Looking back one sees many
parallels between the political rises and presidencies of Woodrow Wilson &
Jimmy Carter. Both men were Southerners, although the fact that Wilson had a
long history with New Jersey did much to disguise it from the voters of the
time. Both men has dispositions that were described as their contemporaries as
moralistic, almost to the point of religious. In Carter's case he was a deeply
religious man, more so then Wilson ever was, but there was always a big streak
of fundamentalism in how both men, approached life and governing, particularly
when it came to utter seriousness approach the office.
Both Wilson and Carter were one
term governors when they ran for the White House; Wilson had yet to finish his
first term governing New Jersey while Carter had served as governor of Georgia.
Both men had made their ambitions clear before they made their original run:
Wilson considered it before the 1908 campaign before Bryan ran; Carter put his
name forward as McGovern's running mate at the 1972 Democratic Convention. Both
Wilson and Carter managed to run in a fairly crowded field in what was a long
fight for the Democratic nomination. In Wilson's case it took a brokered
convention and a near record 46 ballots before he finally won the nomination.
In Carter's he had to run in the first true presidential primary campaign in
history; the only approach that could get him the nomination in a crowded field
with many liberals and bigger names running.
In both cases they managed to win
the Presidency by a narrow margin because of a split in the Republican Party
about which direction the GOP should go. For Wilson, TR would run as a Bull
Moose candidacy against Taft's rank and file Republicanism and it was only
because of that split that Wilson managed to win. For Carter, the battle
remained in the party between the incumbent President Gerald Ford and the more
conservative California Governor Ronald Reagan. That battle also lasted to the
convention floor and while Reagan endorsed Ford he did little to actively
campaign for him which was one of the reasons that Carter was able to narrowly
win. While Wilson would never have called himself an outsider the way Carter
ran as, considering his opponents were both Presidents it was no doubt
understood.
The parallels break down slightly
after both men were elected. Wilson was immensely successful as President in
his first term and did much to get his progressive agenda passed. During his
tenure the Federal Reserve was established, amendments were passed that led to
the direct election of Senators, the creation of the income tax and while he
did very little to directly endorse it the female suffrage finally became part
of the Constitution during his tenure. Much of his term was more dominated by
European affairs and while his criticism of the leadup to World War I was
blatantly attacked by men like TR he was eventually hailed for bringing about
peace. It was only after he began to argue for what post-war Europe would look
like – and more importantly did so without any input from either Congress or
anyone but his most trusted adviser – that the dictatorial nature of Wilson
began to become clear. He was the first
President while in office to travel to Europe to negotiate the Treaty of
Versailles, something that very few Europeans genuinely respected him for. When
he announced his 14 points Georges Clemenceau famously replied: "The Good
Lord himself needed only 10." He would be run roughshod in Versailles by
Clemenceau in particularly giving up everything in order to preserve his
precious League Of Nations, ignoring the disastrous 1918 midterms that had
given the Republicans control of Congress. His accomplishments led him to
believe that the masses were with him and he didn't need Congressional approval,
something that the Republicans who'd come to loathe him made clear they would
not give him.
Carter's problems, by contrast,
became obvious within weeks of his election and crystal clear after being sworn
in. Even though he possessed two-third majorities of both houses of Congress,
he felt no need to listen to the input of congressional leaders or even any
Democrats when it came to his agenda. He felt no obligation to engage in
personal touches or give them any favors when it came to getting the difficult
parts of his agenda passed. To him Congressional Democrats should pass his
agenda because it was the right thing to do, even if it cost them in elections
to come. Furthermore, while sixty years had gone by between his Presidency and
Wilson's his White House was just as disorganized: with him never even having a
Colonel House to negotiate meetings. He also inherited an economic situation
unparalleled in American history as record inflation was setting in. His first
priority was to cut the budget, something that infuriated the mostly liberal
members of the caucus who believed very much in the FDR New Deal coalition. And
he seemed determined to govern as an outsider, rather than campaign as
one. Furthermore he'd never done much to unite the Democrats in the aftermath
of his winning the nomination and much of the press and the country found his
born-again nature fundamentally odd. He also had a mean streak in his governing
which was not uncommon with Wilson.
