"What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?": Jimmy Carter, America's "Malaise," and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country [Hardcover]

Kevin Mattson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 2009

In 1979, in an effort to right our national malaise, Jimmy Carter delivered a speech that risked his reputation and the future of the Democratic Party, changing the course of American politics for the next twenty-five years.

At a critical moment in Jimmy Carter’s presidency, he gave a speech that should have changed the country. Instead it led to his downfall and ushered in the rise of the conservative movement in America. In “What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?” Kevin Mattson gives us a behind-the-scenes look at the weeks leading up to Carter’s “malaise” speech, a period of great upheaval in the United States: the energy crisis had resulted in mile-long gas lines, inciting suburban riots and violence; the country’s morale was low and Carter’s ratings were even lower. The administration, wracked by its own crises, was in constant turmoil and conflict. What came of their great internal struggle, which Mattson conveys with the excitement of a political thriller, was a speech that deserves a place alongside L incoln’s Gettysburg Address or FDR’s First Inaugural. Prominent politicians on both sides of the aisle play important roles, including Carter, Vice President Walter Mondale, speechwriter Hendrik Hertzberg, Ronald Reagan, and Ted Kennedy. Like the best of narrative political writing, Mattson provides great insight into the workings of the Carter White House and the moral crisis that ushered in a new, conservative America.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 1979 national malaise speech that defined Jimmy Carter's presidency—though he never used the word malaise—gets its due in this contrarian homage. Ohio University historian Mattson (When America Was Great) considers the speech—which expressed Carter's own crisis of confidence, bemoaned Americans' loss of faith in government and deplored the country's selfishness and consumerism—to be a thoughtful response to the problems of the day that initially won public acclaim, before political opponents caricatured it as a gloomy scolding. Following the speech from its bizarre provenance in an apocalyptic memo by pollster Pat Cadell through its honing during a messianic domestic summit, the author sets his colorful study against a recap of the gasoline shortages, inflation and Me Decade angst that provoked it. He interprets it as a tantalizing road not taken: with its prescient focus on energy, limits and sacrifice, its humility and honesty, it was, the author says, the antithesis of the Reagan era's sunny optimism. Mattson makes Carter's maligned speech a touchstone for a rich retrospective and backhanded appreciation of the soul-searching '70s. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Excellent... a cautionary tale and a great read... Those of us who were around back in the day will be ruefully reminded of those bygone times. And those who weren’t will be scratching their heads in disbelief at this fascinating and frequently improbable history."–Wall Street Journal

"That Mr. Carter felt he had to deliver such a risky speech says a great deal about the political fix he was in at the time. It says plenty, too, about where the wobbling American psyche stood during the weird, unnerving summer of 1979... In his new book, “What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?”, Kevin Mattson... lays out the events of that summer like a big, rolling banquet... the historical ingredients are fascinating and first-rate…Mr. Mattson writes well about Mr. Carter’s staff and the intense jockeying that led up to the malaise speech.” –Dwight Garner, New York Times

"[A] detailed unpacking of the speech and the tumultuous events that inspired it." - LA Times

“Despite a brief bump in the president's approval ratings, the address became forever disparaged as the "malaise" speech, and it doomed Carter's reelection chances. That speech, history has concluded, was a huge mistake. Ohio University historian Kevin Mattson challenges that conclusion in his feisty new book…Chronicling the mood inside the White House and across the nation in the months surrounding the speech -- months when gas lines and Three Mile Island monopolized the news while "The Deer Hunter" and "disco sucks!" dominated the zeitgeist -- Mattson offers a radically different reading.” –Carlos Lozada, Washington Post

"[In] the summer of 1979, the country seemed to be imploding in the face of a gas crisis, resulting in long lines at the pump, trucker strikes and violence. The nation’s confidence plummeted and calls for “inspirational and innovative leadership” remained unheeded. Starting on July 4, Carter holed up at Camp David for ten days, emerging with a legendary address... that would both galvanize and deeply cleave the country. Mattson... sifts through the varied media coverage of the event to isolate this crucial moment in America’s recognition of itself... A galloping history full of interesting characters and significant moments." --Kirkus

“This book becomes a page-turner for those interested in the decadent disco decade, Jimmy Carter himself, and the modern presidency.” –Library Journal

“In ‘What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?’ Kevin Mattson revisits Jimmy Carter's speech delivered to a national audience on July 15, 1979. That address came to be known as the ‘malaise’ speech, though Carter never used the word. The President did mention ‘paralysis and stagnation and drift,’ but he also spoke of ‘strength’ and ‘a rebirth of the American spirit.’ Mattson offers a deep reading of the speech, placing it in the cultural and political contexts of the late 1970s. The result is an eye-opening inquiry into the power of words at a pivotal moment in history.” --Louis P. Masur, author of The Soiling of Old Glory

“Boldly and with great style, Kevin Mattson captures the political, social, and cultural events that shaped Jimmy Carter's ‘Malaise’ speech of July 15 1979. He reveals how events abroad and at home--in the White House, at gas stations, on TV, and in learned books--shaped an opportunity to confront the energy problem, which the nation avoided at its own peril.”  --Daniel Horowitz, professor of American Studies at Smith College and author of The Anxieties of Affluence

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (June 23, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596915218
• ISBN-13: 978-1596915213
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #918,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting idea, dumbed down a bit, April 26, 2010

By 

John Grabowski (USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: "What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?": Jimmy Carter, America's "Malaise," and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country (Hardcover)

This is a good look back at an interesting and chaotic time, but it could have been a lot better. For one thing, an editor was needed: there are problems of grammar and punctuation (starting on the first page), consistency (on p. 66 he contradicts the chronology of California governors he established one page earlier, and there are some other examples that escape me now), and so on. These are things editors were born to catch. I'll also add that the book goes on a little too long, repeating its basic points over and over. These flaws don't sink the book but they are indications of sloppiness, shoddiness and possibly a national malaise in publishing. Tune in for my speech tonight.

