Sneed: Jimmy Carter and ‘the grace of the moment’

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The Carter file …

Former President Jimmy Carter delivered bad news in an extraordinarily remarkable way Thursday.

The nation’s 39th president said he had brain cancer, he would undergo radiation immediately, and he was “prepared for anything that comes.”

It also sent Rick Jasculca, Carter’s old friend and PR adviser, to the bathroom for a good cry.

“I was struck by the grace of the moment,” said Jasculca, who considers Carter a member of his family; a man he has worked for since 1975, when Carter was ramping up a run for the Oval Office.

“I was thinking that in my entire career I had never seen a press conference like that, a truly remarkable moment and done with courage and humor.

“I was alternating between laughing at some of his lines, which were humorous in some cases . . . and just bawling.

“When it ended, I went into the bathroom and just busted out crying. Not so much out of sadness, but for his remarkable ability to just sit there and do what he did. To talk about his illness and talk about everything.

“To answer all those questions and deal with it so matter-of-factly. His character and courage and grace and humor and patiently answering every question.

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“In our world right now there is not a lot of give under challenging circumstances,” added Jasculca. “Jimmy Carter is always thinking of others.”

“Years ago, in Sudan, my back was killing me and here was this 80-year-old man telling me to take the evening off and rest while he intended to spend another six or seven hours at work. The man is indomitable. I went hobbling off to my room.“

Jasculca, whose Jasculca Terman and Associates public relations firm also helped open up the Carter Center in Atlanta after Carter left the White House, has flown all over the world with Carter on his humanitarian missions.

“This is a remarkable man. An honest man. He tells it like it is. And, I might add, there weren’t a lot of inane questions asked by the press this time. They dealt with the matters at hand. Something that doesn’t always happen.”

I spy …

Bikini model Kate Upton was in one of the P-51 Mustangs that flew over Wrigley Field before the game against the Detroit Tigers began Wednesday night.

• How do we know? The bikini model, who is dating Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander, posted a selfie while in the plane on Instagram.

Aloha!

No more media speculation: Marty Nesbitt, President Obama’s BFF and head of the Obama Foundation, did buy the old “Magnum P.I.” estate in Oahu, Hawaii, for himself and his family as a vacation house in order to be near the Hawaiian home the Obamas might eventually buy.

• Pssst! Nesbitt, who is on vacation right now, told Politico he paid nearly $9 million for a house he claims needs lots of repairs. (It had been suggested earlier Nesbitt may have purchased the home for the Obamas.)

Ka-ching!

Billionaire bucks boy Ken Griffin, our state’s richest man, may be buying a lavish New York apartment in an area known as “The Billionaire’s Bunker.”

Griffin, who founded the Chicago-based Citadel hedge fund, is already engulfed in a messy divorce from his wife, Anne Dias, the mother of his three children.

The skyscraper apartment, which has yet to be built, could cost between $30 million and $160 million.

Griffin sources tell Sneed: “Ken just finished furnishing his place at 820 Park Avenue that he purchased years ago. That is and will be his home when he’s in New York City.

“No comment on the rumors of him buying the central park south apartment, but if he was it would be a good investment.”

Sneedlings …

Friday’s birthdays: Kim Cattrall, 59; Usain Bolt, 29, and Hayden Panettiere, 26.

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