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Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/29/24 in all areas
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If y'all want to make this an OnlyFans girl battle instead of a football game, ASU is going to kick your fucking ass.42 points
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Reserve=2nd place. aggy meat judging is in a steady decline since the departure of the generational talent of meat pimp. BUT all is not lost. Let me present: MEAT PENGUIN34 points
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This is strange matchup for the CFP. Like Clemson, ASU doesn’t seem to belong on power ranking. They too emerged from a multi-team pileup to win their conference. There is a large talent gap in this game, most notably on the lines. You can see it in the undersized front 6 for ASU and the lack of standout players on the OL and receiver corps. Without #0 Tyson, I would say Clemson is better at TE and all 3 WR spots. Leavitt is a good, dual threat QB and Skataboo is one of the best RBs in the country this year. They just don’t have a strong supporting cast. The defense is a study in contrasts. They play a 4-2-5 base nickel and the safeties are called on to do a lot. The other 9 defenders are undersized and built to play B12 spread passing teams. D philosophy is bend, don’t break and they use movement and quickness to confuse blocking assignments. The results are decent: 3.82 YPC and #27 nationally per game, #38 per carry. In pass efficiency D, the Devils rank #24. For the second game in a row, Texas should have the advantage on Special Teams. ASU is average at punter and return teams. The FG kicking is a real adventure. They have a miss inside of 30 yards, 2 of 4 30-39 and 3 of 7 40-49 with a long of 47. There are a lot of details to add but I wanted to start with a summary to provide a framework for discussion.26 points
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Secrant poster who says he was at the Vegas bowl: “Gotta say A&M fans were some of the warmest, nicest, blue collar kinda folk I've ever met. Found myself rooting for them there at the end. They are the complete opposite of the longhorn fans I've met, all scumbags and a half. I think Fatko will get them there. Turtle approved.”24 points
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23 points
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He actively shit on Texas on the way out, trying to prevent good coaches to come here and told recruits to go somewhere else, all to make himself look better. Do you really think he wants Sark to win a couple of national championships and make him look worse? The divorce similarity above is perfect. 10 years after you caught your wife cheating on you and you divorced her,she actively lied to your kids to put you in a bad light, did everything in her power to sabotage any relationship you had, you're now going to let her move into your house under the guise of being able to give your current wife advice since she won Aledo mom of the year in 2005?22 points
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I’m too lazy to post all of the screenshots but that fb account you’re quoting is 100% trash. They have posts claiming that the NFL has fined Dabo $99k for comments about officiating. The NFL! They also have a post that reads identical except about Sark instead of Dabo. Multiple “articles” about Arch’s gf AND Quinn’s “making the internet DROOL in skimpy pink bikini…” An article about Wingo being suspended… It’s not just clickbait. It’s foreign AI bot bullshit. Anyone else here, feel free to peruse that shit and post more examples. Anyone quoting this garbage non ironically should rethink whether or not they should even have internet access.20 points
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19 points
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The only benefit immamac can come up with is that media types will make money. Most fans don't give a flying fuck if media types make money and that doesn't benefit the program much if at all. bad_teammate's theory is that Mack Brown will say nothing but great things about Texas. Laughable. And to get there, David Dennison is extolling the tremendous success of a guy who had one magical season in 16 years. 2 conference championships in 16 years and the three worst losses to Oklahoma in Texas history. 2005 can never be taken away and I'm thankful for it, but Mack Brown's overall tenure was pretty good but not nearly great and is the entire basis for the program's reputation for wasting tremendous advantages. 16 years with only 2 conference championships had only been done twice in Texas history before Mack Brown. From 1921-1941 Texas only won 2 conference titles, then again from 1978-1993. Mack Brown actually started the latest downturn of local Texas strength relative to our state and conference mates. And let's not pretend that winning the Big 12 with 12 teams was as tough as winning a 16-team SEC will be moving forward. He pretty much just had to beat Oklahoma and we know how that went.19 points
