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Comment by Miraste | Hacker News Reader

He was unpopular for a number of other reasons, some of which were just bad luck. Inflation was high, the economy was poor, there was a massive oil shortage, and the Iranian hostage crisis went poorly. There were a lot of smaller issues too, like the 55mph speed limit. While he had good intentions and was far more forward thinking than other presidents, he wasn’t an adept administrator and didn’t manage to get buy-in on any of his plans. It’s another sad instance of good people making bad politicians.

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It should be pointed out that a lot of people believe the hostage crisis was not just mismanagement or bad luck, but collusion between the Reagan campaign and Iranian leadership to delay resolving the crisis until after the election. I think it's now widely agreed that Iran wanted Reagan to win and extended the hostage crisis for that reason, and that Reagan's campaign had back-channel communication with the Iranian leadership; what's not known is whether he promised them anything.

Congress investigated and concluded that there was no collusion, i.e. that Reagan's illegal arms sales to Iran were unrelated, but unsurprisingly, many are not convinced. More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_th... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis.

Kissinger 100% committed treason by being the back channel here.

It’s a sure bet to assume anything Kissinger did was treason, murderous, or a war crime. Pissing on his grave, when nature takes its (slow) course, will be a goal for plenty, I am sure.

In short: fuck that guy.

A podcast for those without context -

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...

100% Recommend this and his other work. Excellent journalism.

Yes! Such a great production! Got me into that show.

National Geographic's Kissinger is also a great one.

And i think that Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove was a good parody of him.

There is really no evidence to support such a contention. Iran had no reason to help out Carter by releasing the hostages. On the flip side if they weren't going to drag out the situation it was better to resolve it and get some goodwill with the next administration, which they did.

It would have been strange if the US did not supply Iran with weapons given the geopolitical situation. Iran was surrounded by Soviet friendly countries and an Iranian loss to Iraq would have been a disaster for both the US and Israel. Israel, not coincidentally, served as a backchannel for the Iranian US relationship during that time period.

> he wasn’t an adept administrator

I can't find too much on this now except for the fact it happened, but initially Carter decided to buck tradition and not have a chief of staff, preferring instead a more level cabinet that could come to him as needed. I can't remember where I heard/read/saw this analysis, but it was cited as a major faux pas which led to him being completely inundated with competing priorities. The office of president is much more complex than that of the governorship of even a large state, and not having a trusted chief of staff who could help Carter prioritize led to a more ineffectual office.

There were stories of him personally doing scheduling charts for the White House Staff. That probably was an exageration that did not happen that often, but he was a technocrat. He loved getting involved in details. More evidence that engineers generally make poor politicians.

The idea of a Cabinet that had direct and easy access to the President made sense when there were four or five people, as was the case early in American history.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Top_Left...

C. Northcote Parkinson, of Parkinson's Law fame, has written on this, both in British and American history. The inner council seems to grow and is replaced as the leader's inner council by a smaller body over time.

Chris Matthews touches on this and other examples in Hardball. Carter is a great man, but just wasn't a very suave politician. Another example Matthews cites was getting rid of the presidential yacht. Sure it made for a few good public points, but it handicapped Carter in losing a historically valuable tool for many informal handshake political deals.

A classic problem in politics:

We need leaders because everyday people are often not informed or interested in the boring but important things. The sober choices that are often right but unsatisfying. But then a lot of us want our leaders to obsess over the little, inconsequential things we find to be important. And then we end up wondering if a candidate is someone you could have a beer with, and the exceptional candidates are seen as unpopular.

I’ve always felt that politics, when working, should feel boring. And that one’s civic duty to be informed and vote should feel like actual effort. Like homework.

Related is the fact that most people who would be good politicians want nothing to do with politics and most that go into politics are the worst people to represent us. While i know it's too idealistic, I wish there could be some jury duty style model where real people are obliged to take on political duties

The "politician by random lottery" model has always seemed like it would get completely owned by those that don't get changed around every few years, like the civil service and the lobbyists. Even more than is already the case, since at least now you can have career politicians who can be trained by their parties in things like "dealing with lobbyists". Seriously, I love my mother but if she were the deliberate target of a months long lobbying campaign with billions of budget I fear for the actions she might take.

True, but we don't have to appoint everyone or even most positions that way. A small random element can actually help in keeping a system stable.

Selecting office holders in a similar manner to how jury pools are picked from the general population would lead to having leaders who are on average of average intelligence. As much as our current system is dysfunctional, and we like to call most politicians morons, the vast majority of them, with some notable exceptions, are of above average intelligence. But our system also selects for lots of negative traits like sociopathy that would be represented at a much lower level if offices were filled at random. It would be an interesting trade-off to see how it turned out. Probably would work better with political structures like Congress or a state legislature with many members so the standard deviation of personality attributes would overall tend to be dampened. For something like the mayor of a city, you're one bad random selection away from disaster.

