Talk:Presidency of Jimmy Carter/Archive 1

Archive 1

'Malaise' speech

Does anyone know how this speech came to be known as the 'malaise speech', given that the word 'malaise' never appeared in it? The sources are somewhat unhelpful on that matter (although they suggest it was given that name by the media, it's not clear when or why). Robofish (talk) 02:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Recent revert

I recently reverted an edit which relied upon Rummel's self published webpage, and Bruce Sharp's self published webpage. While Rummel also publishes academically, his webpage isn't academically published. Sharp's mekong.net is a clear SPS. When sourcing content, ensure that the article represents the consensus or debate of academic scholars, and that the sources used are reliable according to wikipedia policy. The editors at WP:RS/N can help in the case of disputes over reliability. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:37, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean this edit? This site only provides links to information taken from other sources, most of which qualify as WP:RS. This edit also referenced to Wall Street J,, Time and other good sources, so reverting the entire edit seems to be questionable to me.Biophys (talk) 20:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Please reconsider this remark about re-election failure.

I find: "Furthermore, he was the first incumbent Democratic president to seek, but fail to achieve in a general election, re-election since Andrew Johnson".

Andrew Johnson was not elected president. He was a Democrat on the "Union Party" ticket in 1864 with Abraham Lincoln ("Union Party" name being used to attract Democrats who supported the Civil War effort), replacing incumbent vice president Hannibal Hamlin. Lincoln and Johnson were elected, then Johnson succeeded to Presidency because of the assassination of Lincoln. According to what I see on Wikipedia, Johnson did seek the 1868 Democratic presidential nomination, but lost it to Horatio Seymour, who lost that election to U.S. Grant.

Grover Cleveland was, in 1888, an incumbent Democratic president who ran in the general election for re-election but failed. This was the last case before 2000 where the popular-vote winner (in 1888, Cleveland) did not win in the Electoral College. Benjamin Harrison won, but lost to Cleveland in 1892 rematch, thus leading to Cleveland having those 2 non-consecutive terms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.82 (talk) 21:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Inconsistant Values - Acres (or Dollars)?

Under heading/section of "Budget" this article reads 103 Mil acres and 417 K square kms of "nat'l park land" in Alaska, but in the heading/section of "Environment" it refers to one third of 79.53 Mil acres, 124,281 sq mi and 321,900 sq km of "public lands ... wilderness area" in Alaska. Suggest moving comment from the Budget to Environment (or changing to US dollars equivalent), and maybe also refering to just one type of the different public/park/wilderness land/areas, with just one set of measurement numbers, letting readers follow the link for detail figures. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.183.224.2 (talk) 22:42, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

National health insurance

I revised the national health insurance paragraph in the "Health care" subsection of the "Domestic policy" section from:

In 1982, Carter wrote that Senator Ted Kennedy’s disagreements with Carter's proposed health-care reform plan thwarted Carter’s efforts to provide comprehensive health-care for citizens outside the Medicare system.

to:

In April 1976, Carter proposed health care reform that included key features of the bipartisan bill for universal national health insurance sponsored by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA). In June 1979, Carter proposed more limited health insurance reform—an employer mandate to provide private catastrophic health insurance plus coverage without cost sharing for pregnant women and infants, federalization of Medicaid with extension to the very poor without dependent minor children, and the addition of catastrophic coverage to Medicare. In November 1979, Senator Russell Long (D-LA) led a bipartisan conservative majority of his Senate Finance Committee to support an employer mandate to provide catastrophic-only coverage and the addition of catastrophic coverage to Medicare, but abandoned efforts in 1980 due to budget constraints.

and changed the sourcing from the dubious and incomplete:

• Carter, Jimmy (1982, 1995). "My One-Week Honeymoon with Congress" in Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, ISBN 9781557283306, pp. 89–92.
  to:
  
• Reinhold, Robert (April 17, 1976). "Carter proposes U.S. health plan; says he favors mandatory insurance financed from wage and general taxes". The New York Times, p. 1.
  
• Auerbach, Stuart (April 17, 1976). "Carter gives broad outline for national health plan; cost unknown". The Washington Post, p. A1.
  
