Jimmy Carter, 39th President & Nobel Prize Winner leaves us at age 100

Jimmy Carter was complicated, brilliant, a man who, during his time as President of the United States, was usually convinced he was the smartest person in the room.

As it happens, more often than not he was right.

Elected in 1976, the Southern governor/small town peanut farmer served only a single term as POTUS. He was replaced by Ronald Reagan.

Then, during his more than four post-presidential decades, Carter bloomed into one of the kindest, most empathic, most productive, and least selfish humans ever to have held the nation’s highest office.

Middle East miracles & the Nobel

As it happens, WLA editor Celeste Fremon did a bunch of reporting on the Carter administration many decades ago, including on his work with then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, a tight-rope-walk that resulted in Carter brokering the historic peace agreement between Begin and Sadat, for which the two Middle East leaders won the Nobel Peace Prize

Carter did not win the Nobel for his work at the time, but the Nobel committee later rectified the oversight and gave him the award in 2002, when then President of the United States, George W. Bush, was ramping up for an attack on Iraq in the autumn of 2002.

According to the Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Carter ought to have been awarded the Prize in 1978, when he successfully mediated the seemingly impossible peace agreement between Egypt and Israel. But better late than never.

In 2002, the Nobel committee praised Jimmy Carter’s “decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to a variety of international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.”

On Sunday evening, December 29, hours after the news of President Carter’s death broke, President Joe Biden, who was personally quite close to Carter, delivered a short and clearly heartfelt speech about his friend.

“The one thing I admired most about him,” said Biden near the end of his remarks, “he thought and believed that — he really did believe this, and I do as well — everybody deserves an even shot. No guarantees, just a shot.”

Yes.

Jimmy Carter lived those words through his actions, both local and international, and everywhere in-between.

Rosalyn Carter, President Carter’s wife of more than 77 years, died on Nov. 19, 2023, at 96. Now the love of her life has joined her.

Rest in peace and power, President Jimmy Carter. Thank you for everything. And give our best to Rosalynn.

****

Editor’s note: For inexplicable reasons—perhaps having to do with not enough coffee (or too much coffee)—WLA wrote that Jimmy Carter was the 69th President of the U.S., instead of the 39th president. Thank you to the reader who pointed out this preposterous typo.