Mercedes Gallego
Correspondent. New York
Tuesday, October 1, 2024, 9:09 p.m.
Of all the ‘Happy Birthdays’ that could have been sung to a president of the United States, only Jimmy Carter’s can compete in history with what Marilyn Monroe sang to John F. Kennedy for his 45th birthday. ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’, was read yesterday on the North Lawn of the White House, dedicated to the only president who has lived to celebrate his 100th birthday yesterday.
No one would have suspected it when nineteen months ago he was sent home from hospice with palliative care to ease his final days. His beloved Rosalynn, his only love, to whom he was married for 77 years, beat him to the game at 96. Her funeral last November was the last time he was seen in public, pushed in a wheelchair with a blanket on the legs and the contrite air of who knew what he was doing in that church in Plains (Georgia).
It was hoped that this pain would finally push him towards the afterlife, but as time passed and he continued to cling to this world, his oldest grandson, Jason, asked him if he was trying to reach the century. “I’m just trying to hold on to vote for Kamala Harris,” he says he replied this summer.
Georgia is one of the seven key states to win in these elections. Since his presidency, only two Democrats have won: Bill Clinton in 1996 and Joe Biden in 2020. It was only by 11,779 votes, which Trump was looking for so desperately that he asked out loud the Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, a pro-Republican. who resisted and recorded the call.
Carter is the antithesis of Trump. A small man who humbly became great with the passage of time and an honesty that not even his critics question. He sold the family peanut farm to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest during his presidency and began, suo motu proprio, the custom of making his tax returns public.
Iran crisis
He resisted escalating a conflict in the Middle East even when Iran took over the US embassy with 52 officials inside whom it held hostage for more than a year until Reagan’s inauguration. That crisis skyrocketed the price of crude oil and caused the highest inflation since the Great Depression, with 13.5% in 1980, which cost him the presidency.
He left without a complaint, vilified as the worst president in history and punished with a single term. He was only 56 years old and, it is now known, almost half his life ahead of him. With all that energy and free time on his hands, he wrote more than 30 books, one of them titled ‘Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid’, also becoming the most prolific president in history.
He took the remains of his presidency and dedicated the next half century to all manner of humanitarian and altruistic causes nationally and internationally. From his famous Habitat for Humanity, with which he helped the neediest to rebuild their homes, from the New York of the 80s to the New Orleans of ‘Katrina’, he defended democracy as an international observer in countless elections, especially in Latin America, and convinced many states to require the covid vaccine in schools.
The perspective of time and his vitality has allowed him to live long enough to transcend the curse of being considered the worst president in history, but the best possible ex-president. Yesterday no one was talking about the inflation of his mandate or any other blot.
If Carter, who according to his grandson is having days of lucidity, was able to watch the festival dedicated to him in Atlanta yesterday on television, he only heard congratulations. And if he lasts two more weeks, on the 16th he will be able to receive the long-awaited ballot by mail to complete his last dream of democracy, which can inspire many in that key state.
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