30th anniversary of Carter's Malaise speech

Jimmy Carter's presidency ended with that speech. After it was over no one cared what he ever had to say about anything again.

One of the more interesting (from a 2009 perspective) parts of his speech was his call for more domestic energy production, particularly from coal. If there had been a line or two including nuclear power and/or development of domestic oil resources (not “shale”) in his mix of desirable energy sources, he might have been remembered for giving a Sarah Palin “drill, baby, drill”-type of speech. (Yes, I realize that this was right around the time of Three Mile Island. I was 15 years old at the time of this speech; I remember watching it.) The more honest of today’s environmentalists would have slammed him, big time, especially for the part about coal.

Let’s also put this speech into its proper context. Mr. Carter gave it in July of ‘79, right after the Shah of Iran was driven out of power. The USSR was gearing up to invade Afghanistan, and Three Mile Island’s much-ado-about-not-much had just taken place that March. A few days after he gave this speech, he fired half his cabinet for what seemed to be no apparent reason. For all intents and purposes, he gave a very good impression of being a man who had no real control over events and who looked like he didn’t know what he was doing. Given those circumstances, I would have been surprised if someone hadn’t used the word “malaise” to describe the situation and the speech. We picked this character, he stumbles around in Angola and Mozambique, talked about our “inordinate fear of Communism” while letting the USSR and Cuba run wild in several different countries, including Nicaragua, Angola and Mozambique. The economy at the time was not doing well, and this guy wants to stick it to us with even more restrictions ? “Standby gas rationing” ? A “windfall profits tax” ? Those of us who followed politics at the time all came to the conclusion that this President wasn’t just a scold, but a ferociously incompetent one to boot.

That perception was what did for Carter. The thing was, at the time, we didn’t even know the half of it. The oil-price spike of ‘79, the hostage crisis, and the Red Army’s Afghan invasion were right around the corner.

The moral of the story is this: if our so-called “leadership” cadre is going to scold us, then they should at least do so from a position of seeming competence. Otherwise, they’re going to look like complete and total idiots, instead of just looking like their usual plain old half-assed and partial idiots. (Barack Obama, take note.)

Your servant,

Lord Karth

Andrew Bacevich, the conservative Catholic military and diplomatic historian and former Army colonel, has written in praise of Carter on more than one occasion. Basically he thinks that Carter was the last president who -- above all in this speech -- understood and tried to warn Americans that energy dependency was going to mire them hopelessly in Middle East politics, with all the sorry consequences we've come to see: not just (sometimes unwinnable) wars, but long-term occupations, interventions in local sectarian conflicts, continuing huge defense expenditures, and of course terrorist threats and attacks.

But Carter was mocked and sneered at, Reagan came along, it was morning in America again, we were "standing tall," everything was great (leaving aside the occasional skyjacking, cruise-ship attack or massacre at a Marine barracks), and Carter's warnings were forgotten even as they proceeded to come true. It's an interesting perspective to see coming from a guy on the right like Bacevich.

Well, Carter was a scold

Rod calling anyone a "scold" is pretty rich.

Re: We picked this character, he stumbles around in Angola and Mozambique, talked about our “inordinate fear of Communism” while letting the USSR and Cuba run wild in several different countries, including Nicaragua, Angola and Mozambique.

Um, the revolutions in Nicaragua against the tyranny of Somoza (and against Portuguese colonialism in Angola and Mozambique) were thoroughly autochthonous, and were long overdue. Cuba gave them fraternal support (and in the case of Angola, sent troops to help defend them against American and South African interference). Why shouldn't they? At the end of the day though the Nicaraguan and Angolan revolutions were made by Nicaraguans and Angolans, not by the Cubans.

From where I sit, the Cubans were very much on the right side of the Angolan, Nicaraguan and Mozambique situations. And the Soviets, for all their many faults (and I don't have the same kind of sympathy for them in general that I have for the Cubans) were on the right side of those specific conflicts as well. Carter, at least, had the wisdom to see that. It's too bad that his successor Reagan, the patron of Central American oligarchies and terrorists, didn't.

Rod calling anyone a "scold" is pretty rich.

LOL

And before anyone screechs that there is a difference between believing in the sanctity of marraige and failing and environmentalism blah blah blah, let me point out that we are talking about values here and people's failures to live up to what they believe in. It is the same thing. I know conservatives (and liberals, too) who are faithful in their marraiges. I know liberals who recycle, drive fuel efficient cars, conserve energy and water use, and so forth. I also know people in both camps who fail to act in accordance with they profess to believe.

Read up on how the French handle nuclear waste. It's very interesting.

Telling people the truth=scold. Got it.

Steve