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I'm disappointed to read anyone supports Mack returning to the program in any form besides a fan who purchases his own ticket. As many have said, you should always measure risk vs. reward. The reward....maybe he helps NIL fund raising and completely reverses his personality from who we learned he was and adds positive morale? The risks are too numerous to count, the chief being that his ego can't stand someone else looking better than him and he will passive aggressively (or just aggressively behind the scenes) do little things to start the rot on Sark's program. Super worst case, he pulls the Jay Leno in hopes that Texas asks him to coach again after Sark. Mack was outstanding at recruiting from 1999-2008 and the conservative coaching style was enough for superior talent to win 10 games a year. His inability to beat OU created the national perception that Texas is a paper tiger that persists today and will until we win another championship and beat top 10 teams on the reg. He gets way too much credit for the one national championship, when his contributions were 1) being talked into recruiting VY when he initially didn't want to, and 2) "letting Vince be Vince" aka not fucking it up. VY was the outlier. Mack got lazy in recruiting or the rest of the world caught up, and the wheels fell off. Then he torched the place on his way out the door. He wasn't a martyr for whom fans should feel sorry. He probably made over $30m while coaching and we paid him $3.25m when we fired him. We owe him nothing.19 points
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The fact that Liucci checks bags for a game trip to Las Vegas is more incredible than his sports takes.19 points
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He's been a petulant cunt at NC over the last few months and they told him to get lost. He hasn't changed and shouldn't be anywhere around the program.18 points
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17 points
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17 points
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ASU Defense plays a base 4-2-5 Nickel and the safeties are the strength of the D. Coverage is primarily zone from a cover 2 shell. They try to disguise coverage and gap responsibilities with pre and post snap movement. Small front 6 is built to create pressure on spread passing teams and cover RBs out of the backfield The DL is severely undersized compared to what Texas is used to facing. DTs go about 290 each. DEs are in the 240 range. I expect they will be able to use speed and quickness to compensate for a few drives: run blitzes, slants, stunts. They will slow down with fatigue but Texas OL won’t get any smaller as the game wears on. They don’t have a lot of depth at DT and we can aggravate that by going tempo and preventing substitution within drives. LBs are fast but also undersized. Both starters are 220 lbs. They have the speed to cover Wisner as a receiver but not Blue. Gunnar Helm is going to be a rough assignment for somebody. I expect the LBs to give a good account of themselves early until the Texas OL can get to them consistently on combo blocks. Also if they are running to exchange gap responsibilities, they can muddy up the blocking but have less attention to spare for reading and avoiding the block. Secondary: this is the strength of the D, or half of it is anyway. The corners are undersized (sorry I keep repeating myself): 175 and 185, both 5’11”. They mostly play off the outside receivers in a zone scheme. The safeties have a big job in this defense and Xavion Alford is probably the best player on this side of the ball. He and the other safety have to clean up a lot of the mess created by the planned chaos around the LOS. The 2nd best player on the D is NB Shamari Simmons. He plays near the LOS like an overhang LB much of the time. They blitz him accordingly and he’s the most disruptive defender. He’s frequently asked to support the run. Unfortunately for ASU, he’s out for the 1st half for Targeting in the Big12 CCG. The ASU defense is unorthodox but it’s mostly worked for them this season: #24 pass efficiency, #38 run defense (YPC, #27 per game). But it worked in a league that was down compared to prior years. Also, given the amount of disguise and confusion, this defense creates surprisingly few big plays. They have only 21 sacks and 57 TFLs for the season. It seems they disrupt offenses just enough to keep them somewhat off schedule. I see a few really severe matchup problems for ASU here. Off coverage from the corners creates space for Sark’s screen game and for the Texas athletes to make a man miss. I’m not sure the Sun Devils have the personnel to press even if they wanted to. The Front 4 is giving up 60 pounds per man and our TEs being bigger than their DEs makes it a lot harder for them to set the edge even blocking straight up. The smaller LBs behind the small DL may have really ugly conflicts with RPO. ASU seems unlikely to be able to stop the run from base defense. They didn’t even try that against the Big 12.16 points
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16 points
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Amazing how delicate and pussified so many Texans are when it comes to weather/climate.15 points
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This is like letting in a mangy flea infested dog in the house. No he isn't going to bite anyone but he is going to spread fleas and shit all over the house while dropping clumps of dog hair everywhere.15 points
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ASU is over matched in this game. There is nothing to analyze, it would be like comparing the Grenada military to the United States prior to the invasion. ASU doesn't have a defense and will make Wisner and Blue look like Bijan and Rojo are in the back field. Their secondary is trash and will allow Ewers to find open receivers and feast. Not to mention their d-line will get blown off the line all night. They have Scatteboo and a freshman qb that has never met a hard pipe hitting defense like Texas before. Our d-line will storm through their offensive line. The Texas defensive front seven is going to blitzkrieg their offense all day.15 points