• UPI (April 17, 1976). "Carter urges universal health plan". Chicago Tribune, p. 4.
  
• Blumenthal, David; Morone, James A (2009). "Jimmy Carter: The Righteous Engineer" in The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office. Berkeley: University of California Press, ISBN 9780520260306, pp. 261–262.
  
• articles from the Congressional Quarterly Almanac during the Carter presidency.
  

Apatens (talk) 18:19, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Plagiarism

This article cribs a looooooooot of wording almost completely directly from PBS. 137.48.230.40 (talk) 17:36, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Malaise Speech has a series of errors

It contains the weasel words "Though it is often said to have been ill-received" somehow backed by a link to a missing/dead webpage for its citation [#35], which seemingly was just another open source encyclopedia's entire page on Jimmy Carter...

Who let that fly? I won't edit it, because someone decided to merge that and several other of their opinions in there all together, but if anyone else has a "tasteful" correction or a relevant polling... ~Dude — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.177.59.145 (talk) 18:22, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Merger Proposal

I am proposing that we merge Jimmy Carter rabbit incident into Presidency of Jimmy Carter. Although the rabbit incident article has existed for a while, it is not notable per WP:EVENTS. The event did not have any long-term influence, and a couple paragraphs in the article about Carter's presidency seems more appropriate. I consider Carter's rabbit incident similiar to Dan Quayle "potatoe" incident or Gerald Ford's tripping episodes, neither of which we have articles about. Ashbrook Station (talk) 02:23, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

This merger has been carried out. But the proposer (who also carried out the merge) is a blocked and confirmed sock. Now what?William Jockusch (talk) 19:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I restored it. The page was effectively deleted out-of-process, without apparent consensus, by a now-banned user. The only deletion discussion for the article was keep. The Presidency of Jimmy Carter article doesn't mention "rabbit" anywhere. 75.142.59.82 (talk) 19:05, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

...and you were reverted by an administrator, "as per original consensus," who protected the page. Discussion resumes below at #The rabbit incident. – Wbm1058 (talk) 17:34, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

The rabbit incident

• This whole section was deleted a few weeks ago.
• The only remaining mention, in Wikipedia, seems to be Swamp rabbit#Carter incident.
• It used to have an entire article at [Jimmy Carter rabbit incident], which was merged into this article in July 2012, as briefly discussed in the section above, #Merger Proposal

I understand how User:A Quest For Knowledge (who removed the section) might see this section as receiving WP:UNDUE coverage (it's silly! agreed), and I was extremely young at the time so cannot verify from personal experience, but I've been given to understand that the "rabbit incident" was indeed a major occurrence, in terms of national-respect-levels, and was reported on (and mocked) widely and heavily at the time. (Similar to the way certain other fauxpas, or accidents, seem minor and irrelevant years later, but were key items in the media at the time, and had significant effects on public opinion).

Please discuss whether the section should be restored in this article, or whether the entire short article should be reinstated at its old location. Thanks. –Quiddity (talk) 20:43, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I would think that a stand alone article would be preferable to a section here, but had I known this section's history, I'm not sure I would have deleted it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:57, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

See also: Talk:Jimmy Carter rabbit incident#Merger Proposal – Wbm1058 (talk) 17:54, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

What we currently have is a case of wp:Deletion by redirection. I see no consensus for that, and agree that something needs to be restored. – Wbm1058 (talk) 21:08, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

In addition to Swamp rabbit#Carter incident (mentioned above), there is also Rabbit of Caerbannog#Cultural impact, another remaining mention in Wikipedia. – Wbm1058 (talk) 21:59, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

OTOH, looking at that discussion,[1] there's only 2 editors who commented on it, one of whom was the proposer of the merge. I don't want to put words in the second person's mouth, but they appear to be disagreeing with the proposal. Then there's another discussion immediately below that questioning whether there was consensus for the merge.[2] To make matters even more confusing the proposer was blocked for being a sockpuppet.[3] Banned editors aren't allowed to contribute, which means their !vote doesn't count. Which means there doesn't seem to be anyone in favor of the merge. But if that isn't messed up enough, an IP reverted the change which was subsequently reverted by an admin[4] citing "original consensus" who then locked the page. WTF? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:01, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

