Jimmy Carter’s presidency has been etched into historical memory as a failure. That judgment is curious, particularly when it comes from American conservatives; many of the right’s favorite policies – deregulation and a ruthless fight against inflation, no matter the cost in unemployment – were actually started under Carter. Of course, the more that malaise can be associated with the peanut farmer from Georgia, the shinier becomes his successor, Ronald Reagan, conservatism’s greatest 20th-century hero.

What should be beyond dispute is that Carter was the most successful ex-president of the postwar period, and perhaps the greatest former president, period. That has a lot do with his sheer integrity. But the fact that no former chief executive after Carter managed to emulate his model – using their skills and access to do genuinely important things in politics, rather than mostly cashing in – says much about our times.

True, it is a luxury problem most of us don’t face, but the post-presidency is bound to put any politician in an awkward position: either one has been fired by the people or frustrated by term limits. Only once has a politician come back to win the White House after losing it (Grover Cleveland); and there’s only one instance in which a former head of the executive managed to become equally successful in another branch of government (William........

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