Customer Reviews

Jimmy Carter, the man & the myth

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From page one the thing that immediately stood out is that Victor Lasky really dislikes Jimmy Carter. I would say this is more of an opinion piece and character attack more than anything. There is almost no favorable bias - If you are one of those people who already dislike Jimmy Carter and have already made up your mind about him, then this is probably the book for you. Otherwise, you should seriously look somewhere else.

I also noted that this book was published in 1979 when Carter was still president. You won't get a distanced opinion of the man. And perhaps this book was politically motivated.

I personally, don't swing for or against the President, so I was looking for something a bit more unbiased so I could make my own opinion. I guess I will have to look further.

And beyond Lasky's untowardward opinion, his writing is mediocre at best.

This book should be required reading because of Jimmy Carter's screw-up with the North Korean peace treaty and the hollow mockery that was his reception of the Nobel Peace Prize. I did not think that Lasky could do any more damage to the Carter presidency or follow up his brilliant "It Didn't Start with Watergate", but he did. This book plays out like a sit-com. In fact Lasky even gives them catchy nicknames: Lillian Carter, "Miz Lillian", Zebaziegnew Brezinsky, "The Hungry Professor", and James Earl Carter, Jr., "Wee Jimmy" (Once again Lasky presents political intrigue in a palatable manner on the ultimate micromanager in American politics.)
But yet there is a sense of shock which is consistently undercut by Carter's gaffes. For example, it was an open secret that Carter's staff were habitual cocaine and heroin users, and Carter himself had his own "mini-Watergate", where he misappropriated state funds to fund a private political poll. He bungled things so much that he could have taught Clinton how to be even more corrupt. I now feel lucky that presidents can only serve 8 years in office. This man is a case in point about why people shouldn't vote Democratic. The readers shall feel the same way after reading about the man who "grew up in hard times, when things were difficult"--Carter's words, not mine---