Smith: Convicted-Felon Trump Would Have Been Twice-Convicted-Felon Trump

Yesterday, the first volume of former special counsel Jack Smith's report on Donald Trump's (alleged) criminal activities was released to the members of Congress, and then to the general public.

The release was made possible because Judge Aileen Cannon has had some level of awakening about what powers she does, and does not, have. By the letter of the law, she has no authority here whatsoever, having washed her hands of the whole matter when she declared Smith's appointment to be unconstitutional and his classified documents case to be null and void. Despite that, last week, Cannon asserted the right to block the release of both volumes of the report. Perhaps she has had time to reflect, or maybe a more senior judge sat her down for a nice chat, but in any case, she is now blocking only the second volume of the report, which covers the classified documents case. The first volume, the one released yesterday, is on the 1/6 insurrection, a case that never crossed Cannon's docket.

The now-released document is 174 pages, which is actually on the short side given how much ground it covers, as well as lawyers' tendency to be just a wee bit verbose. The charges and evidence against Trump are summarized, of course, although that's only about half of the document. The other half discusses what made this investigation particularly difficult to pursue, and this set of crimes particularly difficult to prosecute. Smith's overall conclusion is that "but for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial." In other words, being elected president is quite literally a Get Out of Jail Free card, at least for the guy who's going to be re-inaugurated next week.

The fate of the second volume of Smith's report remains up in the air. Cannon has taken the position that the matter is still under her jurisdiction, and has a hearing scheduled for Friday, at which lawyers for Trump's co-defendants (who are NOT being let off the hook, unlike the President-elect) and for the government, will plead their cases. Who knows what Cannon will do, or how quickly she will do it? It's worth noting that even if you think she's in the bag for Trump (and there's a very good chance she is), she has already failed him by allowing the first volume of the report to be released. So, the "Appellate Justice Cannon" or "Supreme Court Justice Cannon" ship might already have sailed.

At some point, not too long from now, responsibility for the second volume of the report will pass into the hands of people appointed to their offices by Donald Trump. It won't happen right on January 20, but it will happen soon thereafter. So, if Cannon does anything on Friday other than say "I am dropping all obstacles to releasing the report," it might remain buried for a while, or maybe forever. That said, it's a leaky world, so even if official channels for release are shut down, it would not be too surprising for the report to find its way to the public through unofficial channels.

Truth be told—and we realize this is contrary to his very nature—but the smart move for Trump would be to get both volumes out there right now. First, there are already a bunch of "Smith says he would have convicted Trump" stories at the moment, and the number of stories isn't going to change if there's one volume released, or two. Might as well pull off the band-aid all at once, and get it over with. And now is a particularly good time, since Trump's approval is as high as it's been in years, and any news from this week's cycle will soon be pushed out of the headlines by the inauguration, etc.

By contrast, if Trump and his loyal acolytes (e.g., Cannon) drag this thing out, then you run into the drip-drip-drip problem, wherein any small development becomes the basis for yet another news cycle focused on Trump and his criminal deeds. And then, if and when the thing does become public—in a month, or 6 months, or a year—it will produce a whole week of stories about how Trump is a crook, and how he is more than willing to abuse his powers for selfish/trivial reasons. Plus, it will give us the opportunity to run the headline: "Smith: Convicted-Felon Trump Would Have Been Thrice-Convicted-Felon Trump."

It's really kind of remarkable that Trump, as obsessed with PR as he is, and as good at getting free publicity as he is, has never mastered even the most rudimentary elements of damage control. (Z)

California Continues to Be a Political Football

As everyone presumably knows, the fires are still burning in Southern California. And, unfortunately, the forecast is that the Santa Ana winds are about to pick up. So, there's every chance this gets worse before it gets better.

We noted last week that Republicans were working hard to score political points off of this. This is a well-worn dynamic; in fact, one of the readings for (Z)'s History of California class is a collection of stories, taken from a 40-year span, of Republicans trying to score political points off of California. In the same way that Texas serves as a symbol of the excesses/problems of conservatism for liberals, California serves as a symbol of the excesses/problems of liberalism for conservatives. Put another way, the Golden State is a far better and more frequent whipping boy (whipping state?) than even more liberal states like Hawaii and Massachusetts.