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College football is absolutely a fucking mess right now. Uncapped pay with unlimited free agency is ruining the sport. So I have a buddy who owns a company here in town. Mack and Sally were a customer before he left for NC, but my buddy only dealt with Sally and didn't know who the fuck they were because the paper work was always Sally and William Brown. My buddy isn't a UT guy, so the name Sally Brown just never stood out to him.They left for NC and no longer needed the service, so they cancelled. My buddy gets a call a few weeks ago and Sally tells him they are moving back and would like to work with my buddy's company again. My buddy offloads the call to a guy that works for him, and this guy also doesn't recognize the names William and Sally Brown. Sally tells this guy they are moving back from a stint at UNC, and he replies that it's too bad they won't be around chapel hill for the Belichick era. Sally pauses for a second and says....."yeah that's who replaced my husband." At that point, the light bulb turned on. lulz.15 points
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I hate 99% of all politicians. Actually it's closer to 99.9%. Democrat. Republican. In between. Don't give a shit. They're mostly all scum. I loved Carter. Posh? Upscale? Nah. Two bedrooms (below) were just fine after he left the Oval. The value of the secret service vehicles parked outside his residence dwarfed the value of his home. Modest doesn't being to describe Carter. The Dollar General opening in Plains was big. He frequented, often. Unpretentious, an understatement. An unending advocate for mental health and human rights, taught Sunday School at the local Baptist church for as long as he could stand. And on and on. RIP, good man.14 points
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14 points
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Bobby is welcome to work to earn his money however he please. I've no issue with that aspect. However, if you don't see the downside of having Mack anywhere around the program you aren't aware or are overlooking his past behaviors, ego maniacal behaviors while at Texas and UNC, and don't know what ultimately drives the man. It is NOT money. He craves worship, influence and control. Like any ego maniac, give an inch he's going to look for a mile. He's passive aggressive as hell. As for getting a ton of listeners by having Mack on his show, maybe, maybe not. I for one would proactively avoid any broadcast that includes Mack just like I did when he was on air. It's not just his prior behavior, but his voice tied to that behavior and his former press conferences literally trigger me. Truly, his voice pisses me off. I'm pretty fucking sure I'm not alone. I do know other folks who are not fans of his that are influential and you met some of them at my former tailgate. I don't know where they stand on MBs return as I haven't spoken with them and would not broadcast it publicly if I did, because MB would then target those folks. He has before and will again. Seriously, that's how the man works. Anyone else is welcome to do as they please, but he hurt Texas athletics and Texas football. I'm never supporting anyone in any way that has proactively caused damage to the team and University I love.14 points
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14 points
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14 points
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14 points
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You mean by running out the clock on Saban and then having his lawyer threaten to sue us?? Oh and telling the players they should decommit? Yea a lot of us didn’t like how that went down14 points
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Let's invite the cancer back into the program and hopefully if we're nice enough to the cancer it won't spread. Sound plan.13 points
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I'm enjoying this as much as yall are, but let's be honest, come election time it won't matter. Tampons in bathrooms or some other made up bullshit will be all that it takes to unify that shitty fucking party.13 points
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13 points
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Make your money by using Mack to get more clicks and views, but don’t feed us an old Mack sandwich UNC tossed out and tell us it’s some good fucking prime rib.12 points
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Are you serious or is this "amazing interview" thing a bit? Even if you take away all the hysterics about Mack and his potential toxic impact on Texas going forward and just look at Burton's interview in a vacuum, it was mediocre to below average. The questions were fawning, softball and leading the witness ("Mack, would you agree that..."), the answers were shallow with little-to-no follow up ("Sark is doing great," "You need great NIL to compete today," "I keep in touch with former players on Facebook"), and there was zero balanced examination of the bad side of Mack's tenure as you would expect in an "good" interview. I was going to give Burton half-credit for his "which loss stung the most" question, but he loses it when he jumps over and answers it for Mack, and then Mack predictably uses it as an opportunity for excuse making and throwing players under the bus. I don't blame Burton for this. He's not a professional interviewer, that's a skill. And Mack probably wouldn't be there if he was going to face anything other than softball questions. Maybe, as you said, a softball interview with an over-the-hill coach from a decade ago will generate hundreds of thousands of viewers and that makes it worth it to OTF. But don't piss in our face and say it's raining by calling this a "good fucking interview" when it clearly is anything but.12 points
