Let’s deconstruct a joke: A guy walks out into the rain and hails a cab. The cab is johnny-on-the-spot. He gets in, and the cabbie says, “Perfect timing! You’re just like Frank.”
“Who?”
“Frank Feldman. He’s a man who did everything right, every day, every minute. Like me coming along at exactly the moment you needed a cab. Things like that happened to Frank all the time.”
“No one is perfect,” the guy says.
“Frank was,” the cabbie says. “He had a memory like a computer, could sing opera like Caruso. He knew the best wines and the shortest way out of any jam. Frank never got stuck in traffic! And Frank, gosh, he knew how to make everyone feel good, and he always had the right answer to everyone’s problems. Frank could fix anything, make everything better.”
“Sounds like an amazing fellow. How did you meet him?”
“Well, I never actually met Frank,” says the cabbie. “He died. I’m married to his fooking widow.”
The joke is really on us. If we get into the Conservative Cab, we hear all about that genius, Ronald Reagan. In the Liberal Cab, we hear the Bill Clinton Symphony, all sweetness, light, and good intentions. Except for the Current Malignancy, how is it possible that the two dippiest presidents since WWII have become the objects of such euphoric recall?
Perhaps the answer is Jimmy Carter, the man dismissed by everyone as a failed President. How did Carter fail? Jimmy had lust in his heart. Imagine that. He boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics because the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan – where they stayed for 10 years until they went bankrupt and fell apart. (Can you believe that any country could be so stupid?) And such a geek, he put solar panels on the White House roof and established a national energy policy that included conservation, and new technologies. “Hey, Fatso, turn down the heat,” he said.
What did politicians learn from the Carter presidency? Don’t ever tell the American people the truth: they will punish you for it. Consequently, we’ve been married to Frank’s fooking widows ever since.
I never could understand all the mean, ignorant things that were said about Carter. I kept yelling “He’s a nuclear physicist, guys!” No one cared how intelligent he was because he was so humble. He was, and is, a true Christian and that really brings out the hate.
I read an interesting article that accused Carter of being a process president; more concerned with how things were done than with the policies themselves. I don’t know if that’s a fitting analysis but I do believe that we’ve not had a former president behave with more genuine concern for the world, more humanitarian impact, or more integrity.
I think that the election of the current president may prove that not only can Americans not be told the truth; they will buy into Russian or Breitbart or Fox or WND lies. If that’s what they want to hear.