Jimmy Carter's melancholy fate was to be a largely derivative figure: He was a reaction against his elected predecessor and the precursor of his successor. Richard M. Nixon made Carter tempting; Carter made Ronald Reagan necessary.

The deceits and crimes of Nixon's imperial presidency bred Carter's pompous crusade against pomp. Carter proclaimed "I'll never lie to you" while claiming that he was a "nuclear physicist." He denied saying what a tape proved he said about Lyndon B. Johnson's "lying, cheating and distorting the truth."