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Mack is whining about NIL. He’s gonna fuck it up for us by pointing out that donations to the Texas One Fund are tax deductible while some other schools don’t have the same opportunities for their NIL collectives to be tax deductible. Mack is a petty bitch like that and I wouldn’t be surprised if he started pointing out how the way we do certain things is unfair to other schools. But he’ll act like a martyr doing this by saying he really cares about fairness for the kids.12 points
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12 points
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11 points
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11 points
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OU, A&M, Tech, Miami, and Colorado all lose? Pretty good 2 days of bowl games I must say.11 points
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Liucci 12/29/24 Okay if this wasn't the travel day from hell. As if USC's last second, come-from-way-behind win wasn't enough, how about two hours on the runway in Vegas plus another hour waiting for a gate at IAH followed by a 45-minute wait at baggage claim then a nice drive to College Station in the fog. On second thought, maybe that fog was just me dealing with the lingering effects of the game. Either way, had some time to answer questions and will hit a lot more tomorrow in addition to some kind of video content. Enjoy. And forgive me for any typos, as this was written on the plane and with a faulty 'r' button on my keyboard! Just wanted to post it tonight as a normal thread rather than wait until the content crew could get it up tomorrow. Do you expect any changes to the coaching staff? Two things at work here. First one is that head coaches typically shy away from making changes following year one. That's especially true when the assistants essentially inherit their room. Times and circumstances are different now, however. We're in the portal era and the Aggies just dropped their last four games against Power 5 opposition and, for different reasons, each loss revealed real issues. Elko is not the type (at all) to sit back and accept what we saw down the stretch this fall so he's not likely to be bound by the "well this was year one and we're a new staff looking to turn things over" mantra others I've covered have been. Haven't heard of any specifics but I have been doing this a long time. I'd expect at least a slight degree of attrition whether it would a change from within or someone finding an opportunity elsewhere thus freeing up a spot. We'll know soon enough but I'm confident Elko will take a very honest look at how his staff performed in 2024 and have an uncomfortable conversation if he has to. And that's true for at any point during his tenure here. What are your general thoughts and feelings right now both short and long term? Long term I believe the guy coaching at Texas A&M is going to figure it out. I actually would like to sit down with him at TA more often this off-season so folks could learn a little more about the way he's running and building the program, day to day and big picture. It's part of why I'm confident he's the dude to get this thing going how it needs (and deserves) to be. But he has to get there, and doing so requires winning in the short-term. The Ags were doing that at a very impressive clip following Notre Dame but fell hard in November. So we're all adults here and understand that a lot of potential 'in the moment' momentum was lost by not winning a game or two more (winnable ones, at that) and shocking the country by appearing in Atlanta. I even think last night was a chance to score tangible momentum entering the off-season and the Ags didn't do that (in pretty embarrassing and discouraging fashion, no less). My short-term concern is this coming season because time waits for no coach or program in the SEC and the Ags are in need of a strong close to the portal season because there are real holes to fill (beyond just one more playmaking receiver and shoring up the d-line in a big way) and the schedule is much more unforgiving in 2025. Elko and Co. need to attack this second half of the early portal window in a big way. Coaching changes? Thanks I'll hang up and listen. See above. Feel like I'll be saying that a lot here. What are the odds Bateman gets fired? No idea on odds of such things but the head coach and DC clearly have a lot to figure out when you look at how the Ags played on that side of the ball for halves and/or full games all too often this season. And, injuries aside, the head-scratcher for me is the fact that Elko openly stated this off-season on more than one occasion how excited he was about this year's defense even compared to past A&M units he's coached. Definitely something the head man has to be very disappointed in when he looks back on this past season. Outlook for next season? See above. Concerned but also far from deflated or panicking. There really should be a noticeable year one to year two jump for a program under a new regime and also for a ton of individuals who will play key roles next fall. However, help also needs to arrive and if I'm Elko right now, I'm taking a hard look at every position. I know the Ags were without a lot of key figures on defense last night (three starting DL, two corners including your best and your best linebacker) but you also had guys you're planning to depend on next year on both sides playing who struggled mightily to make winning plays. Why do you think the team collapsed after the LSU win? Tough one to answer. I think first and foremost, they took a couple of big hits at South Carolina, not the least of which was their confidence and I believe they weren't the same team physically after that night. Losing Le'Veon Moss proved to a real killer and the Ags had also lost Bisontis a week prior. The interior ground game took such a big hit there and that was so important in terms of sustaining drives