away with a new appreciation not only for Carter but also for the long and distinguished tradition of progressive evangelicalism in American history.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have not been a big fan of Carter’s for many years, but Randall Balmer’s fine book stopped me a bit short.\u00a0 Here is my interview with Balmer.\u00a0 It will appear tomorrow on Jesus Creed: I first heard of Randall Balmer during my studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.\u00a0 Later, we met for lunch in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,90,19,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","category-character","category-leadership","category-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4910"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4913,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4910\/revisions\/4913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.twocities.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}