I have a great deal of respect for Carter as a man. As a president, he was dismal.

I was a kid when he was president, and even I knew that he was really screwing this nation. Long gas lines, unbelievably high inflation, and got us into a hostage crisis. He does SOME good now with Habitat for Humanity, but as President, he was awful.

The right man on a wrong planet...

One of the best presidents...he honestly cared about Americans

The last president to challenge what is still the biggest issue we face - materialism and consumerism. Carter tried to convince the American public that the path to sustainability would necessarily involve conservation and a renewal of the values of simplicity and living within our means. Reagan offered a more optimistic, business as usual approach - which set us on the path to miserable energy dependency, environmental destruction and impending collapse of our economy.

He's the most honest President we've ever had, I wish he could've had two terms.

Nice guy. Average president. He seemed too nice for the job. He reminded me of a boy scout who went to a back-alley knife fight.

I don't think there is any doubt that Jimmy Carter was and is a good man who had the interest of his country foremost in his heart. Honest and intelligent, yet extremely humble, these qualities ought to have translated to an effective Presidency. However, the reason why some historians have deemed him as an ineffective President was because he was relatively indecisive. Carter seemed overwhelmed by the trappings of his office and sought to find a remedy for every problem the nation faced- in the process, losing the big picture. A reknown micro-manager and policy wonk, Carter often got bogged down by tiny details. But through his hard work, Carter did have some accomplishments, most notably the peace agreement which ended hostilities between Israel and Egypt. In the end, Carter was not a great President, but a good man and well-intentioned leader- plain and simple.

reagan killed him

Wimpy, couldn't get the Iranian hostages free.

The last angelic president we've had. What I like about him is his simplicity, honesty and even piety. Was faithful to his wife and championed the rights of the oppressed. ... He's a much better leader than Bush43. At least Carter never had to drop a bomb in his 4 years. And he never kept secrets from the press unlike Nixon and Bush43. Carter had an open, informal administration. God bless Jimmy Carter.

good person, but a little too honest for his own good in politics

Cater is a good man, to good to be president unfortunatly. He came in at a bad time when the economy was already shaky, didn't win the support of congress and so left with an even worse mess. The hostages in Iran didn't help matters, he had supported the bad government of the shah and then when our embassy was invaded wasn't quick enough or strong enough to know what to do. Overall though I think he had good forgein policies and tried to get home programs going. I think that if he had compromised with Congress-played their game more he would be viewed better by the American people than what he is. A decent man, compassionate, caring. I'm not Christian but he's an example of what a true Christian should be.

Horrible! Ran our economy into the ground, let inflation run wild, and taxed the hell out of us. Nothing good came from this presidency.

Good man...not such a great president.

a good and honest man,ill-equipped to deal with the corruption inside the beltway,I'm satisfied he was on a path to cut way back,this country's addiction to A Rab oil,which,pretty much has us in the position we're in right now.NOT ONE REPUBLIKAN HAS TAKEN A SINGLE STEP TO REWARD COMPANIES OR INDIVIDUALS FOR TAKING STEPS to conserve energy,there's no money in it for them.

Thanks for 9-11. Seizing an embassy is invasion. If it was treated as such, the world would be different today.

Ignorant, naive

He was too much of a Christian-gentleman to be president of the US. Brought a level of integrity to the White House that has been unheard of since nor before.

This man is still HELPING people in need.He is truly a man of faith,who practices REAL Christian values,such as charity and promoting PEACE through Diplomacy.NO OTHER PRESIDENT ALIVE is doing the good work this man does.He is a shining example of the Values others only pay lip service to.Humble and kind:very rare in politics.

A great president in office during the wrong era. Sad... He could have been great...

Carter is enormously underrated as a President. He dispensed with bluster. He realized that as a civilized nation, there were inherent limits on U.S. power because we were civilized.

He brought peace to the world. It's unfortunate that he couldn't bring prosperity, though.

He's a really nice guy. But nice guys don't make good presidents. During his ill-fated presidency, I honestly felt uneasy about living in the country. I honestly thought the Soviets were simply going to come and take over without a shot being fired. During his presidency, not one enemy died. We did lose four of ours in the ill-fated Iran hostage mission. I remember everything being real expensive and all Carter ever offered was that we should use more gasahol. A real disaster.

Completely bungled the Iran situation and the economy. High interest rates, high unemployment, high inflation. Couldn't work with his own party. One of the reasons Democrats won't call themselves liberal any more.

Love those 20+ % interest rates

Nice man, but should have never gone into politics. Much better at peanut farming and building houses for Habitat For Humanity. Remember the late 70's????? Double digit unemployment and inflation, 20% interest rates, a military in disarray, gas lines, hostages, misery indexes, and Jimmy Carter saying the job was too big for any one man to handle. Reagan sure handled it fine. Nuff said.

Lots of heart. Just wasn't a great president.

Was a peanut brain from a peanut farm. Was way underqualified for president. Was not a nuclear submariner as he said. Could not pronounce the world nuclear. Some of his crappy policies still haunt America as most Democrat presidents have.

A truly nice man who had a job tghat was much bigger than he was.

He may not have had the best luck as president, but he was/is a damn smart man.

The good thing is that you knew he gave a Damn. The bad thing was the micro-manager label I keep hearing repeated. He used his brain, I wish we could say the same for the current 'occupant'. Set the standard for Ex-Presidents.

Not a great president, but the most moral I've ever lived under. One of the most decent men on earth!

A genuinely good person but an average president. He did sign the passage of Superfund and brought human rights violations to light.

