Carter’s October Surprise

I’m a big fan of the Angry Poodle, very informative and such good writing. I loved how the Poodle did a deep dive into Jimmy Carter’s life, his path to the White House, his successes, failures and eventual exit from public office. Much of which I didn’t know about. He was and still is my favorite President.

As the article said, “Carter was often too right for his own good.” One of the first things Carter did as President was attempt to cut the huge, incredibly wasteful, pork barrel projects doled out to a number of states. Talk about trying to do the right thing that pissed off a lot of congressmen.

What the Poodle did not include (it could be worth a whole article) was one of the October Surprises that really cost Carter the election. If he had gotten the hostages released from Iran, he would have beaten Reagan. But the powers-that-be worked behind closed doors, dealing arms for the delay of their release. Sure enough, the hostages were not released while Carter was in office, and Reagan was elected.

A very suspicious and tell-tale fact was that they were set free on the day of his inauguration. This tactic had been used previously in 1968 when Nixon and Kissinger sent secret messages to the South Vietnamese imploring them not to engage in peace talks since they’d get a better deal under Nixon. Sure enough, the peace talks broke down and Nixon barely beat Humphrey.

Imagine what our country would have been like without Reagan or Nixon.