Carter's successes, unlike
Wilson, were mostly involving foreign policy – returning the Panama Canal,
renewing the SALT Treaty, the landmark Camp David Accords. But at the same time
there was an energy crisis that led to rising gas prices and record inflation
that eventually took the phrase 'stagflation'.
The public blamed Carter immensely for this and as early as 1978 many
Democrats wanted Ted Kennedy to run for the Democratic nomination because he
was considered incompetent.
As with Wilson foreign affairs
were the death knell for his administration. First the Iranian revolution,
after Carter had called the Shah and Iran a model government in the Middle
East, then the Shah fleeing to America for treatment and finally the hostage
crisis in Teheran that would take up the last year and a half of his Presidency
and eventually overwhelmed it. Carter would manage to hold on to the nomination
but the party was so divided that Reagan would easily win the Presidency in
November.
Both Carter and Wilson would end
up winning the Nobel Peace Prize, though in Carter's case it came because of
his activities as ex-President. Carter's defeat would lead to him being a
pariah among Democrats for the next two decades; he would be persona non grata
at Democratic conventions until 2004. Wilson's defeat would issue a decade in
of Republican governor that only the Great Depression would eventually lead to
the rise of the modern Democratic Party. Carter's loss would officially usher
in the Reagan revolution which began the modern conservative movement which we
as a country are still reckoning with.
Carter would live an incredible
44 years after leaving the White House, not dying until he made to 100. During
that period countless books were written about the Carter Presidency from
historians, Washington insiders and politicians from that era alike, trying to
reassess Carter and his Presidency.
The Outlier written by Kai Bird and released
in 2021 was one such book that had more access to the Carter White House and
library than any previous historian had been given. In theory it should have
been able to explain from the inside and out what went wrong. In practice it
completely failed.
To be sure it has a near
day-by-day blow of everything that went on in the Carter white house then any
book prior. The problem is not so much that the author has a pro-Carter bias
but rather that his own personal politics get in the way. Because while Bird
was able to avoid his left-wing politics getting away from telling the life of
J. Robert Oppenheimer, he can't do the same when it comes to Jimmy Carter. The
irony is that if Bird had lived when Carter had been running for President, he
would have endorsed his opponents in the Democratic primary in 1976 and been
working for Kennedy or Brown in 1980. And considering how much The Nation for
which Bird has been a reporter for years has never really been comfortable
putting politicians, even Democrats, as the kind of people they admire it Bird
has to leave a lot out to try and make Carter his kind of President. The book
says that Carter has a misunderstood legacy. It doesn't help when it disagrees
with what the author thought America is during that period.
The 1976 Presidential campaign
that led to Jimmy Carter's election was a groundbreaking and historic win. So
you would think that any book that had to deal with the Carter presidency would
give a fair amount of detail as to how Carter ran for Presidency, the primary
campaign, who he ran against and how he managed to defeat Gerald Ford in the
general. Considering that far shorter books about Carter's presidency have
devoted several chapters and great detail to it, you'd expect Bird would do the
same in The Outlier.
There is one chapter called
'Jimmy Who?" which covers in the first section called the Pre-Presidency
but most of it has to deal with Carter's assembling a staff and how he chooses
to run. And yet there's only ten pages devoted to the campaign, none of it
having to do with any of his opponents or even the records of how he ran and
won. He doesn't even mention how the decision to make Mondale his Vice
President until he's starting to write about Carter's presidency. Considering
this one of his biggest strengths that's telling.
None of the political opponents
Carter ran in the primary are mentioned: Jerry Brown's name doesn't come up in
the entire book, even though he beat him several primaries and ran against him
in 1980, Frank Church is mentioned once and the majority of his primary rivals
don't get mentioned until the presidency proper begins and even then its rarely
in passing. He mentions that the liberal establishment had little use for
Carter was running, which was one of the biggest problems the Democratic
establishment with him. But he doesn't really seem that interested in that
being a flaw or even something worth talking about.
Indeed it sets up a pattern that
follows throughout The Outlier: if any Democratic politician is
mentioned its only based on why they might have a problem with Carter and to
make it seem like it was completely on them, not the President. Considering
that Carter's problems with communication with Congress were so critical to his
downfall you'd think any good biography would explain why these people thought
so. And yet they are either not mentioned in the book at all or if they are
only in the rare fragment. Senate
Majority Leader Robert Byrd is only mentioned 10 times in the entire book and
never in regard to helping him in policy.