In regard to your mother, I believe we erred greatly in giving unnatural persons like corporations most of the same rights as natural persons. I'd favor a system where only those who are eligible to vote for a particular candidate could advocate on their behalf, in any form other than casual personal conversation. Same would go for lobbying politicians once they're in office. Only those the office holder represents would have to right to lobby them and it could only be in a personal capacity. Office holders would be free to reach out to whoever they wanted, but without the quid pro quo of campaign donations, the nature of those discussions would be very different. Under those circumstances, she'd probably be a much better officer holder than many of the creeps we have running things now.

Did you watch the Simpsons where all the smart people took over running the city? Being "above average intelligence" is a pretty bad thing to select for when choosing a representative. We're not looking to them to be smart, we want them to represent our interests. I can almost see that many types of what we normally think of as intelligence would be undesirable. We're not looking to them for techicnal answers, we need representation and consensus building. Government has access to experts, it shouldn't be made up of them

Like most things, you want a balance. You do want bright people in those positions, but you want them acting in your interest while appreciating that your interest isn’t always the best interest. There’s a balance in that too. Sometimes people need to be fed vegetables.

“Mother #*^%er.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Sigh. Just got this in the mail. It says I have to be president this year.”

This is not as far-fetched as it would seem:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition

The ancient Greeks pretty much appointed magistrates and others by lottery, and every citizen participated in a very direct democracy.

The Greeks saw this as a counter to oligarchy. I'm not sure that today's federal government is very far off from oligarchical tendencies.

You can't generalise about ancient Greeks like that. Every polis (city state) had its own constitution, and they were more radically different than any we have now. There were some poleis which used sortition, yes, but others had something more recognisable to our voting system. And of course there were the Spartans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartan_Constitution.

"Want nothing to do" undersells the hazing process that US politicians go through. Any sane and reasonable human being would be destroyed by the scrutiny that comes with public office. The process catches any flaws that someone might have, but also rules out anyone without an unusually strong ego and a lust for power. Which means all the people who might handle power appropriately are not involved.

Although yes to sortition. It'd be much better than current practices.

I hear this a lot but I think it’s kind of a cynical take. There are plenty of people who run for office because they genuinely care and genuinely believe they can make a difference.

Of course there are power hungry sociopaths who make it. But there are 535 members of Congress, 50 governors, thousands of mayors and city council members and state reps, etc. They can’t all be terrible, yet I feel like the popular refrain is still “no one actually good wants to be in charge.”

I don’t know. Just feels very self fulfilling and defeatist.

I’ve seen the “voluntold into politics” at lower levels: like in schools and community organizations and such. The president of my province’s dental association is someone new every year.

It seems to work, particularly at lower levels. At high levels, perhaps not so much.

I agree that there’s people who sign up out of civic duty. I think the sexiness of politics attracts the wrong people. I think this is particularly an American phenomenon, but not unheard of elsewhere. We have a handful of cult personalities in politics but 99% of the politicians you can’t even name. They’re not getting huge kickbacks or a big salary. It’s just a job.

It's hard to find solid numbers, but even assuming only 0.5% of Americans meet the criteria for a Narcissistic Personality Disorder diagnosis (https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/narcissisti...), that's still 1,666,437 people - more than enough to fill nearly every (if not actually every, with room to spare) candidacy for every elected position in every level of American government. Solid numbers for Antisocial Personality Disorder (a.k.a. "sociopathy") are similarly hard to find, but are in all likelihood double that of NPD (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK546673/).

That is: yes, politicians can absolutely all be terrible.

Watching campaign events, even for "good guy" candidates, is really unnerving. There aren't many opportunities in life to have that many people, even if you're just running for city council, screaming your name and laying into what's borderline worship behavior. Off hand, only entertainers and religious figures get that same type of admiration. Doesn't seem like a good way to select a leader with the whole public's best interests in mind.

Honestly, I find this comment kind of patronizing, as well as buying into the cynicism I was talking about.

Of course it is statistically possible that all of them are all terrible. Are you willing to bet that it’s the case?

If you take principled stances you will generally end up making a lot of enemies of powerful interests. They will shred your character in public mercilessly and persistently even if your record is pretty much spotless.

It's much much easier to be casually evil and join a bloc of powerful interests who will take care of you and look after you if you happen to be caught in bed with a prostitute.

Sounds like how people join prison gangs regardless of any previous sympathy towards them

I often wish we could abolish 24/7 cable news altother. When breaking news happens, we hear the same breaking news headline for the next 24 hours like it is a new event.

The high inflation and poor economy flowed from in large part from the first oil crisis in 1973, and then the second one after the oil boycott following the embassy kidnapping and hostage crisis.

The first oil crisis had nothing to do with Carter at all.

The second oil crisis was in part started when Carter was strongarmed into admitting the deposed Shah into the USA for medical treatment, and definitely made worse when the Republicans secretly negotiated with Iran to give them goodies if they'd hold the hostages until Carter was defeated. They feared an "October Surprise" if release was obtained before the election.

You will note that the Swissair plane returning the hostages was released for takeoff the moment Reagan was sworn in.

Finally let's not forget he was mocked for calling himself a nuclear engineer, when that was exactly what he was in the Navy. Why Germany can have a Quantum Chemistry PhD as Chancellor, but any scientific training in for an American politician is regarded as a joke, is beyond me.