This week, since the conversation about California has turned to federal emergency aid, the focus of political maneuvering has also turned to federal emergency aid. Joe Biden is working to send as much money to California as he possibly can, but he's limited by the facts that: (1) other states, like North Carolina and Florida, are also in line for some funding; (2) Biden has less than a week left in his term and (3) the extent of the damage, and thus the amount of emergency aid that would be correct and appropriate, will not be known for weeks or months.

What this means is that some meaningful portion of the federal aid for California will have to come from a purse whose strings are controlled by a Republican trifecta. And so, there is now much talk from that side of the aisle about "conditions" for that aid. At the moment, there appear to be three emerging schools of thought among GOP politicians:

1. Trumpy Fantasies: Donald Trump, as we noted in the item last week, has glommed on to the idea that California brought this on themselves through poor management of water and forestry. Does he really believe this? Last week, we weren't so sure, but having thought about it some more, we believe he actually does think this way. He tends to see everything in simplistic, black-and-white terms, and he pretty much invariably believes that all complex problems have simple solutions. Common sense tells you that California has been dealing with the challenges of fire, water, and forest management for well over a century, and if there actually were simple fixes, surely someone would have come along in that time, figured those fixes out, and implemented them. Of course, common sense is not something with which Trump is abundantly endowed.
   
   Anyhow, one of the lines of thought is that, in exchange for aid, California will have to admit that Trump is right and agree to "fix" the problems. This is the approach apparently favored by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who sat for an interview yesterday and declared:
   

   Obviously, there has been water resource mismanagement, forest management mistakes, all sorts of problems. And it does come down to leadership. And it appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty and in many respects. So that's something that has to be factored in. I think there should probably be conditions on that aid.

   As we note, we think Trump really believes this. We doubt Johnson actually believes it, and even if he does, we don't really see what concessions he might demand on this front.
   
   Indeed, this is about as realistic as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-GA) solution to the problem: She believes the federal government should stay out of it, and that if Californians really want to stop their state from burning, they should make use of raincloud-seeding, so as to put the fires out "naturally." There are two problems here. First, while raincloud-seeding is a real thing, it is not a technique for extinguishing massive fires. Second, everyone knows that the real way to extinguish massive fires is Jewish space freeze rays.
   
   You have to feel some sympathy for Democratic politicians, both in California and in D.C., who have to deal with folks like this.
   
   
2. Wokeness: Another notion that is being bandied about is that if California wants federal aid, it has to dial back the "wokeness." For example, here is Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), the Senate's answer to Marge Greene: "If you go to California, you run into a lot of Republicans, a lot of good people, and I hate it for them, but they are just overwhelmed by, by these inner-city woke policies with the people that vote for them."
   
   As with the forest/water management angle, it's hard to imagine what substantive changes California might actually make on this front, even if Californians were willing. This seems a lot more like axe-grinding than anything substantive.
   
   
3. Debt Ceiling: The third notion being circulated is that Congress and president-by-then Trump will bestow federal aid on California, but in exchange the Democrats will have to support an increase in the debt ceiling. Of the three ideas listed here, this is the only one that would seem to have any possibility of actually happening. That doesn't mean that this sort of quid pro quo actually will happen, merely that it's at least plausible, as opposed to magical changes in water/forest management and/or "wokeness."

As Republicans try to leverage the wildfires for concrete political gain, there are a few obstacles worth keeping in mind. To start, Californians and their leadership are not especially interested in kowtowing to the incoming administration and eating some dirt, like naughty little liberals. Just yesterday, in fact, the state government set aside $50 million, $25 million to fund lawsuits against the Trump administration, and $25 million to resist deportation efforts.

Beyond that, it's a pretty bad look, politically, to add to the suffering of people, and to make them bark like a seal, just because you perceive them to be "lib'ruls." There is an unbelievable amount of empathy out there for Southern California right now, and being on the other side of that is not a great place to be. One might also point out that while California is blue, plenty of Republicans were hurt by the fires, too (in fact, the fires basically hit the most Republican-leaning parts of Los Angeles County). Another thing that might be pointed out is that for every $1 California gets from the federal government, it pays $5.03 in federal taxes. So, the folks in the Golden State are probably justified in thinking that the government should be kicking a little extra back, in this time of need.

