One Utah

And remember how the oily Republicans reacted to it?

From an editors note at “the encyclopedia of the earth”:

Though he never used the word, this became known as Carter’s “malaise” speech. The public and the political pundits reacted very harshly to the speech, criticizing Carter for not offering enough solutions to the problems he identified. A little more than a year later, Ronald Reagan defeated Carter by offering Americans a vision that was as optimistic as Carter’s was pessimistic. Today, many energy and environmental scholars observe that the problems Carter identified, particularly our dependence on oil and the connection among consumption, energy use, and environmental change, remain paramount issues.

And this exchange with Andrew Bacevich from Bill Moyers Journal on friday:

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, I would be one of the first to confess that - I think that we have misunderstood and underestimated President Carter. He was the one President of our time who recognized, I think, the challenges awaiting us if we refused to get our house in order.

BILL MOYERS: You’re the only author I have read, since I read Jimmy Carter, who gives so much time to the President’s speech on July 15th, 1979. Why does that speech speak to you so strongly?

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, this is the so-called Malaise Speech, even though he never used the word “malaise” in the text to the address. It’s a very powerful speech, I think, because President Carter says in that speech, oil, our dependence on oil, poses a looming threat to the country. If we act now, we may be able to fix this problem. If we don’t act now, we’re headed down a path in which not only will we become increasingly dependent upon foreign oil, but we will have opted for a false model of freedom. A freedom of materialism, a freedom of self-indulgence, a freedom of collective recklessness. And what the President was saying at the time was, we need to think about what we mean by freedom. We need to choose a definition of freedom which is anchored in truth, and the way to manifest that choice, is by addressing our energy problem.

He had a profound understanding of the dilemma facing the country in the post Vietnam period. And of course, he was completely hooted, derided, disregarded.

The media has left us with the impression Carter was an ineffective president, while canonizing Reagan endlessly. This video undeniably shows Carter to be a visionary with his feet planted firmly in reality. I think the media owes Carter an apology!

This entry was posted Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 12:35 am and is filed under 4th Estate (Media), Reagan, Republicans, This Blog. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.