@Bwilkins: Please see above for synopsis. Thanks :) –Quiddity (talk) 00:24, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

History of coverage of the rabbit incident on Wikipedia

• The incident apparently made its first appearance in an early version of Jimmy Carter, 29 July 2005 the section on his presidency—in the second and third paragraphs, right after mention of the Iran hostage crisis, the peace treaty he brokered between Israel and Egypt with the Camp David Accord, the SALT II treaty brokered with the Soviet Union, the Panama Canal treaty which turned the canal over to Panama, and an energy crisis. LOL, WP:UNDUE weight for sure.
• By Jimmy Carter, 06:29, 6 February 2006, the rabbit incident had been lowered to the final paragraph of the lead section on his presidency.
• Then Jimmy Carter,06:34, 6 February 2006, it was moved to the final section of the Foreign policies and The 1980 Election subsection.
• Which on Jimmy Carter, 24 February 2006 was split to a separate 1980 Election section.
• On 14 March 2007 (diff), reduced to a brief mention and linked to a new Jimmy Carter rabbit incident article.
• ~3 hours after Jimmy Carter rabbit incident was created, it was nominated for deletion. It took just four days to come to a consensus to keep this version. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jimmy Carter's rabbit – looks like a wp:SNOW keep to me, but a significant number of editors suggested merging it back to the parent article.
• On 24 January 2009 Presidency of Jimmy Carter was split from Jimmy Carter, thus becoming the new parent article.
• At 21:23, 6 July 2012, User:Ashbrook Station - now a blocked sock puppet – "Merged in "rabbit incident story. It does not deserve its own article" diff, to a new Incidents & controversies section (thus elevating its relative significance, in spite of the assertion that it didn't merit an article), and ignoring the linked reference at the end of the 1980 election section. Later, Resignation of Bert Lance and Special counsel investigating campaign loans were added to Incidents & controversies. Sorry, but the 'rabbit incident' does not belong in the same league as these.

Perhaps rather than or in addition to Presidency of Jimmy Carter, the incident should be mentioned in United States presidential election, 1980 as its significance may be more related to his failed reelection campaign than his presidency itself. – Wbm1058 (talk) 02:05, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

Let's figure out our possible solutions

Rather than trying to figure out how we got into this situation, it might be better to reboot the discussion and figure out the best way forward. It seems to me that there is broad concensus that this content should be retained somewhere on Wikipedia, it's just a question of where. Is that accurate summation? If so, there are four possible locations discussed so far:

• A stand-alone article: Jimmy Carter rabbit incident
• A section in Jimmy Carter
• A section in Presidency of Jimmy Carter
• A section in United States presidential election, 1980

Is this accurate? Are there any other ideas? (Please no !voting on which of the above solutions you think is best. I'd like to make sure I've summerized everything correctly. After that, we can invite the editors of those other articles to join the discussion. The last thing we want is to achieve local concensus here only to find that the editors of the other articles disagree.) A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:07, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. (To be clear, nobody has suggested Option#2 (re-merging the content into the article Jimmy Carter itself), but that is where it was first included (per subthread above, back in 2005). The standalone article is also currently/still linked from Jimmy Carter#See also) Ping away. –Quiddity (talk) 18:36, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

• Here is a permalink to the last version of Jimmy Carter rabbit incident. Seems not many cared enough to watchlist it, or were paying attention last summer when Ashbrook merged it. Yes, one of the editors who stands guard against vandals reverted the initial move after just six minutes passed ("Longstanding article, discuss merge first"), but then Ashbrook's proposal, initiated just over a day later, went 13 days without any responses at all, so it was redirected by a drive-by IP editor with de facto consensus of 2–0 (don't know how to tell if that could have been one of Ashbrook's socks). The earlier AfD discussion simply came to a consensus to keep the information, but there were mixed views on whether to keep a standalone article or merge it to the parent article. Three days later, another IP updated the redirect to go directly to Ashbrook's Rabbit incident section, right after updating Mitt Romney dog incident—so there's one editor who presumably thinks that Romney's dog deserves a standalone article, while "Carter's rabbit" doesn't. Now, since ten months passed after that de facto consensus before anyone else noticed—this being a new consensus to keep, and merge, which is just a more specific consensus not in conflict with the earlier AfD keep consensus, I'll assume that's what the administrator means by as per original consensus.