Finally, if the Republicans cross this particular Rubicon, and start conditioning federal aid on "concessions," then they're going to receive the same treatment once the shoe is on the other foot. "Ah, you've been hit by a hurricane, Alabama? OK, we're happy to help you rebuild, but you have to strike all anti-abortion laws in the state." Our guess is that Tommy Tuberville, et al., would not be too happy about that demand. Preliminary indications are that many Republicans in Congress appreciate the trade-off that would be happening here, don't want to make it, and will push for emergency aid to remain non-partisan and condition-free.

For all of these reasons, we are skeptical that the efforts to squeeze some blood out of California will come to anything. But we just can't be sure. (Z)

John Fetterman, Politician

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) first made a name for himself as someone with a blue-collar, progressive, "rebel" image. There was a time when he looked like a possible heir to the mantle of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), as both of them were saying a lot of the same things, often in the same way. And Fetterman made sure that voters made the connection, hiring a bunch of Sanders staffers for his Senate campaign and his Senate office.

This image was always a bit of a fiction, given that Fetterman is actually pretty well-to-do, and is also a Harvard graduate with an MBA. And since being elected to the Senate, the Senator has pretty aggressively re-invented himself, a process that really picked up speed in the last week or so. To wit:

• Last year, he pointedly told NBC News: "I'm not a progressive. I just think I'm a Democrat that is very committed to choice and other things."
  
  
• He has been as militantly pro-Israel as any Democrat, and more so than most Republicans.
  
  
• Last week, during one of his frequent appearances on Fox, he said that acquiring Greenland is not such a bad idea, and that it's not much different from the Louisiana Purchase (shaky history; more on this on some future day).
  
  
• He signed on as a co-sponsor of the Laken Riley Act, and then had the temerity to argue that he did so because he's married to an immigrant (true) and so he's very pro-immigrant (huh?).
  
  
• He made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago this past weekend, did some genuflecting, and clearly told Donald Trump what Trump wanted to hear. Here is Trump's recounting of the meeting:

  It was a totally fascinating meeting. He's a fascinating man, and his wife is lovely. They were both up, and I couldn't be more impressed. He's a commonsense person. He's not liberal or conservative. He's just a commonsense person, which is beautiful. He really was impressive, and I'm glad I got to speak to him. And he loves Pennsylvania, and he loves our country.

  You simply don't get a review like that from Trump unless you do some serious puckering up.

We are not sure what the Senator's game is. Perhaps he is looking at his reelection bid in 2028 and, having noticed that his home state just elected David McCormick (R-PA), decided he needed to move toward the center. We do not presume to have a better grasp of the dynamics of Pennsylvania politics than Fetterman does. But the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer is pretty dialed-in, and they are not impressed. In an editorial this weekend, they wrote:

Fetterman argues that his openness to working across the aisle shows he is a senator for all Pennsylvanians, but his normalization of Trump is the epitome of a sellout. He, like many corporate leaders and millions of voters, either has a short memory or is delusional.

It wasn't long ago, when Fetterman was running for the Senate, that Trump called him a "radical" and a "Marxist" and made fun of him for wearing hooded sweatshirts...

Apparently, Fetterman is OK with enabling Trump as long as he gets to hold onto his Senate seat. He would do well to remember the old adage: "If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters."

Keep in mind that Senate elections in Pennsylvania are always close. Not only is Fetterman opening up the possibility of a primary challenge from the center-left, but he will also be in trouble in the general if he loses too many votes on his left flank. Maybe he can make those votes up from the center/center-right, though in general, Republicans prefer to vote for an actual Republican, as opposed to a Democrat who sometimes wears Republican clothing.

Alternatively, Fetterman might be trying to position himself for a 2028 presidential bid. If so, then we would use the same word the Inquirer used: delusional. There are going to be a bunch of Democrats running who have very clear lanes; some no-doubt-about-it progressives, some longstanding centrists, etc. These candidates who kind of have one foot in one lane, and one foot in another, never work out. Think Nikki Haley in 2024, or Tulsi Gabbard in 2020. And this is before we consider the fact that Fetterman has had serious health problems, and that any misstatement or stutter or verbal gaffe during a presidential campaign would have people wondering about whether he was fully recovered from his stroke.

