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What a Difference a Day (and 4 years) Makes [1]

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Date: 2025-01-08

The title of an American classic song (What a Difference a Day Makes) played in my ears yesterday as I watched the procession that brought the body of James Earl Carter Jr. to the Capitol Rotunda to lie in state. I was struck dumb yesterday while watching the remembrance of a good man yesterday, knowing he was being honored on the same grounds as one of the most horrendous events in American history a day and four years later. The former and incoming president-elect of the United States has alternately praised, honored, and consecrated the men and women who defecated in the halls of the American citadel. As I counted the fifty times the leader of the military pallbearers yelled out “step” as they carried the body of Jimmy Carter up the steps of the Capitol Building, I could not help but remember the thousands of marauding stick-carrying, mace-spraying, yelling non-patriots to America who held the country’s rapt attention for hours on January 6, 2021.

That juxtaposition is part of the mass psychogenic fear gripping the country. While the incoming President—who promised to stop “stupid wars”—threatened military intention to invade and annex the Panama Canal and Greenland, taking a moment to remember Jimmy Carter donning a work belt and aiding in the building of homes [Habitat for Humanity] for the poor and distressed was a welcomed respite. I was reminded of the deaths in my own family when I watched Amy Carter, the daughter of the former president, clinch her teeth tightly, steel her cheeks by stiffening her upper lip, and fight back the tears with the same ferocity her father fought for justice. Justice almost seems like a quaint bit of naivety in today’s politics, but it did and does still exist. Carter was praised over and over—in a bipartisan fashion—as a man who valued the truth and abhorred lying to the public.

Seeing the video clips of him telling of his efforts and sharing his praise for former President George W. Bush for taking his suggestion and brokering a cease-fire between North and South Sudan to help stop the tragic genocide in Darfur was an act of selflessness.

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Mr. Carter never seemed to care about his reputation but more about the American reputation. That sort of patriotism, which used to be the norm, is now praised as extraordinary. Unfortunately, the Iranian hostage-taking will permanently mar the Carter administration, but not the humanity of the man. President James Earl Carter may be the last vestige of a decent American leader. Raised in a home that sometimes had no running water or electricity, Mr. Carter decided to devote his life to his God and service. Humbling himself to an elite Washington, DC, Carter endured the slings and arrows of a society that viewed him as a weed among the roses of an influential garden.

Watching the flag-draped coffin of President Carter being placed upon the catafalque that once held the body of Abraham Lincoln, one could not help but remember the insurrectionist who carried a Confederate flag through those same hallowed halls. Fortunately, the two prominent Republican politicians on the scene, incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune and returning House Speaker Mike Johnson, were so overwhelmed by the moment that they decently paid the proper respect to a life well lived. Vice-President Kamala Harris, who had been disrespected by the husband of a re-elected Republican Senator during her swearing-in ceremony the day before, summed up the day with the words, “James Earl Carter Jr. Loved our country, he lived his faith, he served the people, and he left the world better than he found it…”

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