Jimmy Carter Had His Nasty and Vindictive Side

"Carter Dies At 100 After Life Guided By Moral Principles" read the Page One story in the Financial Times, leading to a tribute by veteran FT correspondent Jurek Martin that hailed the 39th president as one who devoted his post-White House years "to the sort of problems that he thought an engineer with a highly developed social conscience could solve."

That is how most Americans and people worldwide are characterizing Jimmy Carter — overtaken by problems at home and abroad while president, his qualities as an upright and moral man shined as a former president.

But there was another side to Carter that those who watched him in past years recognized: a driven, win-at-all-costs politician and one whose meddling with the Department of Justice to punish opponents could only be labeled "weaponization."

When Georgia's Democrat Gov. Carl Sanders was termed out in 1966, then-state Sen. Carter placed third in the all-important Democratic primary.

Four years later, all signs pointed to Sanders' returning to the governorship with ease. He had overseen construction of 70 airports throughout the state, had wooed fresh industry to Georgia (including the Hawks and Falcons sports teams to Atlanta), and left the state with a $187 million surplus.

There were no racial incidents during his stint in the governor's office, and Blacks began serving in the state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction.

Carter referred to Sanders as "Cufflinks Carl" (even though the former governor never wore shirts with cufflinks) and "said that the 'big-money boys' planned Sanders' campaign in the Capital City Club [an exclusive private club in Atlanta]."

Front-runner Sanders dubbed Carter "Jimmy the Fabricator" and said his opponent "has absolutely no credibility."

At a time when racial tensions were rising because of court-ordered school integration, Sanders biographer James Cook noted, Carter "made a point of visiting a segregated academy, cozying up to [Alabama's segregationist former Gov.] George Wallace… and injecting profanity into his speeches."

On the eve of the primary, Sept. 9, leaflets hit Georgia's white Baptist communities. They showed Sanders, part-owner of the Atlanta Hawks basketball team, being doused with champagne by Hawks star Lou Hudson, an African-American.

This leaflet "interjected . . . race, alcohol, and high-living" into the campaign, according to the Atlanta Constitution's Bill Shipp. Another noted that Sanders had attended the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Carter had not), and still another charged an alliance with Sanders and Julian Bond, the Black civil-rights leader and Georgia state legislator.

But on Sept. 9, Carter surprised everyone by topping the race with 48.6% of the vote to 37.7% for Sanders. Two weeks later, Carter demolished Sanders in a runoff by a 3-2 margin.

Having won the Democratic nomination, Carter reached out to hostile Black voters and handily won the governorship in November. At his inauguration, he made national news by declaring "the days of discrimination are over," and he was featured on the cover of Time magazine. Six years later, he was elected president.

In 2007, this reporter emailed Sanders, then 81 and a partner in an Atlanta law firm, requesting an interview on the 1970 campaign. He replied: "I have no interest in making any comment about Carter. I hope you understand."

As governor, Carter grew to intensely dislike veteran state Sen. Culver Kidd. Kidd passed more legislation than any person in the history of the state. When Carter offered a complex plan for total reorganization of state government, Kidd led the fight that almost stopped it,

"Jimmy never forgave him," a former Republican state legislator told Newsmax, "As president, Jimmy appointed a U.S. attorney who indicted Culver over some gambling issue. We all assumed that Jimmy put him up to it. Jimmy volunteered to testify against Culver and was deposed in the White House. Culver was acquitted."

One of the Democrats who criticized George W. Bush's move to fire nine U.S. attorneys in 2007 to make room for his supporters was Jimmy Carter. Reminded in an interview that his administration had fired a Republican-appointed U.S. attorney in 1978, the 39th president responded that this situation was different, that the U.S. attorney he fired was an out-of-control partisan figure and he wanted federal prosecutors who were above politics.

The late David Marston, who was the U.S. attorney for Eastern Pennsylvania at the time, hit that hard. He explained to Newsmax that at the time of his firing by Carter's Attorney General Griffin Bell, he was conducting an investigation of alleged corruption by then-Rep. Joshua Eilberg, D-Pa. — who on Nov. 4, 1977, called Carter at the White House to demand the firing of Marston. Carter then called Bell and told the attorney general to "hurry up" with a replacement for Marston.

Marston was almost universally regarded as a prosecutor above politics. He successfully prosecuted Eilberg and fellow Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Dan Flood (who finally resigned from Congress as charges of malfeasance mounted) as well as the Republican chair of Chester County.

"After all those years of teaching Sunday school, Jimmy Carter still hasn't learned to tell the truth," Marston told me in '07 about Carter's recollection of his firing.

In the days leading up to Carter's state funeral, we will hear much about his Christianity, his moral character, and his sense of right. The mean-spiritedness and vindictiveness he showed toward political opponents and just how his career was launched are unlikely to be recalled by many — if any.

John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.