Jimmy Carter wasn’t the greatest President but he should be honored and remembered as the greatest man who was President.
When asked about his future priorities after being diagnosed with cancer the 90 year old former President said : ” I’d like to see the last Guinea worm die before I do.”
The worm is ingested through contaminated water and can painfully grow to 3 feet long before it is removed with a stick through a lesion in the skin. By providing water filtration methods the Carter Center has helped reduce worldwide cases from 3.6 million in 1986 to 11 known cases today. What a remarkable humanitarian achievement !
Thank you, President Carter, for brokering peace between Israel and Egypt, for warning us to be good stewards of this precarious environment, for making human rights the cornerstone of our foreign policy, for returning the Panama Canal to its’ rightful owners and building homes for the homeless. But most of all we are grateful because you cared about the suffering of your fellow human beings all over the world.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
A beautiful tribute, but I have to differ.
President Jimmy Carter:
Was the last President to keep our nation fully at peace;
Was the last President to challenge our nation to sacrifice;
Was the last President to propose significant new taxes on our greedy corporate sector for the common welfare.
And I say all that as an unapologetic and unabashed admirer of President Barack Obama.
He was a frustrating President for me, because he failed to push for progressive legislation in several areas, but we Democrats have allowed the Republicans to impose a false history upon him, and at long last it needs to stop.
Today we saw an adult gracefully and graciously face his own mortality. The contrast with the craven and infantile figures we are observing in the Republican primary race is genuinely startling. May he have decades more of noble service for the world’s people, especially its poorest.