Jimmy Carter, Autographing Machine
Preacher, Naval officer, nuclear engineer, peanut farmer, governor, Nobel Peace Prize winner, furniture craftsman, and author Jimmy Carter was neither the greatest POTUS in history, nor history's greatest monster. But his new book, Our Endangered Values, looks like a chunk of genius from a powerful moral voice.
And Jimmy Carter is an autographing machine.
At least that's what a young woman on the staff of Cody's in Union Square called him. Forty minutes after tickets had run out and his signing session was due to end, J.C. -- bless his heart -- was still scratching his Hancock inside every book that came his way. And come, they did.
You know what else came, besides the spikey-haired lesbian in line in front of me? The blow-dried young political wannabes, out of the woodwork, a small army of young white men in suits and ties and American flag pins, circling like famished vultures, hovering for a chance to get a quick picture of themselves with J.C. in order to establish their Democratic bona fides.
Never trust a man wearing a pin.
What happened to your football picks?
Posted by: Jon | January 15, 2006 at 02:57 PM
Jon, I don't know. WTF? Typepad problem?
For the record, 2-2 straight-up, 1-3 vs. the spread for the weekend. Bleh.
Posted by: seamus | January 15, 2006 at 06:19 PM
If you think back to when JC left office, he has done a magnificent job of transcending issues of that moment (Iran hostage crisis, oil crisis, Panama Canal handover) to become a statesman. And his message of how we were born with the goal of dividing church and state is spot-on. I look forward to reading OEV.
Posted by: jjm | January 18, 2006 at 09:23 PM
Heir Heir, Jim, a man with the right idea. It's refreshing to find a blog comment not criticising Carter. I can't wait to read his book either.
Posted by: Kate | January 31, 2006 at 08:38 PM