and even down near the goal line but also helping Marcel Reed along in his development as a passer. I'm just talking about keeping him out of bad situations. Scooby Williams missing time and being hut was also a big deal because he's the most active dude in that font seven and was beginning to look like a difference-maker. However, I also think it's fair to say that the book was out on the Ags by the time November rolled around. Make Reed and the A&M passing game beat you down the field, sit on early-down runs and run right at the Aggie defense. South Carolina, Auburn and Texas did so with alarming degrees of success. The fact that Elko volunteered last night what was pretty obvious down the stretch was telling, as well. The inability to have the confidence to run very much zone is tough to overcome when playing against offenses with pass-catchers like the Ags saw versus Auburn and Texas in particular. Who is on the next HC short list? Look, I'm as disappointed as all of you are about the way things went after the LSU win but let's be productive with the conversations and stop acting like kids or like this is social media. I don't have the time or patience for it today and I'd also like to see less of this type of **** around here, not more. Can Bateman be gone? I guess this will be the last Bateman one I'll respond to. See above and unless the future ones include something other than "is he or will he be fired" I'll move on to some of the other stuff. Realistically: How many staff changes (specifically) defense are we talking? It's too early to tell. Like I said, I expect Elko to take a brutally honest look at how the season wrapped up. I'm not expecting some sort of overhaul on that side if that's what you're asking. Did the offensive performance tonight help or hurt potential portal additions jumping in the boat going forward? It probably didn't move the needle much either way. The Ags did move the ball and put up points (not enough) but I thought Reed showed nice progress in the passing game and the reality is A&M was a completely unnecessary INT and a short FG miss from putting up 41 points. Missed opportunities in the first half and a dry spell (a couple of ill-timed three and outs) in the second half definitely played a huge role in A&M not winning last night but the offense did produce. It was more like the Auburn game to me, where there was plenty to dissect and second-guess but the end result should have been more than enough points to win. regardless, the Ags need more firepower at the skill spots and need to continue to address that via the portal. Thank you for all y'all do as staff. Appreciate that. The goons like the ones who were run off last night will never win. After the last 4 meaningful games, do you really see much of a culture change? Still had same sloppy penalties/missed tackles/drops etc and seemed to regress as the season went, especially on defense. I did see penalties and missed tackles as ongoing issues but that's more playing clean football than it is culture. I really haven't seen anything at all to make me question the culture Elko has quickly instilled into his program. In a perfect world, with that hurdle cleared this season, the next step is playing cleaner, better football in all phases of the game. It's not guaranteed but we've learned this program isn't getting there without guys doing it the right way in terms of not cheating the work and not buying in. Losing close games doesn't tell you where the culture is, it's more about a team learning what it takes to win by playing winning football with the game on the line. It's part of it for sure, but I think this group and program have a lot further to go in the learning to win department than culture. Serious look at the coaching staff: Which coordinators or other staff do you keep or kick to the curb. They're paid millions of dollars to coach a team to win. Grace period is over. Agree on the paid handsomely and paid to win part of it. I also don't really think they had a grace period with Coach Elko. I don't speculate on who or how many but I do see a lot Klein-related stuff here and on social media and think he did a better job (better, not saying it was elite) than most give him credit for. He has to take the next step next year and will have to bring his talented but still-learning QB with him but the offense has a real chance to make a sizeable jump. Any chance Elko spends some time with Dan Campbell this offseason? His first season in Detroit was obviously much rougher but did have a few similarities as far as not being able to get over the hump… I think you're probably referencing Dan's second year in Detroit. Interestingly enough, I've floated the idea to both coaches and would love to facilitate the two sitting down during the off-season. Any idea why we continue to run into a loaded box? Or for a broader question, what's with the offensive play calling running so hot/cold it seemed. That's a question I really can't answer. Not sure how much of that is straight play-calling or the reason why behind it or how much is freedom given to Reed and the Aggie QBs at the LOS. It's definitely a question worth asking in an honest off-season conversation. Will we ever become a top notch program? Doesn't feel like it at the moment It's felt like it only two or three times since R.C. left, right? And yes, I do think it gets there. Support is at an all-time high in terms of resources and the NIL climate still favors A&M a great deal. And no one wants to hear it but it's year one. Rough ending and some real questions that need to be answered after the way the team finished but that was a solid first season and not only that folks should walk away feeling hopeless after watching. Are you surprised by the end of season collapse and struggling defense? On some levels, no. I