James Earl Carter, Jr.was born October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia. He went on to be elected as our nation's thirty-ninth President in 1976. Here's wishing a very 82nd Happy Birthday to President Carter and a salute to him and to his wife Rosalynn for the great work they're doing at the
Carter Center in Atlanta.
One of the great things the Carter Center is working on is a project with the health ministry in Ethiopia coordinating the distribution of mosquito-repellent bed nets (app. $5 each) to families, an effort that will prevent multiple deadly and preventable diseases. By August 2007 the Carter Center hopes to have every endangered Ethiopian child, man, and woman safe from malaria and other diseases.
Last July, President Carter sat down and recorded a podcast with Senator John Edwards for the One America Committee, during which he said,
"I'd like to see a President who tells the truth and listens to the American people."
Now, more than ever, we understand the value of an honest leader who does not lock himself away in a box of hubris, defensiveness, and political bravado, but listens to the voices of the overwhelming millions of his countrymen who clearly see our that our nation's moral advantage has slipped away in Iraq.
Note: I would like to remind Congresswoman Jane Harman, who gave credit for presiding over the end of the Cold War to Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bush 41 this morning on Fox News Sunday, that it was President Jimmy Carter who painstakingly laid a hopeful and firm foundation for the end of the Cold War.
If American leadership still extended that kind of good will, fearlessness, and hope, even in the face of danger, consider how much farther along in peace, freedom, and human rights we'd be today. When we think of the kind of superpower we could and should be, we still look to President Carter to lead us by his experience, his example, and his great heart. In his words, the attributes of a superpower might very well mirror those of a person, including a demonstrable commitment to truth, justice, peace, freedom, humility, human rights, genertosity, and the upholding of other moral values.