Those are, of course, medium-to-long-term considerations. The more immediate lesson here is this: With Fetterman making nice with Trump, and apparently looking to take over as the next Joe Manchin, the Senator's vote is presumably available to the Republicans on tough votes, at least some of the time. (Z)

Apparently, Monday Was the Media Trade Deadline

Every major North American sports league has a trade deadline. Once that deadline has passed, teams either cannot trade players until the end of the season, or else they cannot use any players acquired on their postseason roster. In some leagues, most obviously the NBA and MLB, trade-deadline day invariably witnesses a whole bunch of last-minute player movement.

We were reminded of the NBA/MLB trade deadlines by all the news that broke yesterday regarding various media figures and their new/former gigs. Obviously, the news media does not have a formal trade deadline the way the sports leagues do. However, the Monday before a new presidential administration, particularly the new presidential administration that is about to take power, effectively works out to "put up or shut up" time. So, on reflection, it's not so surprising that there were so many big announcements yesterday.

For lack of a better alternative, we'll work through the four big stories from (political) left to (political) right. So, first up is MSNBC and Rachel Maddow. Maddow is, of course, the biggest star in the MSNBC universe, even though she dialed her regular duties back to one day a week several years ago. However, she has decided that one day a week is not enough at this particular moment. And so, she is going to return to full-time duty for the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. Maddow's show, though airing only once a week, nearly equals the ratings of her direct competitor, Sean Hannity. Ratings of news outlets tend to improve when they are in "opposition" to whatever party holds the White House. So, there's an excellent chance Maddow will be the ratings king (well, the ratings queen) during her 100 days back on the daily grind.

Meanwhile, over at sister station NBC (sister station for now, at least), Chuck Todd is on his way out. He was cashiered as host of Meet the Press back in 2023, and has since been relegated to mostly second-tier duties. He does not want to remain a journalistic backbencher, and NBC does not particularly want to keep him, especially since he is among the media figures whom Donald Trump hates the most. So, Todd is looking around for a new gig that he can assume once his NBC contract is up later this year. Given that all the major media conglomerates are trying to avoid stepping on Trump's toes, Todd may find it difficult-to-impossible to find a job with the stature he thinks he's earned. The best fit for him might be a foreign concern of some sort, like BBC America.

Crossing over to the right-wing part of the spectrum, Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin has had enough, and yesterday she resigned from the paper. She is going to partner with (left-leaning) attorney and pundit Norm Eisen to form a multi-media venture called The Contrarian. The multi-media involved here are exactly the ones you would guess: a Substack blog, some podcasts, and a YouTube channel.

Next week, we are going to start our annual rundown of predictions for 2025 and recap of last year's predictions. Had we gotten to it earlier, well, one of our predictions was going to be that Rubin would be leaving the Post. First, it's pretty hard for any self-respecting opinion columnist to remain at that paper anymore; doing so has something of a quisling vibe to it. Second, Rubin's position was particularly tenuous. She is one of the best-known Never Trump Republican commentators in the country, right up there with Jonathan Last and Andrew Sullivan. If the Post's management is going through Trump-critical content with a fine-toothed comb, then Rubin couldn't possibly do her job properly. It was obvious to us, and it was obvious to her. Anyhow, expect The Contrarian to bear more than a passing similarity to Last's The Bulwark, which is currently the most prominent site for commentary from Never Trump Republicans.

Finally, over on the far-right, Fox has announced a replacement for the soon-to-depart Neil Cavuto. It's exactly the person you would expect, assuming you follow right-wing media at all: Will Cain. Fox has been grooming Cain to be their next "star" for several years, with him doing radio and weekend TV work. What this story really reminds us of, however, is that there's only one true "star" at Fox, and that is the Fox brand. Anytime the channel loses a high-profile entertainer—Bill O'Reilly, Tucker Carlson, Cavuto, etc.—they just swap someone else in, and the ratings are unaffected.

And that is today's media report. (Z)

Don't Tell Pete Hegseth...

There was an interesting story out of the military world yesterday, as the Army announced that, for the first time in several years, it met its recruitment goals in 2024 (roughly 50,000 new soldiers).

What explains the Army's newfound success? There are two ways to answer that question, one of them simple and one complicated. The simple answer is that enlistment of female soldiers was way up; nearly 20%. Enlistment of male soldiers was up, too, although by a smaller percentage; about 8%. Undoubtedly, some number of those new enlistees are actually trans (since enlistment is an effective way to escape hostile families/communities), but the Army either doesn't have that information yet, or chose not to provide it.