was pretty nervous about the road matchups with South Carolina and Auburn because you knew the Ags still weren't operating with much of a margin for error. Obviously Texas was a monster coming into Kyle Field. But, yes, I was surprised by how the defense played during the thee-game SEC skid. I hated seeing that unit flounder last night after giving up seven fist half points but the reality is that was a unit consisting of half of your 2s. It's the other three that surprised me. Was Elko talking directly to Bateman with his post-game comments? I don't think that's his style really. He and Jay have a good relationship and he doesn't have to air him out in the media to get a point across. I think that was a frustrated head coach who hasn't liked what he's seen from the Aggie pass defense most of this season and I'm sure it's parts his assistant coaches, parts his players and also frustration in that he was unable to fix it. USC offense all in the portal. Defense can't come through. Send Bateman packing? Look, that A&M defense was depleted missing three NFL-bound defensive linemen, the most disruptive linebacker in Scooby Williams and then two corners including the team's best cover man (Will Lee). So I went into the game expecting to see the Aggies give ups some plays and, quite possibly north of 30 points. The issue last night wasn't the point total, it was how USC got there. Seven points at the half before we saw a completely inexperienced quarterback who was NOT playing good football and an offense hit very hard by attrition suddenly cut through the Ags like a hot knife through butter. To the tune of 28 second half points and 21 in the fourth quarter, including moving straight down the field with alarming ease for the game-winning score. It wasn't that I expected a lot out of a pretty depleted defense, it's the fact that the Ags were so bad when it mattered most with some important 2025 pieces and several starters out there letting it happen. Somehow, someway, the players needed to step up and get those second-half and certainly the final-drive stop and it's also up to the coaches to figure out how to make that happen. And I know no one wants to hear it but the NFL opt outs and injuries were a big reason for last night's struggles. The problem as I see it is that the Ags struggled mightily in one way or another in each of their last four games down the stretch. South Carolina put up 44 because the Ags couldn't tackle, Auburn's offense produced a season-high in regulation points and marched the field to force OT and Texas ran wild at Kyle Field and controlled the action via the ground and pound.11 points
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In the same way a QB controversy can hurt this team, external pettiness by Mack Briwn absolutely can. You just don’t invite that bullshit back into your life.11 points
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I'm guessing the plan was to retire in NC, near old friends UNTIL UNC fucking stole his cookies and hired the GOAT. He can't be "Head Coach Emeritus" in that situation so the only other option is Austin. the guy is transparent as fuck. He's gonna start sticking his fucking nose in places it don't belong. The dude just can't fucking let go and wants to be celebrated. He will never be DKR. If he and Sally wanted to retire in Austin fine. Just move here and don't "announce" anything. There is no upside in this and only downside.11 points
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We in the news media and chattering class mocked Jimmy Carter as a country bumpkin, with cartoons depicting him installing an outhouse next to the White House. His public approval dropped to 28 percent, and when Ronald Reagan succeeded him, the Reagans’ interior designer reportedly smirked about the need to “get the smell of catfish out of the White House.” President Carter, a member of Congress lamented in 1979, “couldn’t get the Pledge of Allegiance through Congress.” Rolling Stone described Carter as “the great national sinking feeling.” Ousted after a single term, he wasn’t so much criticized as sneered at. Even Democrats like Bill Clinton treated Carter as an embarrassment who had undermined liberals and paved a path for Reagan. Yet all this speaks to our failure of discernment. Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 100, probably improved the lives of more people over a longer period than any recent president. He was a far better president than is generally acknowledged — and is the only one in modern times who didn’t lose a single soldier to combat (although he did lose eight service members to an air collision during the failed hostage rescue mission in Iran). Carter was also the best-ever ex-president: Hundreds of millions of people around the globe are living better lives because of his relentless efforts to overcome violence and disease. So Carter’s death is a moment to reassess his legacy, but it also is an opportunity to reflect on how we in the news media and the political world got him so wrong and treated him so unfairly. This is not to say that Carter was always saintly, charming or successful. I interacted with him periodically over the decades in person, on the phone or by email, mostly on issues of peace or poverty, and I found he could be tough, headstrong and dismissive; there were times when I said something he disagreed with and he abruptly turned as icy as the Hudson Bay in winter. At times Carter was maddeningly difficult. He adored his wife, Rosalynn, who died in 2023, and championed her heroic efforts to improve America’s mental health care. But when they wrote their first book together, disagreements as they edited each other grew so fraught that they were reduced to communicating via their word processors. “It really was a strain on our marriage,” he