2. Jimmy Carter and his malaise speech
Jimmy Carter is remembered as a generally ineffective and hapless president whose term in office was marked by economic uncertainty, international humiliation, military unpreparedness, and a lack of direction. Carter is remembered for addressing these and other issues in a televised speech during his term in which he blamed the problems besetting the country and his presidency not on a lack of leadership, but on the malaise affecting the American people. Carter delivered the speech on July 15, 1979, during a crippling energy crisis, with some Americans having to wait for hours to purchase gasoline, and then being limited in the amount they were allowed to buy. Carter prepared the speech in response to his advisers informing him that their polling data indicated that the country as a whole was facing a “crisis of confidence.”
Carter’s speech became known as the “malaise speech” in which the president stated that there was malaise upon America, and it was viewed as being an unwelcome shift of blame for the country’s problems to the American people. In fact, Carter never used the word “malaise” in his speech, stating instead that “a fundamental threat” to American democracy was a “crisis of confidence”. Carter’s legacy as an ineffective leader during his presidency largely stemmed from the “malaise speech” after it was spun by political operatives of both parties (Democratic supporters of Ted Kennedy used it to denigrate Carter’s administration), but it was generally well-received by the public at the time it was delivered. Carter is still remembered for claiming that there was a malaise upon America, though he did not.