Just what is Ralph Peters smoking?

The Reagan tributes continue apace (mine will be up shortly). The immediacy of his passing, combined with the fact that the last time president who served two full terms died was thirty-five years ago, means there’s going to be a bit of rhetorical overkill. For an example, consider Ralph Peters’ New York Post column (link via James Joyner). The column does an excellent job of describing how the morale and training within the ranks of the military improved dramatically under Reagan. But it also contains this bit of comparison between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan:

Then came Ronald Reagan Yes, he raised Defense budgets dramatically. And the money mattered. But the increased funding and higher pay wouldn’t have made a decisive difference without the sense that we had a real leader in the White House again. The man in the Oval Office genuinely admired the men and women who served. When he saluted his Marine guards, he meant it. The troops could tell. (emphasis added)

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but to me Peters’ implication was that Reagan’s predecessor did not mean it when saluting the Marine guards. Now, like Virginia Postrel, the stark contrasts between Carter and Reagan is the reason why I registered as a Republican at age 18. But Peters goes too far here. Jimmy Carter was a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and served for seven years as an officer in the Navy. His service was in the nuclear-submarine program under Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, a man known for having some pretty high standards. As James Joyner points out, “[Carter] presided over many of the changes that would lead to the fielding of terrific new equipment in the early 1980s.” Was Carter a failure as a president? Good God, yes. But I have no doubt that when Carter saluted the Marine guards (see below), he meant it as well. To be fair to Peters, I may be jumping on poor phrasing rather than Peters’ actual intent. But there it is. UPDATE: Thanks to William Kaminsky for linking to this New York Times story on presidential salutes — turns out that Reagan was the first president to return a military salute. [So, like, this trashes your Carter argument, right?–ed. Only if you relegate every other President before Reagan — including Washington, Madison, Lincoln, TR, FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower — into the same category as Carter.]