Tip O'Neill is set up an adversary more than Speaker of the House.
Mondale, who was there to build a bridge between him and the White House, is
only mentioned as his Vice President. It's like Bird agrees with John Nance
Garner's famous assessment of the office.
Carter seems determined to argue
that liberals liked Jimmy Carter but he can't come up with a single Democratic
officeholder who did. So he doesn't mention them, speaking about how his
decision to give Ralph Nader such free reign in the government – the high point
of Nader's influence. Here Bird's
leftist indulgence is clear: what he considers an acceptable liberal is a man
who ran as a Green Party candidate because he thought there was no difference
between the two parties. And because Carter's politics were far to the right of
where the Democrats were in the 1970s – but in keeping with where both
political parties were about to gi in the aftermath of Carter's election – that
makes discussing Carter's actual policies difficult. So he basically doesn't.
Much of the book is about how 'the establishment didn't like Carter' which is
what the left likes about politicians. But there's a difference when the
establishment is not only mostly Democrat, but liberal Democrat which is
overwhelmingly was during Carter's administration. A President can't govern as
an outsider as Carter tried to do. That seems to be one of the things Bird
admires about him even though it limited his effectiveness as President.
One almost wonders if it's
Carter's trying to rise above politics that is what Bird finds him the most
interesting. Carter's governing style was seen at the time and in retrospect as
a man seemed to desire that elected officials follow his agenda even if it cost
them politically – which it absolutely did – simply because it was the right
thing to do. This is how most leftist see how governing should work in theory.
But as Carter carried out, he came across like someone who sounded like he
couldn't be bothered to do the messy work.
At one point Bird says: "Two years into his Presidency, most of his
legislators still felt they didn't know their own president." In Bird's mind,
like Carter's, the fact that he says on their side should be enough and they
should follow him blindly and excuse his behavior.
Yet in the next paragraph he's
persuaded by an aide to play tennis with Fritz Hollings and Lloyd Bentsen at
the White House. He shows up, they play a quick set and then he says goodbye.
When Moore later tried gently to point out the awkwardness of leaving the
senators so abruptly Carter snaps: "You told me to play tennis with them.
I played tennis with them."
This book, I should mention, was
written during Trump's first term and published after Biden's election. During
this same period The Nation was pointed out how bad tempered and
undignified the President was being and how contemptuously he treated members
of his own party. Carter's treatment of Bentsen and Hollings – both of whom
were fellow Southerners, who he claimed to have more in common with – is at the
very least incredibly rude and could be argued as unprofessional for a
President. Bird excuses it by saying: "That's not how Carter
operated." Carter is always in the right and his fellow Senators, who are
trying to get his agenda passed and are facing tough headwinds for election
should suck it up. Like so many other Democratic politicians of the time, this
is the only time they're mentioned and its too argue that they were wrong and
Carter was right.
Now it would be one thing to make
this argument if Bird was painting a favorable picture of Carter as President.
But that's not what America saw at the time. So Bird basically paints a picture
of the Carter administration alone and tries to leave 1970s America basically
out of it.
This is clearest when it comes to
what was the downfall of his administration the economy. 'Stagflation' is
mentioned exactly once in regard to Carter's presidency. The oil embargo is
mentioned only once and he barely talks about gasoline shortages. When he does
bring it up its only in regard to the famous 'malaise speech'. Tellingly this
speech is in a chapter called 'Tilting at American Exceptionalism'. The speech
itself only gets two pages and Bird doesn't seem interested in it. (Camelot's
End, which I'll get to below, gives the speech itself five.) He
honestly seems more interested in attacking Patrick Caddell, a major Democratic
political adviser who near the end of his career gave advice to Donald Trump's
campaign.
