This week, Jimmy Carter was in the news after a statement in which he broke ties with the Southern Baptist Convention because of their patriarchal selection of biblical texts to insist on the subservient place of women in the Church and Home. He went further, insisting that Judaism, Islam and Christianity all were in favor of equal rights for women:

"is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of God."

One of the things that makes a World Religion, rather than a regional one, is the possibility of cherry picking: you can prove anything you want, more or less, and avoid conflict between Religion and Culture. (Although I do wonder how those from the great Pig-Eating Cuisines of parts of South East Asia manage to be Muslims.)

Regarding Carter and the Southern Baptists: An outsider should not intrude in family grief. We secular humanists might cheer for one side of the other but it's no more relevant, intellectually, than how many angels can dance on the point of a pin, whether an all-powerful god can make a rock too heavy for him/her/it to lift, or cracking the egg big side or little. Practically speaking, it makes a difference but the challenge comes from the patriarchy/cultural part rather than the religious underpinning.

Carter himself, though, is an interesting fellow. Like Obama, there was an underlying feeling that he had no right to be president. He was dismissed as a 'peanut farmer'. He was also a graduate of Annapolis, served in the Navy for seven years, and went into politics in Georgia and was Governor. He spent considerably less time peanut farming than politicking. His record as president was pretty successful: he lowered the national debt measured as percentage of gross national product, cut unemployment, extended the national parks, and insisted that foreign policy include a moral and ethical dimension, including human rights - popular with Africa, not at all popular with Europe and the Soviet Union.

Carter was an excellent president as manager. He never quite got the leadership thing. He did lead - good and original policies, even got them through Congress. But he couldn't do Father Knows Best - something Reagan was very good at.

He lost the election in 1980, in large part because of John Anderson, a third party candidate that took 9% of the popular vote. High interest rates coincided with the election, never good for a sitting president.  Then there was the Iran Hostage crisis and an unsuccessful rescue attempt. (Carter avoided Ted Kennedy's campaign with his "Rose Garden Strategy", saying he was too caught up in the National Crisis of the hostage taking to deal with Kennedy - a strategy that backfired. At the time, I thought Carter should have said this was an internal problem, Iran had a responsibility to protect diplomats and Iran should deal with it. Any fool can take a hostage and it says nothing about respective power relationships.)

Carter resigned in a snit halfway through the vote counting. He resigned before the polls had closed in the west and a lot of Democrats stayed home - thus giving the Republicans the House and Senate.

After the election, Carter built houses for the poor as part of a charity - hammering nails, not fund raising. He and his wife founded The Carter Center, a non-profit organization to advance human rights. He was an election observer in troubled third world countries with histories of stolen elections. He travelled in support of disease eradication. He was the nearest thing the US has ever supplied to an 'honest broker' in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.

For the past twenty-nine years, Carter has built up an impressive record of public service: a decent president and a very decent man.

In his presidential campaigns and during his presidency, he never quite understood how some things play outside the South. In an early interview during the Democratic primaries, he said something about 'lusting in your heart' as the equivalent of adultery. Much amusement from the press. He was presented as someone outside the American mainstream, a naive foolish fellow. I remember a cartoon about Carter during his presidency: Carter is shown sitting at a table with a bottle of Coke, a finger on one side of his nose and a straw, looking at the straw with bewilderment. The caption: I don't understand why they do it.

The press representation of Carter was grossly unfair and inaccurate - but there was enough accuracy to make the picture identifiable.

Obama will not make some of Carter's mistakes. He handles the media in a more sophisticated way. Carter had one advantage - the press might scoff, but they hesitated to actually lie. (Take a bow, Rupert).

An example, totally a matter of fact rather than opinion: Obama cannot be president because he was born in Kenya. This is still being examined on Fox. They say there's something funny about his birth certificate. A Republican has introduced a bill requiring future presidential candidates to show their original birth certificates before taking office.

Obama was born in Hawaii. His birth certificate is a matter of public record, which the Republican Governor of Hawaii has stated. Two newspapers have the birth of Obama reported on the births' section a few days after his birth.

Obama's health care plan is misrepresented. So is the British National Health Service and the Canadian public health care system. How do you deal with straightforward lies that the people who state them know are not true???

Carter's weakness was the vision thing - he had one but couldn't communicate it. Obama's weakness, I think, is his expectation that in a dispute both sides give a little, get a little, and end up with something both can live with. Carter expected people to be moral, Obama expects them to be rational.

The future could be approached more optimistically  if either one were right.