"Jimmy Carter was not a very good president"

[nolabear]

12. What he was not was a self-aggrandizing president.

Oh, he wasn't magnificent; he was good at some things and not so good at others, like most. But he wasn't bombastic about anything and Americans love a bombastic president. We like drama. Sureness. How many people are now searching desperately for a big personality to challenge the GOP in the next election?

That's the only thing the guy in office now has going for him. I hate it; it's over the top crazy but it IS what people who voted for him respond to. It's what Elizabeth Warren has a lot of and Bernie has in spades, the sometimes incomprehensible ability to fire up emotion (Bernie's a nerd; how he does it is beyond me but it's undeniable).

Jimmy was earnest and honest and good to the marrow of his bones. I adore him. But it's a weird, weird new day.