Paradoxically Bird seems
determined to look at Carter's triumphs in foreign policy not so much for what
they were at the time but rather for how they fit into his progressive
doctrine. The ratification of the Panama Canal treaty was not a good thing because
of the democratization of Panam but because 'it was a retreat from manifest
destiny" and a 'complex postcolonial worldview'. (This view, Bird mentions
almost incidentally, would cost five Democratic Senators their seats the
following November.) He spends an immense amount time saluting the Camp David
Accords but at the end seems determined to undermine Begin at every turn,
particularly in regard to settlements in the West Bank as if Israel were the
aggressive party who Egypt needed protection from. Both Salt II and the Carter
doctrine, both of which were considered key elements in ending the Cold War,
are in fact the work of Brzezinski who Bird considers the true boogeyman of the
administration because he saw the world through the lens of America vs. the Soviet
Union. That this how the entire world operated during the 1970s is something
that doesn't interest Bird, who seems more interested in pointing out that
Brezhnev was senile by the end of it. (The head of the Soviet Union is
mentioned a total of 7 times in The Outlier; by comparison David
Rockefeller is mentioned nearly two dozen.) And when it comes to everything
involving Iran and the Shah Bird seems determined to argue that this was an
influence of conservatives and that Khomeini was just misunderstood.
One really wonders why a man who
seems determined to at every turn, misread both Carter, domestic and
geopolitical events during his administration chose to write a book on him in
the first place. The answer comes in a footnote in regard to Carter's press
relations. "Carter would hold fifty-nine press conference during his four
years in office. By contrast, his successor held only 47 in eight years."
He doesn't mention Reagan directly in the book for another eighty pages but I'm pretty sure that's the real reason
Bird wrote The Outlier.
The revisionist histories of the
left are the opposite of those of conservatives: there are no 'great men', only
villains. All of the great sweeping political achievements of American history
are irrevocably tainted because everyone from the Founding Fathers until the
present day was 'problematic' because they had values that don't fit with
today. They have indicted those who lived in the past for the crime of living
in the past. This is problematic for them when they try to explain why the
liberal values of today which were so popular and worked for Democrats for
nearly forty years were rejected so effectively after the 1960s. And because
they can never blame themselves for their role in it, they look for straw men
and omit parts of history they don't like.
Ronald Reagan has been the
progressive boogeyman for half a century, in large part because they can't
explain why a man they find so intellectually lacking and who rejects every
value they stand for managed to defeat his to Democratic opponents by a combined
electoral vote count of 1024-62. Because Reagan's presidency was responsible
for tearing down much of the order of the New Deal that they hold dear (even
though many of their ancestors felt it didn't go far enough at the time) and
more importantly because every Republican who won elected office followed his
pattern the left has done much to try and tear him down – mainly because
they've never been able to come up with a political figure who has that same ability to win over the
masses.
The problem is in doing so they
come across the inconvenient fact: much of the problems that led to the liberal
order collapsing had begun a full decade before Reagan won his election. The
great inflation had begun in 1971 when Nixon had to take America off the gold
standards and multiple Presidents spent the next decade trying to deal with it.
Carter's presidency was considered a
failure because he was unable to deal with those problems but because that's an
inconvenient truth, Bird mostly ignores it.
Similarly he barely talks about
how after the midterms Carter's approval numbers were so low that the entire
party was certain if he was renominated Carter would lose in a landslide.
Kennedy was reluctant to run for the nomination; he basically had to be talked
into it but by the time of the crisis of confidence speech most of the party
had lost faith in him.
Even without it Carter's numbers
were so low that any Republican who ran against him knew they'd likely win the
Presidency in 1980. Bird pays no real
attention to the Republican primary and doesn't mention any of the candidates
running. Indeed, outside of Reagan and George H.W. Bush (who he has to mention
mainly as Reagan's VP) The Outlier barely mentions any Republican office
holders. Howard Baker, the Senate minority leader, is only mentioned twice in
the entire book; Bob Dole is only mentioned three times, John Connally isn't
mentioned at all and John Anderson is only mentioned when it comes to his third
party run. There's no mention of Gerald Ford and his interest in being
co-president.
Considering how much the Kennedy
candidacy divided the party you'd think this at least would interest Bird. But
again its barely mentioned even as the 1980 primary campaign continues. It's
one thing to barely mention Kennedy's successes as the campaign progressed but
Bird basically frames the issue as though Ted Kennedy, much less the Democratic
Party, should have had no reason at all to doubt Carter's leadership even as
his approval ratings hit 21 percent. As far as Bird is concerned this bastion
of American liberalism was an entitled spoiled brat and he deserved to have his
ass whipped. He acknowledges how bad the approval numbers are but as far as
Bird as concerned the public is wrong and the party has no reason to reject a
candidate who everyone things will lose in November.
