I don’t like the sound of this:
Former President Jimmy Carter announced he has been diagnosed with cancer in a brief statement issued Wednesday.
“Recent liver surgery revealed that I have cancer that now is in other parts of my body,” Carter said in the statement released by the Carter Center. “I will be rearranging my schedule as necessary so I can undergo treatment by physicians at Emory Healthcare.”
The statement makes clear that Carter’s cancer is widely spread, but not where it originated, or even if that is known at this point. The liver is often a place where cancer spreads and less commonly is the primary source of it. It said further information will be provided when more facts are known, “possibly next week.”
Carter, 90, announced on Aug. 3 that he had surgery to remove a small mass from his liver.
I didn’t realize that he was 90 years old. He’s a good man and he’s lived a good life that he can proud of and that others should emulate. I hope he still has a few good years left.
I feel sorry for him, yet you have to realize that ordinary Americans that are 90 years old are automatically written off by the medical establishment.
Even though I had political disagreements and thought he was a bad President, I do agree with you that he is/was a decent man and deserved a better death. The best any of us can hope for is to die in our sleep with no anticipation. I’m sorry that he didn’t get that.
Cheney, now, is a different story. I hope he dies in great pain and fear like the innocent prisoners he tortured to death.
Compared to his predecessor and successor, he was a good enough POTUS.
???
He’s not dead yet…
I disagree with that. A sentence of death for a person allows you to make your peace, and arrange your affairs as you wish. When a person is 90, you live one day at a time, and there is the certain knowledge that time is finite. Carter knows now that time is finite. He has done better with his time than many, and this will allow him to exit as HE chooses.
I want to die in full possession of my faculties. My dad died 6 years ago, suddenly, and I didn’t have the time or opportunity to talk to him. Jimmy can talk to his significant others, they to him, and that is good.
My mom will be crushed 🙁
Candor and openness.
Just think. He’s been out of office for 35 years.
His last statement prior to this was about the danger of oligarchy.
He is the elder statesman of our age. I can think of none who have his stature in commenting on US and world politics.
Prayers and positive thoughts for him and his family
The first vote I ever cast in a Presidential election was for Jimmy Carter. It was funny because we had a debate and simulated election in our senior government class that year and I was made the leader of the team for Gerald Ford. I actually had to debate for Gerald Ford. Ford ended up winning the election in the class by a landslide. And ironically, a few months later I cast my first ever vote for the guy I had to campaign against. Funny how things sometimes go.
In 1975, I was going to UNC-CH for grad school. As a Chicago/IL boy, I was deeply sceptical about the south, and any Southern politician. As I was flying back to CH from Chicago after some trip home, I talked to some Southern guy who reassured me that Jimmy was a good guy. This was a Southern guy vouching for Jimmy. In retrospect, it seems a different world. Of course, at that time, there were still Democrats who voted Democratic S of the M-D line.
I have a tremendous respect for the man. He was a mediocre president, but no man that I know of has made his ex-Presidency into such a force of good and force of right.
I hope that his time on this mortal plane remains a good one. He is also fortunate that his wife, also a good person (at least in the public sphere), is still around. She has been out of the public space for some time, and may be ill.
I wish them both a pleasant and fulfilling time.
Rosalynn Carter, though quite frail, is still active. She campaigned all over the state last year when her grandson was running for governor (Golly we had 2 good Dem candidates last year and I’m still bummed that neither won). I had a chance to go up to Mrs. Carter at a rally and introduced myself. She commented that she hadn’t realized how viciously mean running for political office had become and saidshe wouldn’t be doing this again. I guess it’s a bit different when all the vicious mean jabs are directed at one’s grandson.
I was truly quite saddened to hear President Carter’s news today, although I’ve long been aware that the entire rest of his immediate family long ago succumbed to cancer.
In terms of the judgements rendered on Carter’s Presidency, I’ve long ago decided that perpetuating the myth that a President is weak and/or ineffective or both is something that the GOP sets out to do to every single Democratic one. We allow them to succeed. While it’s accepted wisdom that his Presidency wasn’t a great one, bI wonder how the historians will judge him in 50 years or so.
Well, I don’t think his stock will rise much. I could be wrong, and have been many times. His “sweater speech” pretty much cooked his goose.
In his defense, he did not start a major war or even a minor one. He did create the mujaheddin, and that is a long-term black eye. That created a short-term success, which is not often discussed, in that the Soviets did not convert Afghanistan into the 16 CCCP republic. Kudos to Jimmy and Zbigniev. But you can trace Osama to Jimmy in some ways.
The major issue, which did destroy his presidency, was the Iran occupation of the US embassy. We spent many evenings watching Ted Kopple in “America Held Hostage”, a fine program which presaged many cable shows, and really ushered in the 24 hr news cycle. I still believe that Reagan cut a deal with Khomeini. It shafted Carter.
The research of Rbt Parry on the so-called October Surprise has produced enough evidence to persuade me there was a secret deal cut. It’s just still too explosive for the MSM and historians to accept.
Possible his stock could rise modestly, assuming he’s now somewhere rather low in the historian rankings, but possibly also it could rise for the wrong reasons.
It’s just still too explosive for the MSM and historians to accept.
Yes, we prefer to ignore, deny, bury scandals into at worst a zone of “unknown/unknowable.” DNA is messing with some of those old stories considered to be myths or falsehoods. VF DNA Testing Concludes President Warren G. Harding Had a Love Child. (And the GOP paid off Harding’s other mistress to keep her mouth shut.)
I wonder if, in Harding’s case, the historians used the then-unproven rumor of his love child w/Britton plus the rumors about his African ancestry (proved false by DNA), along with the Teapot Dome scandal to give him the three strikes sufficient to send him to the bottom of their rankings.
Just looking at some of the positives of his brief admin (John Dean wrote a good small book a few yrs ago trying to argue Harding has been unfairly maligned), including his pardon of Eugene Debs and his rather remarkable race speech in AL calling for equality of the races, and his favoring anti-lynching legislation, he probably doesn’t deserve the low low ranking.
But I think most of these historian ranking lists are overrated anyway.
iirc it was Florence Harding’s father that either started or promulgated the African ancestry rumor.
Have to recall that in his time, the Democratic Party was the Dixiecrats and holy rollers. Harding was in the party of Lincoln. His marriage was a great partnership, but to fulfill his romantic and sexual desires, he looked elsewhere.
Hope he’s able in his time left to discuss a little more fully his views about the curious way the hostages were released just as Ronald Raven was taking the oath of office. I believe he’s alluded to some doubts in previous interviews, but perhaps not in print.
Maybe his oral history interviews will shed more light.
Decent fellow and pretty good truth-teller in his post-presidency, sort of like HST. Should have done a better job as president and especially early on treated his natural political allies with a little more respect.