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The question arose whether Carter had yielded authority to Hamilton Jordan, Charles Kirbo and Jody Powell. Or had he harbored for months dark impulses to clean out his Cabinet, even while posing in an aura of human kindness? While the purge was going on, the President went out into the Rose Garden to meet with the Future Farmers of America. "Some things don't change," he said softly. "The fundamentals don't change — love within a family, honesty, friendship among people, the desire for peace, respect for one another, the beauty of nature and genuine patriotism based on confidence in our country." In that appeal there seemed almost a public apology for what he had done.
There is a great mythology about how men change in the presidency. Harry Truman scoffed at any such notion. "After a certain age," Truman said, "it's hopeless to think people are going to change much." Jimmy Carter may be the one to prove Harry wrong, but the evidence at this moment is that Presidents who try to be what they are not create more chaos than they cure.