acknowledged, and they resolved never to write another book together. I’ve interacted in some form with eight presidents (I first encountered Carter when I was a high school senior covering his run for president in 1976), and Carter stands out in three ways. First, he was less focused on himself than almost any other leader I’ve known. He never sought riches, and he continued to live in the same humble bungalow that he and Rosalynn constructed in 1961 in Plains, Ga. His study was a converted garage. Second, he took on superhuman challenges: Middle East peace, eradication of Guinea worm, energy independence — and, at a personal level, running as an unknown for president. (When he told his mother he was running for president, she supposedly asked, “President of what?” His campaign rented a hotel ballroom for his Iowa campaign kickoff, and just three people came.) Sure, Carter often fell short, but it’s only because he persistently aimed so unreasonably high that we’re talking about him today. Third, he was guided by principles more than politics, and he sought to use his platform to help others. That’s not to say he refused all moral compromises: He wanted to be elected governor of Georgia, so in 1970 he stayed quiet on civil rights and even feigned respect for the segregationist George Wallace. That’s an ethically complicated side of Carter, who believed that repudiating racists “would have been the end of my political career,” as he told Jonathan Alter, the author of an excellent biography of Carter and a contributor to Times Opinion. So he could indeed be calculating, but his aims were loftier than his means, and — imperfectly — he regularly did what he thought was right even when it was politically costly. My admiration for Carter was shaped by seeing him in the field. In 2007, I joined him on a trip to Africa, where he explained his passion for eradicating Guinea worm disease so that it could become the second human ailment, after smallpox, to be eliminated forever. He told me of seeing patients in agony from Guinea worm, which looks like a long white thread of spaghetti and can grow three feet long under the skin. “Little 3-, 4- and 5-year-old children were screaming uncontrollably with pain,” Carter told me. “I cried, along with the children.” I admire a man who seeks out suffering children, weeps unashamedly with them — and then does his utmost to eradicate the parasite that torments them. Perhaps Carter was so empathetic because he was the last president who truly grew up seeing poverty around him. His home had no electricity or running water until he was 11 years old, and he told me that many of the ailments he battled in Africa — such as worms and blinding trachoma — were common in rural Georgia when he was a child. Racism was endemic, and Carter’s father was a staunch segregationist. Yet Carter himself reportedly was the only prominent white man in Plains who refused to join the White Citizens’ Council, and when his church refused to integrate, he left to help found a new one that welcomed everyone. After being elected governor of Georgia in 1970, he placed a portrait of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the State Capitol. As governor, Carter became convinced that a Black woman convicted of murder, Mary Prince, was innocent. After being elected president, he applied to be her parole officer so that he could take her to the White House to work with his family. Many Americans now accept that Carter did fine work as an ex-president but still judge him a failure as president. It’s true that his presidency, from 1977 to 1981, was a dismal time of inflation, recession, the Iran hostage crisis and the humiliating failure of the hostage rescue mission. But I don’t believe Carter is much to blame for those traumas, and it was he who started the process of taming inflation by recruiting Paul Volcker to run the Federal Reserve — even though Carter knew that the result might be a politically damaging recession. It was likewise Carter more than Reagan who deregulated American industry (trucking, airlines and natural gas). Carter could have responded to the hostage crisis with an ultimatum and missiles fired at Iran; some aides thought that was the proper course, and he said he probably would have been re-elected if he had bombed Tehran. But countless innocent Iranians would have died, and the hostages perhaps would then have been executed as well. So Carter resisted that course — even when Rosalynn urged him to consider it. A pioneer, Carter appointed more women and people of color than all previous presidents put together. He put solar panels on the White House roof. (Reagan pulled them down.) He established diplomatic relations with China. If you’re young, you probably don’t know that we faced an emerging crisis over the Panama Canal, one that Carter resolved at considerable political cost. The United States had controlled the Panama Canal, and many Americans were aghast at the idea of giving the area back to Panama. (“We stole it fair and square,” one senator noted.) But keeping the canal would have led to guerrilla resistance, sabotage, economic turmoil and enormous damage to American influence in Latin America, so Carter lanced the boil and negotiated its return. Most important, Carter achieved the Camp David peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, essentially ensuring Israel’s survival. In the 1973 war, combined Arab armies seriously endangered Israel, but without Egypt, the other Arab armies no longer appeared to constitute the same threat to its existence. So it’s grotesque when Carter is denounced as an antisemite because he criticized Israel’s harsh treatment of Palestinians. He arguably did more than any other president in the past half-century to secure Israel’s future. In any case, it was fitting that Carter spoke