I think putting the rabbit in Jimmy Carter's biography at all is undue weight, and that option can immediately be eliminated. I'm inclined to defer to the admin's decision, which leaves us with a redirect to a Rabbit incident section we need to recreate in Presidency of Jimmy Carter, but the section as it was is also undue weight. The Incidents and controversies section, which has just two subsections, both involving Bert Lance, should be renamed Allegations and investigations. Neither word (incident or controversy) is used in that section, and it's not comprehensive regarding controversies (see the earlier mentions of "One of the most controversial moves of Carter's presidency was the final negotiation and signature of the Panama Canal Treaties" and Jimmy Carter judicial appointment controversies. I would restore #Rabbit incident as a subsection under 1980 presidential election, and conveniently there is some white space there to be filled (to the left of the photo captioned "President Carter, October 1980" as I view it with my wide screen monitor). With the old standalone a redirect, we need a bit more there than there was in the 17 August 2012 version, but include links to swamp rabbit—where both photos can be included (the rabbit closeup seems to be derived from the one that includes Carter in the boat, so having both on the same page helps with context)—and killer rabbit, where more details may be included. Observe that Mitt Romney dog incident is linked from Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012#Dog incident. This would be the ideal kind of article to put the story, but alas, there is no Jimmy Carter presidential campaign, 1980 article. Recentism, sigh. Now if only the campaigns, media and public would focus on real issues rather than these sideshows, sigh. But, since they didn't, we should cover it too. – Wbm1058 (talk) 21:09, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, so it looks like we have 3 possible options on the table:

• A stand-alone article: Jimmy Carter rabbit incident
• A section in Presidency of Jimmy Carter
• A section in United States presidential election, 1980

Right now, there's only three of us discussing this. How should we proceed? At the very least, I think we should invite the editors of United States presidential election, 1980 to the discussion. Should we also open an RfC? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:33, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Given (1) the bad decision that led to its initial merge/deletion, and (2) the obvious similarity to other topics that have standalone articles, and (3) its incompatibility with being merged into either of the larger articles – I'd suggest all signs point to it being re-established at Jimmy Carter rabbit incident. I don't think an RfC is needed, just an admin to unprotect it. @Bwilkins: could you look through the above, and contribute your thoughts? (If he doesn't respond, and if everyone else agrees, we can make a note at WP:UNPROTECT in a few days.) –Quiddity (talk) 22:03, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

A basic problem here relates to the means by which Wikipedia articles evolve over time. Early in the life of the main Jimmy Carter article, someone remembering this incident added it to the article, long before many other more important facts about President Carter had been added to the encyclopedia. A less comprehensive encyclopedia might omit this item as too trivial, but as Wikipedia editors want to create a more comprehensive encyclopedia, the consensus was to keep it. But, in the meantime, before more comprehensive articles fill out, keeping some of these less significant items is a bit difficult. I boldly restored what I feel should be the minimum coverage at present, and am content with that. But, if you want to restore the Jimmy Carter rabbit incident article, I'm fine with that too. I think any reasonable admin, after reading this discussion, would unprotect the page so we could make it happen, but failing that you can always try putting an {{editprotected}} on the talk page. Disclaimer: I only found this because I patrol for misplaced merge templates, and there was a {{mergeto}} on Talk:Jimmy Carter rabbit incident. – Wbm1058 (talk) 02:25, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, it looks like Quiddity and myself are in favor of restoring the content in Jimmy Carter rabbit incident. Wbm1058 is fine with the current sentence in this article, (I am, too) but is also fine with restoring Jimmy Carter rabbit incident. I guess let's leave the discussion open for a few more days to see if anyone else wants to weigh in, and if nothing's changed, we can make a note at WP:UNPROTECT to unprotect the page and restore the content. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:34, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

The incident itself does not warrant a separate article, period. C'mon people, shake your heads a little. Restore at least a paragraph in this article where it barely belongs, but at least it belongs (✉→BWilkins←✎) 22:45, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Hi Bwilkins. Thanks for getting back to us. Sorry about the confusion.