Though he took office at a terrible time, Jimmy Carter did not help matters much. Carter seemed to think he was smarter and more knowledgeable than all of his advisors which resulted in a failure to properly delegate authority and a bottlenecked decision making process. (In this aspect, Carter was a preview of what a Gore Administration would have been.) His sole material success was the Camp David Accords, which was certainly no small feat. The treaty ended the war between Israel and Egypt in exchange for Egyptian recognition of Israel's political existence. Egypt being Egypt, this had a profound effect in the Arab and Islamic World; nevertheless, notwithstanding this notable achievement, Carter's failures are glaring. His boycott of the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980 was no more than a nominal act, resulting in a retaliatory boycott of the Los Angeles Games in 1984 and an erosion of the very concept of global cooperation at some level. Furthermore, he had no clue as to how to handle the Iranian Hostage Crisis, setting back the American global position of strength, resulting in an overly complex and doomed hostage rescue mission that only served to emphasis this appearance of being impotent and incompetent (though Carter had no other viable choice but to listen to his advisors regarding the details of the mission). Furthermore, Carter failed to get a handle on the inflationary pressures that were plaguing the economy. The bottom line is that Carter exacerbated an already bad situation, resulting in a demand for new patriotism that swept in the Reagan Era.

The worst President ever, with the possible exception of Warren Harding. His brother, Billy, would have done a better job (even BEFORE he went to rehab).

Didn't do much as president, but humanitarian efforts afterwards earns him a star.

not much

A GREAT President....if you like horiffic inflation and a long line of failed policies. Sure, he's good at seeming like he cares about people, but that's not worth much at the end of the day, is it? His greatest accomplishment? Being elected to only one term.

Jimmy Carter would have never been elected President had Watergate not happened, he was strictly a historical fluke. However, he was a good man and was very intelligent. He helped develop a nuclear submarine program when he served in the Navy during the 1950's. For a Southerner of his generation he was regarded as a progressive in many key questions, especially involving race. He chose to pursue the Democratic Nomination for President in 1976 and against all odds he won the Presidency. He was never a very effective President in large part because he didn't understand how to use power. His basic problem was his approach to administering the Executive Branch, he was way too much of a micromanager and therefore he couldn't focus in on the big picture. On domestic policy proposals, he faced a very hostile Congress which actually came from his own party. Many of his proposals involving energy consumption were well-intentioned and in retrospect far-sighted. Carter's problem was that he put idealism ahead of realism and when a leader does this, he ends up forcing a political agenda up the throats of the people against their will. Goals become ephemeral in nature rather than solid and fixed. That was the problem with the Carter agenda; he acted as if he knew all and to hell with the Congress and the rest of the political establishment. It was a personal attribute of Carter to be a little sanctimonious about things, people don't like being preached at. Politicians always got a sermon when they came to see him and it cost him when he couldn't get his programs through Congress. The people didn't like it when they were told by the President that they would have to do with less and that the country was stuck in a state of malaise. Such a pessimistic attitude was bound to breed discontent. It could be argued that his Middle East policies led to the Iranian Revolution, which caused a second oil shock in 1979, causing inflation to rise along with stagnation of the economy. Combine this with the Federal Reserve's monetary austerity programs at the time and you had a very bad economic situation at the end of the Carter Presidency. His big accomplishment was Israeli-Egyptian Peace Accord at Camp David. While it left some issues concerning Palestinian self-determination hanging, he was able to secure an agreement ending hostilities between Egypt and Israel. Essentially, Egypt had to give up control of the Sinai in exchange for Egyptian diplomatic recognition for the state of Israel. At the end, Israel had to concede some territory, but they ended up gaining an upper hand in dealing with the Arabs. At least one of the largest states of the Arab league came to the table, thus making relations in the region a little better. We should probably try to be a little more evenhanded like Carter was in the Middle East during this time. Detente also fell apart during this period in large part because of Carter's extreme reaction to the invasion of Afghanistan. Carter initially was relatively soft on the Soviet Union, provoking the invasion in the first place. He lost re-election because of a sluggish economy and the Iranian hostage crisis; he was easily portrayed as ineffective and maybe rightfully so. His performance as an ex-President has been very good overall; Carter's a good man, but not at all suited for the Presidency.

He wasn't that bad. He didn't do much domestically but that was because he was stuck trying to get the hostages out of Iran. He was not great but far better than Reagan.

Much better then dubya.

This nice guy should finish last. Forget George Herbert Walker Bush, Carter was the real wimp. Stagflation, Chrysler almost going under, Iran, long gas lines, etc.

Good man, bad president.

A waste of what could have been a powerful, productive presidential administration. Oh well.

A good moral man who was completely lost in both the domestic and foreign policy arenas. His weakness allowed the Communists a foothold in South America, which Ronald Reagan eventually rooted out. His weakness also allowed a power vaccuum for radical Islam to spread throughout the Middle East. Those seeds bore fruit on September 11, 2001. George W. Bush is now having to clean up that mess.

Easily the worst president in my lifetime. Nobody even comes close. Under James Earl Carter America had double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, the misery index, gas shortages, an energy crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the hostage crisis in Iran, and a breakdown of the American spirit. If this isn't enough, we had his bible thumping sister, his alcoholic brother, and the killer rabbit. If the American people had elected a monkey in 1976, we would most likely be no worse off in 1980 than we were under Jimmy Carter.

This man cares.

A president with good vision and admirable intentions. His lackluster conduct, however, was his downfall.

20% mortgage interest. High unemployment. Decimated the military. Couldn't even pull off a lousy rescue mission from Iran. Now totally absorbed with his legacy. There isn't a dictator he doesn't like. He won the Nobel Peace Prize? So did Arafat! That proves what it is worth. NOTHING!!!!