The central message, though, is very simple and, in my eyes, very true, and it's something I myself have said for years: Jimmy Carter in 1979 was very honest with us and told us about some not-so-pleasant flaws in our national character. At first we took the medicine well (which surprised me...I'd thought the speech was rejected right off) but quickly the resentment boiled, and populist politicians who were willing to sink morally lower than Carter (while, ironically, positioning themselves on higher ground, as is usually the case) twisted the meaning of the speech to score points with a nation raised on "I'm OK, You're OK" and that crap about America's manifest destiny.

An appendix in the back of the book reproduces the (in)famous speech (it can also be googled), and in it Carter voices his concern that we do not have a coherent energy policy, that we are consuming more than we are producing, that we are becoming accustomed to immediate gratification without sacrifice (or only the cheap illusion of sacrifice--we put magnetic ribbons on the backs of our SUVs that say we "support" our troops), and that this is unsustainable long-term. Well, Ronald Reagan came to power shortly thereafter and basically, through word and deed, laughed off all of this warning, appealing instead to Americans' proud dreams of exceptionalism and ever-increasing bounty. As the 80s wore on Reagan's dreams themselves turned into narcissism, though of a different sort, one clothed in patriotism, religion, and love of country, held together by easily-debunked myths. The Right calls it American Exceptionalism, and they assure us it's good, because it's blessed by God. (You know, that guy on the money.)

Three decades years later, and we still don't have a coherent energy policy, we still consume far far more than we produce, we still feel we are "entitled." We get angry at "others" when we can't automatically have what we believe is ours by birthright. In short, Carter's warnings have come home to roost, after thirty years of subsequent presidents dodging his very real moral and spiritual concerns by more or less charging the future to the country's credit card. Now that card is due and we don't have the money to pay the bill. Don't fret, though--China is offering us a "payday" loan. Just don't ask about the interest rate.

Kevin Mattson makes these points well, but he stretches them rather than digging in depth. This is a good but rather superficial book. I was a mere child when this stuff was happening, and I haven't studied it in any depth since then (which is why I so eagerly-awaited this book) but I didn't get too much I didn't already know just through the osmosis of hearing my parents talking about it back in the late 70s. I guess I was waiting for a David Halberstamian depth of analysis, which I only got in spots, such as a few sections of Chapter 5.

There are some sections of sloppy or lazy writing that bothered me. Sometimes Mattson writes in very broad statements that use slang and are nonsensical, such as stating at points that the president's staff "went insane" when they heard some news or something bad happened. Now, they literally didn't go clinically "insane," so it would have been nice if he'd gotten into detail about what they *did* do. More annoying, though, was the author's frequent references to pop cultural of the time: his links of songs, films and other events to the politics and the speech in question are weak at best. Too much is made of the "meaning" behind Blondie and "Heart of Glass," the decadence of Studio 54, Apocalypse Now, and Woody Allen's New York, and if I read one more reference to The Deer Hunter I was going to throw the book across the room. But amazingly, there is one really major cultural link that begs for inclusion, and the author completely misses it. And it came out in December of 1979, right during the period he chronicles, and it deals with a feisty but weak president who is preparing a big speech for a distressed nation and who travels to the mansion of a rich friend for advice and council. It's eerie today how well Hal Ashby's brilliant satire Being There, starring Peter Sellers, captures the mood and parallels many of the events Mattson describes. Yet he overlooks this movie entirely. (Anyone curious enough to read this far into the reviews for this book should do themselves a favor and rent the film as well.)

Despite my reservations, I would actually recommend this book for people interested in this time and this president, and for all that's gone wrong since then, simply because there aren't a lot of competing works to choose from. But, with a little more effort, "What the Heck" could have been a better book, a true classic. Maybe the author needs to reread Carter's speech exhorting us to be better and work harder, and apply it to himself just a bit.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Resurrecting Jimmy Carter...., September 2, 2009

By 

David Little - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: "What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?": Jimmy Carter, America's "Malaise," and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country (Hardcover)

I was in high school back in the 70's when Jimmy Carter was president, and I'd forgotten how bad things actually WERE. Mr. Matson tries to resurrect Brother Jimmy's reputation by showing how prescient the "malaise" speech was, but in my mind only reinforced the image of Jimmy Carter as perhaps the most - or nearly so - inept president in US history. While truckers were on strike and crops rotted in the fields from lack of transporation and while everybody else was busy buying gas on even and odd days, Jimmy was running around the world trying to broker peace deals; almost a modern day Nero.

That said, and ignoring the attempt at tilting history in Jimmy's favor, it is a well-written and enjoyable book. It's rather short, a one-nighter - but I found it hard to put down.

20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping tale, July 7, 2009

By 

Charles W. Clark (Wheaton, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: "What the Heck Are You Up To, Mr. President?": Jimmy Carter, America's "Malaise," and the Speech that Should Have Changed the Country (Hardcover)

This is a fantastic book, reporting events of 30 years hence which resonate to the present day, e.g.: energy, Iran, Afghanistan, even gay marriage.

I was in my late twenties at the time, and present at least at one of the reported events - "the disco riot" at Comiskey Park - but the author evokes far more detail than I am able to recall myself, and it rings true.

He also does good work in publishing the transcript of the Carter speech as an appendix. This is well worth reading, whether one agrees with it or not. It shows how many of our present concerns are linked to the past, and also how many things in this country have changed.

While it is clear that the author is broadly sympathetic to the Carter administration, this book seems to me to be a balanced and insightful account of the late 1970s - and also engaging and entertaining.