Thank you Carter family for just surrounding Jimmy so that

[peppertree]

9. Aww. And he did indeed try to put it in practice.

Carter was only the second president to try, in any meaningful way, to rein in the CIA from its worst abuses (the first, of course, was Kennedy).

When he took office, they were working hand-in-glove with every manner of autocrat, kleptocrat, narco and war criminal you can imagine - all in their obsession against "commienism."

It was said that most of their (then-secret) budget was spent on sheer destabilization - including, as you know, against Jamaica's Michael Manley.

Carter appointed an Admiral - instead of a "company man" - to head the agency, increased oversight, and had hundreds of the worst miscreants fired (many of whom were merely using the CIA for self-enrichment, or to settle personal scores).

Ultimately, they found ways to work around him (including, some believe, arranging the May 1979 gasoline crisis) - and the CIA returned to business as usual after he left office.

But after Iran-Contra, Crackgate and more (including, it's believed, Flight 800), many in the CIA came to understand he was right: that they had let the patients to take over the asylum - and that they had turned into a giant snake eating its own tail.

They had allowed ideological obsessions and sheer greed and ego to undermine the agency - badly. And that's what Carter sought to prevent.

The Trump regime, of course, tried to turn the CIA into Cheeto's personal attack dog - but they showed that whatever else they need to work on, they haven't forgotten the lessons of the dark pre-reform era.