August 5, 2010

Two losers equals a win?

Or how former President Jimmy Carter used deregulation to make an awful lot of folks real happy.

Carter’s record is a mixed lot. On the one hand he is widely acclaimed to be one of the poorest President’s of the 20th century, while on the other he is one of a select few U.S. leaders to win a Nobel Peace Prize. Neither of those accomplishments ranks very high in my book.

What does rank is the thriving small, craft beer brewing industry in this country; an accomplishment that can be laid squarely in Carter’s lap. In 1979, a year before Carter was ingloriously ousted from office by a two-bit former sportscaster, our runt of a President deregulated the beer industry.

So, you might ask, exactly why is this such an important announcement?

Because today… August 5th… is International Beer Day.

Not a national holiday, perhaps, but perhaps it should be. I’d vote for it.

The website internationalbeerday.com offers the suggestion that today we should "revel in the culture of beer, bars and breweries."

Hey! I’ll tip a glass to that.

Maybe Jimmy Carter wasn’t such a loser after all.
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5 Comments:

Lockwood said...

I think people's main problem with Carter was that he was pathologically honest: he called it as he saw it. I challenge you to go read a transcript of his "Malaise speech," (a word he never used in the address) and tell me it doesn't sound like an eerily accurate forecast. I have my beefs with the guy too, but he's described as "one of the worst presidents of the twentieth century," it chafes my hide.

Mule Breath said...

Truly my hide gets chapped too, Lockwood, which is why I said that the accomplishment of being rated one of the poorest didn't rank very high with me.

But neither does the Nobel.

Carter won the job fair and square. How many since him can claim the same?

Lockwood said...

Good point. Oddly, every one since has also been described by the MSM as having won "by a landslide," and therefore having a "mandate."

Mule Breath said...

...which is exactly the reason I tip my hat and my mug of craft brewed Shiner Bock to President Jimmy Carter.

Live long and prosper.

Old Weird Libra said...

Thanks to Lockwood for suggesting the Malaise speech (which, due to other interests at the time, I for one had neither heard nor read about). I found also very interesting the comments that followed a review of the speech deeming it highly conservative, especially by a president often called liberal.