In all of the somber coverage of Jimmy Carter’s death, the audience could and should expect the tone of kindness that wafts over wakes and funerals. Each president served as leader of our nation, shouldering a great burden over a large country with an ever-enlarging government.
But sometimes the tributes grow a little too treacly. CBS reporter Lesley Stahl mourned during the state funeral in Washington that Carter was already unpopular when she became a White House correspondent in 1979. But she claimed Carter “ended up accomplishing so much more than we realized when he was president. He turns out not to have been a weak president at all.”
America in 1980 was mired in inflation and a hostage crisis and the Soviet Union expanded into Afghanistan. But now we should pretend Carter didn’t project weakness?
This is quite different from CBS when Ronald…
