Saturday, August 29, 1998

Jimmy, we hardly knew ye because we didn't want to

By DAVID WATERS

Scripps Howard News Service

An open apology to former president Jimmy Carter:

When you ran for president in 1976, we told you we had grown tired of the lies.

Kennedy lied about his private life. Johnson lied about the war. Nixon lied about the bombing and the break-in.

You told us you would never lie to us. From all accounts, you never did.

Instead, we lied to you.

By electing you, we told you what we really wanted in a president was a good, honorable, moral man, a man of integrity, fidelity and faith.

You told us character counted, and we agreed. In the end, it didn't count for much.

When you were elected, you said you wanted to re-establish an American government "as good and honest and decent and compassionate as are the American people."

You tried.

You challenged us to confront the energy crisis with shared sacrifice.

We weren't ready to share or sacrifice. We stood in long lines and fumed about higher fuel prices.

You said human rights was the soul of foreign policy, and you meant it. You rewarded democrats and reviled despots. How could despots be "friends" of ours if they were "enemies" of God, you asked.

You responded to Christ's call for peacemakers by brokering peace among Muslims and Jews. You did right by Panama and averted a crisis in Central America.

Your steadfast policies challenged the threadbare moral authority of the Soviet Union, inspiring dissidents from Solzhenitsyn to Havel.

We admired your consistency, then decided it was foolish. "America" was being held hostage on TV.

You could have bombed Tehran to save your image and, maybe, your presidency. You didn't. Your belief in the sanctity of life, the sovereignty of God, precluded that option.

We cared more about the sanctity of American soil and our national sovereignty.

Your faith was genuine, and it cost you a second term. We saw your mercy as weakness and Reagan's bombast as strength.

And so, four years after we turned to you for the truth, we turned on you and turned you out of office.

Now, three presidents later, we're back where we started, talking again about betrayal, impeachment and lies.

You prayed and read the Bible in private, not just in public. We preferred Reagan, who quoted the Bible like a preacher, then turned plowshares into swords.

You drew a line in the sand and held your moral high ground. We preferred Bush, who drew a line in the sand, then blew it to kingdom come.

Your personal life was above reproach. You confessed, without a grand jury's prompting, to lust in your heart. We preferred Clinton, who lusted in the White House.

Reagan lied about arms sales. Bush lied about taxes. Clinton lied about the woman.

You kept the faith and kept your word. We lied to you.

Two years from now, we'll be searching desperately for another good man, a man of character, a man who knows righteous and wicked aren't just slacker slang terms.

As we search, you'll be building homes for the homeless, working to relieve inner-city misery, trying to rescue peace from the brink of war.

Maybe what we need more than a good president is a good role model.

(David Waters is a reporter at The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn. His e-mail address is waters(AT)gomemphis.com)