Bird basically omits how in the
leadup to the convention everyone in the party was certain that Carter would
lose in November. He makes its clear his proudest achievements are 'political
losers' and that Carter had angered many voters across the political spectrum.
But Bird seems unwilling or unable to acknowledge that this should have been a
problem for a political party going into November. Carter's campaign was almost
certainly saved because of the Iran hostage crisis and the willingness of
Americans to rally around the President in that time of crisis. But that's not
part of Bird's story of events either.
And its when it comes to the fall
campaign Bird makes it very clear how badly he has chosen to misread the actual
record. From the start he makes it clear that Carter took Reagan seriously from
day one. That's just not true, multiple sources, including Camelot's End –
which Bird cites as one of his reference texts – make it clear that Carter
thought Baker was his most formidable opponent and he never took Reagan any
more seriously than most Democrats. Carter had to deal with a divided party as
well as Anderson's third party challenge.
According to Bird's record Carter
didn't make a single mistake: other forces were at work. He brings up all the
old standards; how a member of the Kennedy campaign worked for Reagan and stole
debate prep books for him, how members of the Reagan team did everything
possible to stop a release of the hostages in order to avoid an October
surprise, how New York put the Liberal Party endorsement for Anderson rather
then Carter. But he leaves out all of the mistakes Carter made through the
campaign and he made plenty.
There's no mention of how
Anderson said if he debated Carter once he'd drop out and Carter refused. He
leaves out how Reagan chose to debate Anderson and Carter skipped the debate,
which made him look petulant. Bird says Carter's verbal overkill, which turned
away many, just made him look churlish compared to Reagan's warmth and humor
which he demonstrated many times on the campaign trail.
And he basically says Carter's
debate performance was lackluster but writes off Reagan's entire debate
performance as not changing anything. What's most telling is how Bird deals
with Reagan's famous summation.
"Are you better off then you
were four years ago?" Reagan asked.in his closing statement. And many
Americans concluded not.
The way Bird puts it if Americans
didn't think they were better off under Carter's administration they were too
dumb to realize it. It's a conclusion that one could only draw having read
Bird's book. For most Americans who lived during that decade and particularly
Carter's Presidency, the question was not rhetorical.
Its telling that not listed among
the sources of Bird's book is Theodore White's America in Search of Itself which
tells how Carter lost the Presidency in 1980 and makes it clear just how badly
the New Deal coalition fractured. Bird doesn't deal with the electoral defeat,
save to mention Reagan won the 'former Confederacy' which makes it clear what
he truly thinks of the South. He argues that he lost the middle class and rich
but that poor whites and minorities flocked to Carter – "if they managed
to vote'. Bird brags about how he won 83 percent of the African-American vote
to Reagan and then glosses over how he only got 36 percent of white voters. He
can't find a way to turn Carter's horrible loss into a victory so he turns it
around on the electorate:
The pundits would say that the
nation had turned its back on Jimmy Carter – but really the numbers showed that
it was the white middle class who gave up on the President.
This is an astonishing reading of
the situation but its one that any progressive worth his salt would nod at.
Economic well-being has always been at the center of any political campaign,
right up until the most recent one. For the readers of The Nation for
whom Bird writes many of his articles, it's the least important quality for
electing a leader. To them if you think the economy should be a reason for
choosing a President, you're stupid. That last paragraph pretty much
makes that point clear.
It can be difficult to prove that
someone is trying to write a revisionist
history. The clearest indication that this is the case is to read Camelot's
End: Kennedy Vs. Carter by Jon Ward. Ward was writing his book on the fight
that broke the Democratic Party around the same time Bird was doing the same
and there is a considerable overlap in sources, including the books that both
men read. However looking at the bibliographies of both books one sees
omissions in Bird's that are telling.
For one thing Ward has sourced
two critical books about the 1980 election: Theodore White's America in
Search of Itself and Jack Germond
and Jules Witcover's Blue Smoke and Mirrors. If you were going to
write about why Carter lost the 1980 election you'd want to have contemporaries
books of the period.
Bird doesn't list them as part of
his extensive bibliography.