The complicated answer is... not entirely clear right now. That is to say, the Army doesn't exactly know why enrollment was up so much, particularly among women. There is no particular initiative or advertising campaign that the Pentagon can point to in order to explain why 2024 was so much better, recruitment-wise, than 2023 or 2022. That said, women are much less likely to have criminal records, and are much more likely to be pursuing higher education, than men. The former makes women less likely to be disqualified from service; the latter makes women more likely to be interested in ROTC and other tuition-payment options.

Secretary of Defense-designate Pete Hegseth is, of course, quite hostile to women soldiers (especially in combat). If he is confirmed, then he clearly will have to get over that pronto, assuming he wants the Army to be at full strength. (Z)

And the Next Mayor of New York Will Be...

Actually, it's easier to tell you who the next mayor of New York won't be, namely Eric Adams. We hardly have our finger on the pulse of New York City politics, as neither of us lives within 2,500 miles of that metropolis. But we do know what a crooked politician looks like. We could not imagine that New Yorkers, even with their above-average tolerance for shenanigans, could possibly return Adams to the mayoralty in this year's elections.

A new poll, commissioned by Progressives for Democracy in America, and first reported by Politico, affirms our suspicions. Adams' support among New York City voters is a grim 6%. That puts him in a tie for fifth place. The poll also simulated what would happen in a ranked-choice election, and the result was Adams being eliminated in the fourth round of re-ranking.

So, who is the favorite? Well, the runaway leader in the poll is... former governor Andrew Cuomo, who had the support of 32% of respondents (the only other person in double figures was former city comptroller Scott Stringer, at 10%). This should not be taken seriously, at least not right now, for three reasons. Most importantly, most voters aren't really dialed in yet, and so undoubtedly Cuomo was the only name many of them recognized. Also important, Cuomo is not actually a candidate, at least not yet. And less important, but still worth noting, is that the poll was actually conducted before Christmas, and so is at least a little stale.

Cuomo's showing is, in our view, important for one reason: It makes clear that while the poll might have been commissioned by Progressives for Democracy in America, it did not have a bias in favor of progressive candidates, because Cuomo is most certainly not a progressive. That makes it rather hard for the centrist Adams to dismiss, even though he's trying to do so. His argument is that Andrew Yang had a big lead in polls last time around, and yet did not become mayor. This is a fair point, but it's an argument for why you shouldn't put your money on Cuomo right yet. It's not an argument for why it's not a big deal when a sitting mayor, who presumably has universal name recognition, is only polling at 6%.

So, we assume that, barring a dramatic change in fortunes, Adams' goose is cooked. Of course, we are happy to hear from New York City voters at comments@electoral-vote.com, who may confirm our suspicions, or who may tell us why we're out to lunch. (Z)

Reader Reflections on Jimmy Carter, Part IV

We will have 10 more Carter stories tomorrow, and then the final 10 on Friday. For now, six more thoughts from readers on the 39th president:

• J.L.G. in Boston, MA: In 2003, the Jimmy Carter Work Project sponsored a huge effort to build over 80 houses in a week in three southeastern US cities, including in my hometown of Anniston, AL.
  
  I was lucky enough to be invited to help with the effort. My father's church provided some support for the effort in terms of both cash and muscle power. At the time, I was in grad school several states away, and dad arranged for me to come home and for us to pitch in on the building.
  
  It was an amazing opportunity for me—in large part, and this sounds cheesy, because it taught me what it takes to build a house: the vision, the planning, the logistics, the effort, the neighborhood, even the raw materials and how they are joined together. It was also meaningful that my dad and I volunteered together; I had been away at school for most of the previous decade and so the week we spent together was a chance to connect as adults in a way that we didn't really have before or after.
  
  And, of course, President Carter was there hammering away every day. The Carters stayed in a dorm room at Jacksonville State University alongside the other volunteers. Their only request? Peanuts and Diet Coke for an evening snack—humble preferences that reflected their unpretentious approach to volunteerism.
  
  At lunch one day, I saw him standing near me. I decided to go shake his hand. He graciously did so, but then an enormous line lined up behind me—I suspect he spent the next hour shaking hands—I felt a little guilty about having broken those floodgates for him that day inside the lunch tent. But I also hope that those moments conveyed to him how inspirational he was to me and everybody there.
  