up for Palestinians, for he was the first president to put human rights forcefully on the global agenda. When you hear governments around the world criticize one another, sometimes hypocritically, for violating human rights, it was Carter who elevated the issue. Is all this the hallmark of a failed presidency? Carter’s favorite president was Harry Truman, likewise a strong-spined man whom many in Washington dismissed as an incompetent rube. But assessments of Truman have risen over the decades, and I’m betting the same will happen with Carter. Truman and Carter share political courage and a personal integrity that — long after political battles are forgotten — we can’t help admiring. After his defeat in 1980, Carter returned to Plains in disappointment and humiliation. He eschewed golf, corporate boards and lucrative speeches. Instead, he took on world peace. His Carter Center helped negotiate peace deals, monitored elections and battled tropical diseases. Carter told me that we conceive of human rights too narrowly as political rights. He believed passionately in a child’s right to health, peace, safety and opportunity, and that’s what he strove to advance. In Liberia, I saw his projects to bring peace and end sexual violence. In Ethiopia and Niger, I saw his work against river blindness. In Haiti, his work against deformity caused by lymphatic filariasis. In South Sudan, his work against Guinea worm. These diseases are devastating to impoverished people. Trachoma is an excruciating way to go blind; one woman told me it was like enduring the pain of childbirth — for years. As for lymphatic filariasis, it leaves people’s legs grotesquely disfigured and causes men’s scrotums to swell so much, they sometimes must carry them on a wheelbarrow. These are the people whose lives Carter has transformed, on a grand scale. In Nigeria alone, the Carter Center helped to treat 32 million people for a devastating parasite that causes a chronic ailment called schistosomiasis. “He redefined public service,” Senator Dick Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, told me. I once asked Carter about prayer — he was an evangelical Christian — and I found his answers illuminating. “I pray often during each day,” he told me. “Prayer helps internally, as a private conversation with my creator.” Carter was then fighting cancer that had spread to his brain and liver, and I assumed he was praying to be cured. But no. He suggested his prayers weren’t so much for recovery as for help in making the best of his condition, in being a follower of Jesus Christ and in being a blessing to others. So how did we get him so wrong? Why were we so unfair? I think one reason was that his presidency felt like a grim time and we wanted someone to blame, and another was that he was an outsider whose aspirations to be virtuous came across to some as sanctimonious. Other presidents concealed affairs, while Carter stepped up simply to confess that he had “looked on a lot of women with lust.” Too much information. One lesson for journalists like me is the danger of tumbling into a narrative that takes on a life of its own. Coverage of Carter came to revolve around the theme of a hapless president overwhelmed by the challenges of his office, and reporters could always find evidence to plug into that (or any) narrative. Carter was once fishing from a boat in a pond in Plains when a rabbit swam frantically for his boat. He used an oar to divert the rabbit, and it swam off. But Carter’s press secretary unwisely mentioned the incident to a reporter, and the upshot was gleeful coverage of a loser president outmatched by a “killer rabbit.” Cartoonists pounced, showing the leader of the free world cowering beneath a terrorist rabbit. The folk singer Tom Paxton caught the moment with a brutal song, “I Don’t Want a Bunny Wunny.” Fortunately for all of us, Carter found refuge from unfair attacks in service to humanity. That doggedness to help people is how I’ll always remember him. On that trip with Carter to Ethiopia, he told me of one of his life ambitions: to outlive the Guinea worm. He wanted to eradicate it from the planet before he died. “I’m determined to live long enough to see no cases of Guinea worm anywhere in the world,” he told me. He probably failed at that bold task, for there were still 14 human cases in 2023. But hold on: The total when Carter took on Guinea worm in 1986 was 3.5 million cases a year. Eradicating Guinea worm disease was quintessentially Carteresque. It wasn’t meant to burnish his legacy. Few had heard of it. Those suffering from it were among the most marginalized people in the world. Eradication was almost unimaginable. That was Carter. He took on herculean tasks and registered imperfect progress that left millions better off. I joined him on that Africa visit because his aides had told me it would be his last big foreign trip. That sounded historic. Upon reaching a remote village, he sat down in his bluejeans, and I began my interview by saying that this was his last major overseas trip. Carter interrupted me and glared. “Whatever would give you that idea?” he asked icily. He seemed to be planning to tour remote Ethiopian villages until perhaps his 200th birthday. No, he didn’t quite manage that. But few did so much to make this planet a better place. A Advertis Advertisement10 points
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Bohls will interview him to shit on the program within a month.10 points
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Yes, Nikki, let's "invest in our education" by getting rid of the DoE, banning books, focusing on bullshit trans hysteria, revising history books, and keeping America and schools as dangerous as humanly possible by having zero gun control. Cunt.10 points
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