Lyndon Johnson reigned during an unpopular war and soaring deficits fueled by the unwillilingness to forestall expensive domestic programs to fund the war. Nixon unhooked us from the gold standard, imposed price controls and betrayed Republican principles. Watergate and the oil embargo ended his term in moral and economic disaster.

Ford assumed office and did his best to clean up but was only remembered for pardoning Nixon.
Carter ran as the outsider unbeholdened to the lobbysists or the Washington insiders. He promised a change from the politics of the establishment, a clean break from the exhaustion of an unpopular war and the corruption of Watergate.

He was charming and honest. He had a warm smile. Remember how we relished the honesty and openess of a candidate who would be interviewed in Playboy magazine and admit that he had ‘lusted over women in his heart.’

But his term proved disastrous: record high inflation and interest rates, the gas lines from his disastrous energy policy, banking regulations that encouraged speculation and risky loans can be sourced to his term, though he is certainly not soley to blame. And his foreign policy oversaw the removal of the shah, the humiliating hostage crisis, the Russian invasion of Afganistan. While he is credited with the Egyptian Israeli peace treaty, Sadat may have visitied Israel to keep Carter out of control of the process- fearing his bringing the Soviets into the negotiations.

Hope is not a strategy and change is not a tactic. Just because a situation is not acceptable does not mean it can not be made worse. Principles matter.

-HKO

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