One day in Atlanta, I asked Rosalynn Carter if her husband was stubborn. It was a trait that both helped and hurt him as governor of Georgia and president of the United States in the 1970s. 

I expected Rosalynn, who has known Jimmy for more than 90 years and been married to him for nearly 77, to try to spin me.

Instead, she just nodded and laughed.

As Jimmy Carter’s epic journey is almost at a close at age 98, it’s a good time to begin a long-overdue reassessment of this misunderstood man and his much-maligned presidency. In researching his life for five years and questioning him closely about it, I was struck by the gap between the perception of his career and the reality of the historical record.

The easy shorthand about him — lousy president, outstanding former president — is misleading. In fact, Carter was an underrated president and a slightly overrated ex-president, in large part because he had much less power after leaving office to change the lives of people around the world.

As president, Carter was a political failure, crushed by Ronald Reagan when he ran for reelection in 1980. But in many areas he was a substantive, even visionary success, far ahead of his time. In one term, he won approval of more major legislation than any president since Franklin Roosevelt, except Lyndon Johnson — more than two-term presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. (Carter was helped by the fact that his party controlled Congress for his full four years.)