sweasel.com

Jimmy Carter had four children, three older boys and a daughter, Amy. She was the only one young enough to live in the White House. Unlike many presidential children, she was in the limelight a fair bit.

After Jimmy’s term was over, Amy was an activist for a while, then went on to get a masters degree in art. This is an illustration she did for her father’s children’s book, The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer. As you can see from the illustration, degrees in art are not helpful.

More from last week’s book (last excerpt, I promise):

In recent memory, according to agents, the brattiest offspring of a president was Amy Carter, who was ten when her father became president. “Amy was spoiled rotten,” an agent on her detail says. “Amy Carter was a mess,” says Brad Wells, an Air Force One steward. “She would look at me and pick up a package of [open] soda crackers and crush them and throw them on the floor. She did it purposely. We had to clean it up. That was our job.”

Secret Service agents guarding Amy — code-named Dynamo — at school often found themselves in the middle when Amy wanted to play with friends after school instead of going home to the White House to do her homework, as she was supposed to do. When agents told her she had to go home, “Amy would call her father and hand the phone to the agents,” Dennis Chomicki, who was on her detail, remembers.

“The president would say to take Amy anywhere she wants to go. Amy just had her father wrapped up.” Since Amy would often stay at a friend’s house through the evening, agents wound up working longer hours than if they had taken her directly to the White House. As a result, says Chomicki, “the detail would always try to get Mrs. Carter, the first lady, on the phone, because she would say, ‘Nothing doing, she’s coming home. She’s got her homework to do.’ ”

Of all the presidential children guarded by the Secret Service, Carter’s second oldest son, James Earl “Chip” Carter III, was one of the least liked. Twenty-six when his father won the presidency, Chip had helped campaign for him in 1976 and again gave speeches on his behalf when Carter ran for reelection in 1980. “He was outrageous,” a Secret Service agent says. “Chip was out of control. Marijuana, liquor, chasing women.”

Separated from his wife, Chip would “pick up women in Georgetown and ask if they wanted to have sex in the White House. Most of them did. He did it as often as he could,” the agent says. At one point, Rosalynn Carter told the press that all three of her sons had experimented with marijuana. Their oldest son, John William “Jack” Carter, was discharged by the Navy for smoking weed.

When you visited tonight, did you get the message “Please wait while your request is being verified“? Yeah, me too. Huh.