His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life

Summary: A comprehensive biography from an admiring, but critical author.

I picked up His Very Best on audiobook a few days before President Carter passed away. I had wanted to read one of the recent biographies for a while, and the sale price, and then his death moved it to the top of my list.

It is very clear that Jonathan Alter wanted to reassess Carter's presidency and his place in history. Alter frames the book with Carter's attempt to do his "very best." The line is from a question that Carter was asked when he was applying to work with Hyman G. Rickover in the Navy's nuclear program. Rickover asked Carter if he had done his best while at the Naval Academy. And Carter told him that he had not always done his best. But that question haunted Carter and much of his life, he did attempt to his best all the time.

Carter had the mind and personality of an engineer. He expected that when people were presented with the facts they would come to the same conclusions he did. One of Carter's real strengths as the president was that he often thought about the long term in ways that many politicians do not. Carter was far from perfect, but many of the most important results of Carter's legacy took years and in some cases decades, to start to be seen.

Carter was split. He is known for his ability to talk with people do the long term work to bring people together. But he also was known by Congress at the time as not particularly caring about their opinion and at times being outright offensive. The Panama Canal deal happened in large part because his people did cut deals and drew people into supporting a project that was important for the long term. He spent weeks meeting in small groups with not just congress, but with local and state officials who would provide cover for Congressional members who he needed to take a hard vote. But Carter's health care plan, which he knew was of significant importance to Ted Kennedy, was announced without telling Kennedy or consulting him in its development. Carter often offended his own party even more than the GOP because Carter opposed local initiatives as unhelpful pork projects.

Outsiders often come to the office of the President and not understanding how much of the job is acting and being presidential. Carter thought it was a waste of time and money to play "Hail to the Chief" when he entered a room and ordered it stopped. But it was quietly brought back after about a year because his team came to realize that some of the pomp was important to maintaining the office. Carter often wrote his own speeches or significantly edited the work of his speechwriters to remove all of the rhetorical flourishes. His speaking style was bare facts and that made him less interesting to listen to compared to Reagan and others who drew people in with stories and rhetoric. Again, it seems that as his presidency went on, Carter allowed his speechwriters more leeway and his speeches got better.

Part of the thesis of the book is that he was a far better president than what is commonly assumed, but that his post-presidency was less important than assumed. The Carter Center has done good work. Habitat for Humanity is the largest non-profit home builder in the world and in 2022 was the sixth largest home building in the US of any type. Alter is not trying to minimize Carter's post-presidency, but rather reframe it in relation to the presidency and the presidency is the most powerful job in the world and no other can compare.

Part of the post-presidency is that while Carter did have some success in diplomacy, he had a lot of failures and he had bad relationships with all subsequent presidents. Carter wanted to play a role, but didn't seem to understand how to relate to his successors. Routinely when he was involved in a diplomatic role, he would talk to the press before he would talk to the sitting president. And he didn't follow directions or give credit to the sitting presidents well.

Carter was both humble and quite proud. He was uninterested in personal wealth. He did not accept speaking fees, or if he did, those speaking fees were donated to the Carter Center or other non-profits. The home he lived in was worth less than $200,000 at the time of his death. When working in at Atlanta, he and Roselyn slept in a Murphy bed in his Roselyn's office not a full apartment. But he had an ego and it was often bruised.

This biography shows a flawed man who worked hard trying to prove himself to others. He was shaped by his faith, but simply having faith does not mean that you are not flawed. While Roselyn was a significant advisor during the presidency and she changed the role of the First Lady to be more policy oriented, Carter routinely made decision without consulting her, especially early in their marriage. While Carter did appoint more racial minorities and women to the judiciary than all previous presidents combined and had a diverse cabinet and senior advisors, he did not have a great record on race or gender in all areas.

Carter attempted to get his church to desegregate in the 1960s, but his attempt failed. And he maintained his membership in that segregated church until he left the presidency. Atler and others believe that much of the work of his post-presidency was animated by his lack of effort during the civil rights era. There is a tension, if Carter had been active in civil rights, he would not have become an elected official. But Carter did not seem to have taken real accountability publicly for positions and actions that he did take which were harmful to women or racial minorities. And at least some of the things he did claim to have done seem to be exaggerations.

The only type of humans there are, are flawed ones. This books does not paint Carter as a hero. But it does show him as someone that tried very hard to do what he thought was right. And there is an important role for that type of book. I did not come to this biography blind. I had previously read Carter's memoir A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety, Balmer's spiritual biography, Redeemer, and several of Carter's other books, only writing about his book on faith. I have also picked up a longer book about Carter's presidency, President Carter and Kai Bird's biography, but I do not think I will read those soon. From what I have gleaned, Alter's biography seems to be considered the best.

This was originally posted to my blog at https://bookwi.se/his-very-best/