Jimmy Carter owes Joe Biden big time.
Because if it weren’t for Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter, 97, would still be ranked as the worst president in modern U.S. history.
Now Joe Biden has that honor all to himself. And it did not take him long to wrest the trophy away from Carter either.
Biden began his campaign on the first day of his presidency when he declared war on U.S. fossil fuel and shut down the Keystone XL pipeline.
In his war on domestic drilling, he took a once energy-independent nation and turned it into a country begging for oil from Saudi Arabia.
Thanks to Biden, the country now has the highest gasoline prices in the nation’s history.
That is only one of Biden’s failures, however, but it set the tone for all the others. The failures that followed accumulated so rapidly that they are hard to keep up with.
Suffice it to say that never has a president inflicted so much damage on a once thriving country. And he is only halfway done.
What put Biden over the top in his drive for the Worst President in History Award — and the top prize of a two-week all expenses paid vacation to Chicago — was silently standing by when he was insulted by the president of Mexico.
Joe Biden is a punching bag.
No matter how bad a leader President Carter was during his single term (1976-1980) — gasoline shortages, inflation, high interest rates, a sluggish economy, the Iranian hostage crisis — he never was dumped on by the president of Mexico.
Despite months of White House pleading, Mexican President Andres Lopez Obrador last Monday announced that he would not attend this past week’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angles.
The snub was a blow to White House plans to show Biden off as a regional leader in addressing issues ranging from climate change to trade.
Obrador, one of the region’s most prominent leaders, said he would not attend because Biden failed to invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, three authoritarian nations.
Others wryly suggested that Obrador was too busy paving the way for another 15,000 illegal immigrants from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua who are currently crossing Mexico seeking to cross into the U.S.
It was also pointed out that while the Biden administration blackballed Venezuela from attending the Summit, it had no problems wheeling and dealing with Venezuela to buy its oil.
And while Biden barred some countries from attending, he was at the same time pressuring others to attend. It was like a parent rounding up kids to come to a birthday party for a kid they all hate.
For instance, Biden sent Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd to Brazil to persuade a reluctant President Jair Bolsonaro, who Biden has dissed because Bolsonaro is a Trump fan, to attend the summit.
Nor does Biden have any problems dealing with oil rich Saudi Arabia, whose crown prince Muhammad Bin Salman is accused of plotting the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
Back then Biden said the prince and the Saudis had “to pay the price” for the killing and be made “the pariah they are.”
Now Biden is going hat in hand to Saudi Arabia to beg the Kingdom to drill for more oil to sell us at top buck rather than dig for the oil that lies beneath his feet in the U.S.
Jimmy Carter was a vigorous 52 years old when he became president, and he could hardly handle the job. Joe Biden was an old 78 when he became president, and the results are obvious.
In 1980 fellow Democrat Sen. Ted Kennedy sought to oust Carter from office by running against Carter’s re-nomination in the Democrat presidential primaries. He failed. Today’s Democrats do not have anyone of Ted Kennedy’s stature to challenge Biden.
This means that Biden will have more time to concentrate on cementing his title as the Worst President in History. Bar none.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
President Joe Biden speaks about inflation and supply chain issues at the Port of Los Angeles, Friday, June 10, 2022, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)