Regarding the article:

There were objections to having it covered extensively in this article, and agreement that it needed to be covered somewhere.

It was important at the time; at least as much as George H. W. Bush vomiting incident and Dick Cheney hunting incident, and more so than Mitt Romney dog incident.

It is supported by RSs, and therefor passes the WP:N test. Given how much press attention was given to it at the time, there are surely a plethora more RSs available. Eg. This recent article. Or this entire article

The page was deleted in a bad fashion (after a strong AfD Keep result previously).

And I'm not sure why the redirect would warrant full-page-protection, given that it had only been touched once in an entire year?

Your thoughts would still be most welcome. –Quiddity (talk) 23:18, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

@Bwilkins: The consensus in this discussion is to have a stand-alone article. As an admin, your role is to implement this consensus, not override it with a supervote. If you wish to involve yourself in this discussion, then you cannot act in an administrative capacity. Which do you prefer? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 11:40, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I strongly support restoring the pseudo-deleted Jimmy Carter rabbit incident article. I stumbled onto this topic on 9 June, and posted a surprised comment at Talk:Jimmy Carter rabbit incident#The information is now elsewhere. I also notice that someone else objected to the blanking of the article with a comment at Talk:Jimmy Carter rabbit incident#what consensus?. I also noticed that the page protection was removed on 15 June, and so I just restored the deleted version of the article. —BarrelProof (talk) 15:46, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thanks. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:00, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I also just modified the description of the incident in this article (Presidency of Jimmy Carter) to try to clarify the story and add a Wikilink to the article about the incident for those interested in more detail. I suggest that this silly story does not deserve any more extensive discussion in the Presidency article than it already has now. In my view, this incident is more trivial than all the others that have been mentioned in this discussion (including Mitt Romney's alleged animal abuse, Dan Quayle's alleged inability to spell 'potatoe', G. H. W. Bush vomiting on the Prime Minister of Japan, and Dick Cheney shooting someone with a shotgun seriously enough to put them in the hospital and cause a subsequent heart attack). Really, how can you blame a guy for shooing a panicked rabbit away from his boat? What else was he supposed to do? But it did get a substantial amount of coverage at the time and it has become a part of American cultural iconography, so it deserves an article to tell people what there is to know about it (and to prevent any potential need to cover it in more depth in this article). —BarrelProof (talk) 16:36, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Very good to see this settled. Right, it's really only notable for what it says about the media, not for what it says about Carter himself. Maybe it ranks more with Michael Dukakis tank photograph and Dean Scream? But this is from the quaint old days before the Atwater and Rove attack machines really kicked into high gear. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:34, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Solar Hot Water Panels installed in 1979 and removed in 1981

I propose that a separate page be created for the life of the panels (some are still working) and the speech he gave. The history is interesting and there is an abundance of source material, articles, books, a documentary film, and other media as it relates to energy policy and the environment. On June 20, 1979, the Carter administration installed 32 panels designed to harvest the sun's rays and use them to heat water and gave a speech which began "In the year 2000 this solar water heater behind me, which is being dedicated today, will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy…. A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people." In 1981 President Ronald Reagan Orders Solar Panels on the White House Removed which and reduced funding to the department of energy. Later in 2010, President Obama put solar panels back on the roof of the white house. Jefferythomas (talk) 17:15, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

References

In Declaring his Candidacy in 1974, Carter Swore, "To Never Lie To The American People"

This article doesn't mention the #1 reason as to why the longshot peanut farmer from a very small town in Georgia won the '76 Presidential Election - he was honest. The US had suffered under Richard Nixon's constant lying to the point where even Republicans in Congress had had enough. Gerald Ford said over-and-over again that he had no deal worked out with President Nixon in becoming Vice President that he would pardon him, but few believed him. (At Ford's funeral, he had a statement read aloud where he admitted that he DID have a secret agreement with Nixon that he would pardon him.) Gov. Jimmy Carter declared his candidacy for president in '74 and swore "To never lie to the American people". Scholars and critics list much negative occurrences in the Carter Presidency, but no one has ever accused him of lying. 2601:580:0:C09E:2084:11A5:E2D:1410 (talk) 12:18, 3 May 2020 (UTC)