The second sign comes from the
listing of primary sources. Ward spoke to many of the people in the Carter
administration that Bird did but he also spoke to many people that Bird didn't
including Patrick Caddell and Bob Shrum. He also talked to Joe Biden and two
Senators from that period Orrin Hatch and Alan Simpson. Bird didn't talk to
anyone outside the Carter administration even though Ward did. He also talked
to Craig Shirley who wrote several books about Ronald Reagan. Bird has
Shirley's book on the Reagan 1980 campaign but there's no indication he talked
to him.
Bird could explain the latter by saying that his main interest was in the
Carter Presidency. But the former is more telling: if you're going to write
about why Carter lost reelection, one would think you'd want to read the two
most famous contemporary books of the time. That Bird chose not too is the most
glaring omission among an extensive bibliography. Camelot's End is
listed as one of his sources but considering that the book, like so many others
that Bird lists in his bibliography, make it very clear the flaws in Carter's
Presidency and why he lost, is telling.
The biggest sign as to the bias
comes involving the 1980 debate. When Carter makes his infamous remark about
talking to his daughter Amy about nuclear weapons Bird tries to put it off as
something that was overblown. "The pundits later had fun riffing about
Carter referring to his daughter Amy."
That's not how Ward reads it.
Like Bird he interviewed Gerald Rafshoon for the book and he makes it clear
what Rafshoon told him:
Backstage…Rafshoon clapped his
hand to his head and exclaimed "Oh my God – not that!" He and others
had told Carter not to use the anecdote and the President had ignored him.
The way Carter delivered the
line, it sounded like he was asking his thirteen year old daughter for advice.
By the distortionary standards of television, it reinforced the image of him as
a bumbling buffoon.
Carter's advisers knew after the
debate that they were nearly beaten. "You could feel it drifting
away," Walter Mondale is quoted as saying. Yet Bird gives the impression
that Carter's campaign was still sure they were going to win during October and
up until election day. In fact both Ward's book and other sources make it clear
that the Carter campaign was pessimistic all the way through the fall campaign.
But its clear Bird has no interest in letting the historical record get in the
way of telling his story.
Bird's epilogue seems more
interested in telling his narrative of America than Carter's legacy. He seems
inclined to blame Carter for listen to Brzezinski for listening to his
'ideologically driven Cold War views'. He blames without evidence that Reagan administration
stole the election from Carter, choosing to ignore the problem of the economic.
He acknowledges that FDR's liberalism gave way in the 1970s but Bird gives only
two sentences to this, focusing an entire two paragraph on both the Cold War and
religious fundamentalism.
Most tellingly Bird uses his
final paragraph to do what he no doubt wants to do: blame people.
"He alienated the
evangelical voters, the right-to-lifers, the anti-feminists, and a host of
other conservative constituencies. He alienated many white Americans who
harbored feelings the civil rights movement had gone too far. Affirmative
action had gone too far….If the New South proved to be not that new or liberal,
the rest of the country proved to be just as conservative on a host of
issues."
This is a conclusion that Bird
and the readers of The Nation would do well to have learned years ago when it
comes to politics. Perhaps that why Bird basically saves it until the very last
paragraph, perhaps assuming that none of his followers will get that far.
Ward among others acknowledge the
reality of how the country went to the right after the 1970s and that Carter
was ahead of that change and the rest of the Democratic Party was not. Bird, as
his previous writing has made clear, have drawn the conclusion: that it is the
country's fault for not being liberal enough and that the other major
groups of American voters are hypocrites who are out and out racists at best.
The Outlier lives up to its name. It's not
there to tell an accurate story of Carter's Presidency, either how he managed
to win the nomination or the White House. It doesn't want to highlight his
accomplishments in the proper light or mention his failures, particularly
domestic. It doesn't want to explain the real reason he lost reelection. What
Bird seems more interested in doing is throwing shade on the establishment for
being too judgmental, for Democratic politicians not being liberal enough, for
conservatives being evil, for Reagan being an idiot, to engage in bizarre
conspiracy theories and to finally argue that democracy is too important an
institution to be left in the hands of voters who will just vote for a former
actor. In Bird's telling the voters didn't reject Carter because they thought
he was an ineffective president. The voters were too ineffective to realize how
good Carter was for them.
