Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

Is Jimmy Carter Really Underrated? Not in the Slightest

Revisionists are starting to make the case that the 39th president wasn’t the ineffective leader that history remembers. Actually, he was.

November 12, 2021 at 12:30 PM UTC

By Jonathan Bernstein

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

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An interview with two new biographers of former President Jimmy Carter, Jonathan Alter and Kai Bird, makes the case for revisionism, arguing that just as Harry Truman was an unpopular president whose greatness was only recognized later, Carter too was … well, if not great, at least close to great.