I’d rather have good people that are bad politicians than bad people being good politicians, which seems to be what we get the majority of the time.

Good always better than bad. I think we all agree on that.

But good and ineffectual. I'm not sure I'd pick that over a dickhead who gets the job done.

Surely it depends very much on what job gets done?

I feel like that sort of reinforces his point tbh. But both of y’all are right on some level.

Glad you highlighted the luck part. The hostage crisis really did him in, despite the fact that, in the end, he actually negotiated to get all the hostages back safely, with the Algiers Accords being signed minutes after Reagan was inaugurated.

Well, it could also be argued that the Iranians only came to the table in the end, because they knew they were not going to get nearly as much from Reagan administration than they would with Carter. Of course, Reagan was all to glad for Carter to wind it up before he took office

President Carter solved inflation, and it cost him the election, and President Reagan got the credit. Carter appointed Paul Volcker, an inflation hawk, as Fed chair in 1979. Volcker solved inflation by raising interest rates, causing two recessions, one of which was during Carter's re-election year. Reagan kept Volcker on for a short time before firing him, but Volcker got the job done, so it was President Carter that took inflation seriously and solved it with his hawkish Fed chair appointment. President Reagan gets credit for a booming economy, but it was President Carter that was responsible for that through massive deregulation. Reagan is thought of as a deregulator, but he only had two deregulations, one of which was Savings and Loan, which massively contributed to the 2008 mortgage crisis. Conservatives think back to the good old days of Reagan's two terms, but Reagan, seriously, didn't do shit, and everything everyone loves about that decade was solely due to the policies and decisions and sacrifices of President Carter. The man absolutely is a saint, and if there is any US President that could validly be canonized, it is him.

Pretty much this. If there was ever a fundamental flaw of democratically-based systems, it's that people need to stop electing their leaders on the basis of how the economy is doing right now, at this moment.

This is not accurate. When Carter appointed Volcker, inflation was a dire problem, having reached upwards of 20%. He hiked the fed fund rates in full point increments, provoking howls of protest because it sent the economy into a full recession. But it took over a decade for inflation to come down to near zero range. (That's where the term stagflation comes from. There was zero GDP but high inflation.) Volcker could very easily have succumbed to the pressure and reversed course, but he did not. Reagan refused to criticize him, because there was general agreement that high inflation was just not tenable. It is the cruelest tax because it affects the low-income the most. President Carter did not solve inflation. He appointed Vocker towards the end of his term, and it was not the priority it should have been throughout his term. Inflation had been festering since the Nixon administration. Nixon confronted the problem with his disastrous use of price controls. Gerald Ford tried combatting it with his WIN (Whip Inflation Now) campaign. By the time Volcker was appointed, he was able to hike rates because he was given the political space to do so. But he had to endure a lot of nasty criticism at the time.

> President Carter did not solve inflation. He appointed Vocker towards the end of his term, and it was not the priority it should have been throughout his term.

This statement is self-contradictory. President Carter solved inflation by appointing Volcker. Period. He sacrificed the his presidency to do it, thus he took it seriously. No president gets anything done in during their first term, but President Carter's decisions not only solved inflation, it turned the economy around.

Way to pull out one sentence while ignoring the rest of the comment. Inflation had been a problem long before Carter. Neither Nixon (with his disastrous price controls) nor Ford (with his WIN campaign) was able to solve it. Volcker was appointed in 1979 to the end of Carter's term. He encountered fierce resistance when he jacked up rates the way he did (in full point incremenents), because the economy tanked. He would not have been able to hold the coarse had he not been given the room to do so. It took a good decade before inflation reached anywhere near zero. It was not easy, because the fed fund rates is a coarse instrement to use to bring inflation. It's not a dial that can be dialed up and down. You are merely waving a tribalistic flag while ignoring the details.

And what if President Carter had not appointed Volcker Fed chair? President Carter appointed Paul Volcker specifically to end inflation. That was the entire reason for his appointment. You're suggesting it is just a happy coincidence that Volcker completed the task? What you are obsessing about, the timeline, is entirely irrelevant, except for the fact that Carter likely knew very well it would cost him the White House, and yet he appointed Volcker anyway. So your insistence on fallacy that the timing is paramount only speaks against your argument.

FDR first (and the first lady) then Carter re: canonization.

I can't think of any miracles performed by FDR. Carter got Israel to return land to Egypt with the Camp David Accords, which is nuts when you think about it, created the Department of Education, and solved inflation. Running a successful Presidential campaign on peanuts with the Religious Right behind him could be one also, and I'm sure there are more with his nuclear military career, but three will suffice. And not for nothing, his initials are JC, so maybe canonization isn't quite good enough. If Gabriel ever retires, then perhaps Left Hand of God if it becomes available. Actually there may be some room, as both Jesus and Michael sit on the Right.

>> Reagan kept Volcker on for a short time before firing him

That's not how it works. He was appointed with the approval of the senate. The president does not have the ability to fire the Federal Reserve chair.

Well said. His intentions were good but the problems he faced were very difficult and his solutions were poor. I think that he made a mediocre president at best but an awesome former president.

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