It is not to be unexpected that a centenarian has passed, but if there have been obituaries I might have, as the sobriquet goes, "read with great interest", this is one I write with rue. Everything I suppose I will read will be some version of: "a good man and a terrible president". He was, in the office of the presidency, well-intentioned but poorly suited--and I don't think seasoning and acquaintance with the ways of DC would have remedied his "outsider" status. As for his status as a man on this earth, he was always in the right place--in service to others, actively living his faith, housing the homeless, looking for social justice, fighting to eradicate tropical disease.
It's hard to take a view of the Carter presidency without the accumulated history of the last 40 something years. I'm not even going to try. He was born in a segregated state, his rise politically would always be admixed, but he tried to be on the right side. He was for human rights and included those of women. He saw the environment and health care as also being about justice.
