Even with cancer, Carter remains an example

The news that former US president Jimmy Carter's cancer has spread to his brain is saddening. Even as a political appointee in the Carter administration, I cannot say he was a great president but he certainly is one of our most exemplary former presidents. By fully disclosing his condition he continues to lead by example, as he has done before.

Carter had a number of success stories on the domestic front: the creation of Cabinet-level federal departments of education and energy, and the installation of solar panels in the White House during the energy crisis to set an example. But during his term, there was widespread domestic malaise, too: inflation rose to 13.5 percent and the prime lending rate to 20 percent.

On the international front, he led the Camp David discussions which culminated in a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, an event as astounding as former president Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972. And in an act of great political courage, he returned the Panama Canal to Panama, thereby erasing one large vestige of 19th century American gunboat diplomacy.