As I was reading the comments on Ben Shapiro's column, I realized that the left still thinks Jimmy Carter accomplished something desirable during his presidency. I have dealt with this before, several times, in fact, but allow me to revisit the topic and explain why Carter is such a detestable human being:

The Panama Canal

Now many Carter defenders will tell you that "the senate" gave away the canal (led partly by my one-time disgrace of a senator Paul Sarbanes), and that is technically true. The senate has the duty of ratifying all treaties. But that is kind of like saying the congress declared war on Germany in World War II. Yes, they had a vote on it, but the force pushing for it was still the president. And so we now have a major strategic asset, with both ends held by the People's Republic of China. I am not one given to paranoia about China, as I have shown before, but even I think this was a strategic blunder of the first order.

OPEC

If Carter is remembered for anything, it will be the oil crisis (or perhaps inflation), and the major beneficiaries of the oil crisis were the members of OPEC. Now, yes, Nixon played a major role in setting the stage for the oil crisis, but Carter's blame is much greater. Nixon was already mired in scandal and largely impotent when the first embargo hit, so he was in no position to correct anything. On the other hand, by the time of the second embargo, Carter had had two years in which he could have started an active search for oil within the US. Instead he continued Nixon's price controls, made very weak efforts at both conservation and alternative fuels, and generally did nothing while allowing domestic use of imported oil to rise incredibly. In short, he set the stage for OPEC to cripple the US. And, once they did, rather than take any sort of strong stand, he simply made speeches about doing more with less and generally told everyone to expect to lower their standard of living. A less inspiring figure one cannot imagine.

Iran

Carter did nothing to help our ally the Shah when the revolution came. Even once it was clear that the revolution was taking an overtly anti-American direction, Carter simply dithered. Even after US citizens, state department employees and military personnel, were taken hostage, Carter could do nothing and his eventual, belated attempt at a rescue was a joke. Now I do not know for a fact that support for the Shah or early pressure on the revolutionary government would have changed things, but I do know that by doing nothing Carter definitely emboldened the revolutionaries tot he point where they could take hostages with impunity. The way they fodled after Carter's loss gives evidence of this. It was clear they did not expect to get lucky enough to find an equally weak president in Reagan.

And for those who respond to this by bringing up Reagan's arms sales, I have two replies. First, of all, even assuming Reagan's arms sales were the epitome of evil, that does nothing to make Carter's acts any more laudable. As our nursery school teachers told us "two wrongs don't make a right."

Of course, there were a number of valid reasons to deal with the revolutionary government of Iran. At the time they had been installed for some time and were unlikely to be removed, the time to that would have been on Carter's watch. So, Reagan had to deal with them as a fact. If he had refused to deal with them, they would have likely turned more strongly to the Soviets, which was not acceptable at that time. Likewise, providing them with arms did not harm any US strategic interests, as the likely target was Iraq, which was not a US ally either. (Though later we did pragmatically support them to maintain a balance between Iraq and Iran to prevent any excessively powerful state from arising in the region.) Lastly, the fact that funds from such deals could be redirected to support the Contras whose funding had been cut off by pro-Sandinista congressmen was just an added benefit. In short, Reagan's actions were a triumph of pragmatic politics, while Carter's were simply inaction which led to a weakening of the US and a tarnishing of our image world-wide. I don't see how one can be compared to the other.

Inflation

Carter's inflation is legendary. The fact that he managed to combine, for the first time int he US, monetary and price inflation with a general economic slowdown led tot he creation of the term "stagflation". Of course this phenomenon is hardly new, nor is it as paradoxical as many of Carter's economic "experts" suggested. It is simply the next phase of hyperinflation.After the initial "boom" caused by the early stages of monetary inflation, investors realize that their returns are not going to keep up with inflation and they withdraw their funds from the economy, either hiding them in concrete objects, real estate, or in off-shore investments. This inevitably leads to an economic slowdown. That Carter was the first president to force the US to join the ranks of the Wiemar Republic and third world nations is disgraceful. Though, to be fair, he is not entirely to blame. Nixon did start the collapse with the Smithsonian Accords and the closing of the "gold window", but Carter's particularly inept handling took a bad situation and made it much, much worse.

Camp David

I will only make brief mention of this, as it is not an example of Carter doing harm. instead, this is an example of Carter taking credit for something that was going to happen anyway. As I said elsewhere, Israel and Egypt were both inclined to end their intermittent fighting. Israel lacked the resources to properly exploit what little benefit there was in holding the Sinai, so it was a small enough cost for a peace treaty. But, to argue that carter made this happen is absurd. As was the case with the de facto peace with Jordan around the same time,  Egypt no longer saw any advantage in demonizing Israel. In fact, as it fed into the claims of the dissident Moslem Brotherhood, they had a vested interest in toning down anti-Israel rhetoric. Had there been no Carter, the treaty may not have been formally signed (though I think a formal treaty would probably have existed even without him), but the results would have been much the same. Egypt just had no more reason to fight, and that is not because of anything Carter did.

Malaise

This is one of the areas where Carter gets the least blame, but did the most harm. Even when confronted with a bad situation, a great leader can inspire people, motivate them to rise above their bad circumstances. Even a poor speaker, a man with no charisma, can through his own steadfast resolve inspire his nation.

What did Carter do during the hard times of inflation and oil lines at home, hostages and terrorism abroad? He made speeches about malaise. He suggested we make do with less. He told us to lower the thermostat and put on a sweater. In short, when another leader would have called for the nation to come together and wait for the better times to come, Carter told us all that things would only get worse. Rather than a stirring call to action, again and again Carter's message was "shut up and take it, it only gets worse from here."

I am only amazed that we waited until 1980 to get rid of him. It is a testament to the law abiding nature of the American citizen that no one even suggested overthrowing such a somber, incompetent, and generally dismal government.

After Leaving Office

And after 1980, what did Carter do? Did he take actions to make amends for the dismal presidency he inflicted on the US?

He started by building homes for the homeless, which seemed a promising start. It was something honest, and accomplished real good. It may have been partly inspired by a belief that his successors did too little to help the poor, or by a desire to seem more "saintly", but if it was, Carter had the good sense to keep his mouth shut about it. And he kept saying little for a number of years, living the quiet life expected of former presidents.

And then that all ended. For some reason, Carter decided he wanted to become the face of the disloyal opposition. He started coddling dictators from Castro to Chavez, he accepted a Nobel prize intended to do nothing but snub our sitting president, and he started finding common cause with terrorists. It would have been unbecoming enough for any former politician to adopt such a militantly anti-American position, but for a former president to do so is unprecedented.  Even presidents who absolutely despised their successors, there has never been one who decided to actively attack his own nation in the way Carter did.

Of course I am sure there are a few Carter fans out there who will take me to task for my description, as they did Mr. Shapiro, but the facts speak for themselves. There really is very little, or nothing, I can find that would support an argument that Carter was even a mediocre president. I may be missing something small, but as far as I can recall, there was no major act during the Carter administration with which I agreed. And certainly there is nothing I find laudable in his recent behavior.