According to reports I've read, Jimmy Carter was an extreme micromanager who went so far as to personally manage the schedule for the White House tennis courts. I remember one White House aid being quoted back then, "Some presidents are forest men. Some are tree men. Carter is a leaf man."

If those allegations are accurate, then I find it hard to believe he wasn't personally involved in the mission planning for Desert One. It was an overly complicated mission that was doomed to failure from the beginning. Special Ops require simplicity to be successful. The more complicated the plan, the more likely things will go wrong.

I've never faulted Jimmy Carter for his character, his intelligence, or his sincerity. Having served in the military during his presidency, I found him a lousy president. Back to back 10% pay cuts didn't exactly endear him to the military, nor did the neglect that allowed the military to decay to less than 60% combat readiness. That neglect also contributed to the failure at Desert One.

Carter was a Democrat with solid Democrat control of Congress but he still had trouble getting his agenda passed. One analyst noted that Carter arrived in Washington saying he didn't owe anyone anything. Unfortunately for him, no one in Congress owed him anything, either.

As I've written before, presidents get too much credit when the economy is good and too much blame when the economy is bad. Carter's last two years in office were marked by a terrible economy with double-digit inflation and interest rates. Much of that was due to the damage still being felt from the 1973 OPEC oil embargo where the oil prices doubled, followed by it doubling again in 1978 following the Iranian Revolution. Quite frankly, the economy sucked under Carter and he got hammered for it in the 1980 election even though no president controls the economy.