This is pretty good...

      Jimmy Carter became our 
> 39th president at the young age of 52.  He was a one-term 
> governor from Plains, GA, where he managed the family peanut 
> farm  and taught Sunday school.  He was also a graduate of 
> the Naval Academy and served seven years in the Navy, 
> leaving as a lieutenant. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 He came to power in the 
> aftermath of the Vi etnam War and the resignation of 
> President Nixon.  The public wanted change and someone new, 
> and Carter was an ambitious, hands-on politician who 
> promised better days.  As good as his intentions were, 
> however, the things he  tried were not successful.  In fact, 
> he created far more serious problems than he ever solved. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 The centerpiece of 
> Carter's foreign policy was human rights, and he did 
> achieve one noble success-a peace treaty between Egypt 
> 's Anwar Sadat and Israel 's Menachem Begin. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                               Unfortunately, that later led 
> to Sadat's assassination at the hands of Muslim 
> radicals. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 Many people felt Carter was 
> a good man who worked hard and meant well.  But he was naive 
> and incompetent in handling the enormous burdens and complex 
> challenges of being president. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 He wrongly believed 
> Americans had an 'inordinate fear of communism,' so 
> he lifted travel bans to Cuba , North Vi etnam and Cambodia 
> and pardoned draft evaders.  He also stopped B-1 bomber 
> production and gave away our strategically located Panama 
> Canal 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 His most damaging 
> miscalculation was the withdrawal of U.S. support for the 
> Shah of Iran , a strong and longtime military ally.  Carter 
> objected to the Shah's alleged mistreatment of 
> imprisoned Soviet spies who were working to overthrow Iran 
> 's government.  He thought the exiled Ayatollah 
> Khomeini, being a religious man, would make a fairer leader. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 Having lost U.S. support, 
> the Shah was overthrown, the Ayatollah returned, Iran was 
> declared an Islamic nation and Palestinian hit men were 
> hired to eliminate opposition. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 The Ayatollah then 
> introduced the idea of suicide bombers to the Palestine 
> Liberation Organization, paying $35,000 to PLO families 
> whose young people were brainwashed to kill as many Israelis 
> as possible by blowing themselves up in c rowded shopping 
> areas. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 Next, the Ayatollah used 
> Iran 's oil wealth to create, train and finance a new 
> terrorist organization, Hezbollah, which later would attack 
> Israel in 2006. 
> 
>                                  In November 1979, Mahmoud 
> Ahmadinejad and other Iranians stormed the U.S. embassy in 
> Tehran and took  52 Americans hostage for 444 days.  Not 
> until six months into the ordeal did Carter attempt a 
> rescue.  But the mission, using just six Navy helicopters, 
> was poorly executed.  Three of the copters were disabled or 
> lost in sandstorms.  (Pilots weren't allowed to meet 
> with weather forecasters because someone in authority 
> worried about security.)  Five airmen and three Marines lost 
> their lives. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 So, due to overconfidence, 
> inexperience and poor judgment, Carter undermined and lost a 
> strong ally, Iran , that today aggressively threatens the 
> U.S. , Israel and the rest of the world with nuclear 
> weapons. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 But that's not all. 
> After Carter met for the first time with Soviet leader 
> Leonid Brezhnev,  the USSR promptly invaded Afghanistan . 
> Carter, ever the naive appeaser, was shocked.  'I 
> can't believe the Russians lied to me,' he said. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 The invasion attracted a 
> 23-year-old Saudi named Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan to 
> recruit Muslim fighters and raise money for an anti-Soviet 
> jihad.  Part of that group eventually became al-Qaida, a 
> terrorist organization that would declare war on America 
> several times between 1996 and 1998 before attacking us on 
> 9/11, killing more Americans than the Japanese attack on 
> Pearl Harbor 
> 
>                                 On Carter's watch, the 
> Soviet Union went on an unrestrained rampage in which it 
> took over not only Afghanistan, but also Ethiopia, South 
> Yemen, Angola, Cambodia, Mozambique, Grenada and Nicaragua. 
> 
>                                 In spite of this, 
> Carter's last defense budget proposed spending 45% below 
> pre- Vi etnam levels for fighter aircraft, 75% for ships, 
> 83% for attack submarine  and 90% for helicopters. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 Years later, as a civilian, 
> Carter negotiated a peace agreement with North Korea to keep 
> that communist country from developing nuclear weapons.  He 
> also convinced President Clinton and Secretary of State 
> Madeleine Albright to go  along with it.  But the signed 
> piece of paper proved worthless.  The North Koreans deceived 
> Carter and instead used our money, incentives and technical 
> equipment to build nuclear weapons and pose the threat we 
> face today. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 Thus did Carter unwittingly 
> become our Neville Chamberlain, creating with his 
> well-intended but inept, unrealistic and gullible actions 
> the very conditions that led to the three most dangerous 
> security threats we face today:  Iran , al-Qaida and North 
> Korea 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 On the domestic side, 
> Carter gave us inflation of 15%, the highest in 34 years; 
> interest rates of 21%, the highest in 115 years; and a 
> severe energy crisis with lines around the block at gas 
> stations nationwide. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 In 1977,  Carter, along 
> with a Democrat Congress, created a worthy project with 
> noble intentions-the Community Reinvestment Act.  Over 
> strong industry objections, it mandated that all banks meet 
> the credit needs of their entire communities. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 In 1995, President Clinton 
> imposed even stronger regulations and performance tests that 
> coerced banks to substantially increase loans to low-income, 
> poverty-area borrowers or face fines or possible 
> restrictions on expansion.  ; These revisions allowed for 
> securitization of CRA loans containing subprime mortgages. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 By 1997, good loans were 
> bundled with poor ones and sold as prime packages to 
> institutions here and abroad.  That shifted risk from the 
> loan originators, freeing banks to begin pyramiding and make 
> more of these profitable subprime products. 
> 
>                                 Under two young, 
> well-intended presidents, therefore, big-government plans 
> and mandates played a significant role in the current 
> subprime mortgage mess and its catastrophic consequences for 
> the U.S. and international economies. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 Hardest-hit by the mortgage 
> fore closures have been the citizens that Democrats always 
> claim to help most-inner-city residents who fell victim to 
> low or no down payment schemes, unexpected adjustable rates, 
> deceptive loan applications and commission-hungry 
> salespeople. 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 Now we're having to 
> bail out at huge cost Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the very 
> agencies that were supposed to stabilize the system.  In 
> time,  this should improve the situation.  But the party of 
> Carter and Clinton that midwifed our mortgage mess now wants 
> to be trusted to take over and have the government run our 
> entire system of health care! 
> 
>                                
> 
>                                 And everyone is blaming 
> Bush for our current problems.