  
• W.T.L. in Everett, WA: Jimmy Carter is the first vote I cast for a President, as I was still only 16 when the national voting age was lowered to 18, and so missed out on '72.
  
  I was always defensive of his legacy in later years when the subject (infrequently) came up. I would never wear one of those "My President" campaign buttons featuring a shaggy-haired Bill Clinton, because my view was "Jimmy is still my guy!"
  
  Many years later, taking a cruise trip with my mother, we shared a dining table in the evening with an older couple from Georgia. The husband had many stories of his time as a Republican in the Georgian House, and in particular related how he had frequently carpooled with Jimmy Carter up to the Capitol for a few years, as they were neighbors, even though Jimmy was in the Senate and a misguided Democrat. Still, he expressed warm feelings of his memories of that friendship.
  
  Next to him, his demure wife, a faded but still-fighting-the-good-fight Georgia Peach, finally had enough and spoke up: "Yes, we all know Jimmy, and we all love Jimmy, but sometimes we all wish Jimmy would just shut the hell up!"
  
  The conversation moved on.
  
  
• D.J. in Oberlin, OH: Something I learned only recently from Electoral-Vote.com was that Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to visit Africa. In 1978, I was a crewmember aboard the SS Delta Paraguay, a cargo ship heading towards Lagos, Nigeria. At the time, it was common for ships to sit at anchor for weeks or even months outside the harbor while waiting for a berth. The rulers of Nigeria were spending their newly acquired oil wealth on building materials, and ships from all over the world were arriving without adequate port facilities to handle the influx of cargo.
  
  To our surprise, after sitting at anchor for only a few hours, we received orders to proceed to dock at a newly built dry cargo terminal. As it turned out, President Carter was visiting Nigeria, and part of the itinerary was to show off their new port. We were given some warning that, as the only American flag vessel in port, the President would be taken to our ship. So, I had time to grab my camera. The President and Rosalynn came aboard while their young daughter, Amy, waited in the bus:
  
  
  
  A few pallets of cargo were discharged before the entourage departed for the next stop on the tour. We remained at the dock for a day or so and, apparently after the Carters departed from Nigeria, we were sent back to anchor for a couple weeks before finally discharging the remainder of our cargo.
  
  
• T.H. in Champaign, IL: The story beer enthusiasts tell is that when prohibition ended, Congress passed a law intending to legalize home production of wine and/or beer in limited quantities for private consumption. Somewhere in the lawmaking process, the "and/or beer" part got left out due to a clerical error. That mistake was not rectified till the Carter administration. The fix made possible the American homebrewing craze of the '80's, followed by the microbrewing craze of the '90's. Thanks to Jimmy, you can now drink good beer brewed in America.
  
  
• R.C. in Newport News, VA: The last presidential debate in 1976 was held in Phi Beta Kappa Hall at the College of William & Mary. My spouse was a staff member in the computing center at the college and received two tickets to view the debate. Because PBK Hall had limited space, her overflow tickets were for the closed-circuit large screens at William & Mary Hall, the basketball arena. (False rumor: It was not named for Bill Hall and his wife Mary.) I was the and-one for her tickets.
  
  After the debate, which was boring, the candidates came to William & Mary Hall to speak. Carter was first and gave what I considered an inspirational speech, emphasizing that he wanted a presidency as good as the American people. Lots of applause. Ford came into the hall and said he wouldn't be speaking but wouldn't we rather listen to Pearl Bailey singing. That she did: live in the arena, a cappella, again to lots of applause.
  
  "As good as the American people" wouldn't fly today. So many changes to our political culture, mostly awful.
  
  
• A.B. in Wendell, NC: Although I was born when Nixon was President, Jimmy Carter was the first person whom I knew to be President, and what that meant... at least, as a 6-year-old would understand it.
  
  Anyway, one anecdote I heard was that Rosalynn Carter used to wash out plastic sandwich bags for re-use instead of throwing them away. That is how environmentally conscious they were, long before it was "cool" to be that way.
  
  Of all Presidents, I think Carter best exemplified what was best about America, and I would dearly love a return to the decorum of his times. And I would very much like a plain-folks guy like Jimmy back in the White House... he will be sorely missed.
  
  RIP, Jimmy!

We really wanted to do another 10 Carter stories today, but life got in the way. Oh, well, as they say, "tomorrow is another day." (Z)

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