Ms. Reems: Mr. Carter, you weren't elected for a second term. What do you think about the current incumbent?
Mr. Carter: Well, in 1980, my administration didn't consider fraudulently depriving any state of its electoral votes.
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Imagined comment from Jimmy Carter
I'm just listening to an interview of former President Jimmy Carter on the Diane Reems Show on NPR. Ineluctably, I found my imagination wandering....
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Jimmy Carter is a true gentleman -- a true rarity in politics.
ReplyDeleteI know you meant this on a serious note, but I had to laugh. Seeing him sitting in an easy chair, wearing a sweater, and he says this.
ReplyDeleteBut he would say it in such a gentlemanly way that no one would dare think about strangling him with the sweater. LOL.
ReplyDeleteWhether Mr. Carter is sitting in an easy chair or wearing a sweater, I do see his making the imagined remark in an easygoing, matter-of-fact way.
ReplyDeleteWe can be proud to have elected a man of his caliber to the Oval Office.
As Serena says, he's a gentleman, and I don't think he would ever actually say what I imagined him saying (not in public, anyway). In the actual interview I heard, though he judged our going into Iran as one of the worst blunders in the Nation's history, he also spoke respectfully of "President Bush," with no hint of quotation marks in his voice.
If Ms. Reems had been interviewing me, you know that the quotation marks would have been heavy and sharp enough to cut through bone.
Gee, Serena, you and I were thinking similar thoughts at about the same time. Where are you anyway? Next door?
ReplyDeleteJimmy Carter has done more good work after his retirement from office than any other president. Do you have any idea how many people are living in Habitat houses? (I don't really, but I'll bet it's a lot.) I always liked Carter. So did Georgia Sugarbaker.
ReplyDeleteSouthern Writer, I believe that Herbert Hoover also made huge contributions after he left office in 1933. A history comparing post-office contributions could be interesting. I found online his 1964 obituary (age 90) in the New York Times.
ReplyDeleteGeorgia Sugarbaker? You mean the Atlanta reviewer who panned a book by writing, "I didn't have the option of zero stars, so I gave this book one star instead. In my opinion, it is poorly written, confusing, and worthless. As a TV writer, I read everything on screenwriting and this book is second only to...." Like David Hume, she doesn't clothe her thoughts in wool.
I'll give the comparison idea some thought, Mori.
ReplyDeleteSilly me. I meant Julia Sugarbaker!
Do you mean the fictional character or an actual person named Julia Sugarbaker? I'd never heard of any Sugarbaker, by any first name, and only found Julia Sugarbaker of "Designing Women" by doing a google. If you meant the fictional character, then, knowing that the TV program seems to have your recommendation, I'm thinking I maybe ought to look into it.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I haven't seen any follow-up from you on that episode of "Medium" in which Clay Bricks visits Allison. In your novel, is the old friend who returns also a ghost? I realized the other day that I probably hadn't fully appreciated the import of your remark that "Medium's" plot was similar to that of your book.