Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter delivers a lecture on the eradication of the Guinea worm, at the House of Lords on February 3, 2016 in London.

Jimmy Carter is often called a model for former presidents. The description is accurate but incomplete: Mr. Carter, who died Dec. 29 at age 100, was a model for us all.

The peanut farmer from Georgia — the state's former governor — took the national stage on a vow of honesty and integrity. With no prior Washington experience, Mr. Carter was an outsider chosen in 1976 as a rebuke to the establishment and the embodiment of the decency Americans still saw in themselves. More than anything, he was a salve for a disillusioned nation reeling from the deceit of Watergate and the Vietnam War. "I will never lie to you," Mr. Carter said.

The resulting presidency included successes, including the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel known as the Camp David Accords. But Mr. Carter's tenure was more notably marked by high inflation, an energy crisis and the taking of 52 American hostages in Iran. For those reasons and others, the 1980 presidential election was........

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