Jimmy Carter has always been my favorite president. I’m not sure many people agreed with me, because when he ran for re-election in 1980 he got only about 40 percent of the vote and lost to Ronald Reagan. He didn’t even get into office easily; he barely beat Gerald Ford in 1976, even with Ford’s ties to the corruption of Nixon. It’s been said that Jimmy Carter has been viewed far more favorably as an ex-President than he ever will be as a President.

But I liked him as President. I was just 12 years old when he was elected, and I remember quite a bit of the hoopla. He was a Southern...