There is a reason Jimmy Carter is called the best former president the United States ever had.

Because he was.

Unlike outgoing President Joe Biden — to which Carter has been compared to as a failed president — Carter had almost 50 years to do good after he left the White House in 1980.

That was when suffered a blowout loss for reelection at the hands of Republican Ronald Reagan. Carter could not overcome voter discontent with severe gasoline shortages and 19% interest rates on home and car loans.

When he lost, Carter, who was not a Washington politician, went back home to his peanut farm in Plains, Georgia to resume the life he had before he became president. He had served in Georgia as a state senator and governor.

Unlike former presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Carter did not use his presidency as a money-making machine after leaving office, but dedicated himself to humanitarian service.

He built homes for Habitat for Humanity, worked to fight disease in the poorest of countries, monitored elections across the globe, and promoted democracy and human rights wherever he went.

In 2002 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his efforts.

Joe Biden, in office for some 50 years as a U.S. senator, vice president and president, has never left Washington. And some would argue that as vice president, for instance, Biden through his deadbeat son Hunter used the office as a money making machine.

Carter, who died last week at age 100, was 56 years old when he left the White House. Biden leaves office at age 82.

Which means that Biden will not have the time that Carter had to make up for a presidency that went off the rails, beginning with opening the borders to criminals and terrorists and the humiliating and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan.

And while Biden maintains that he would have defeated Donald Trump had he run for re-election — instead of being pushed aside by fellow Democrats — all indications are that he would have been trounced by Trump the way Carter was beaten by Reagan.

So, it is understandable that Biden is attempting to polish his pathetic record as president during the waning days of his administration by handing out hundreds of criminal pardons and commutations, as well as citations, medals and awards to his supporters.

He even made history by awarding the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, to Hillary Clinton. Now Hillary joins husband Bill Clinton as the only married couple to be awarded the medal. Barack Obama gave it to Bill Clinton in 2013.

He also gave the award to George Soros, 94, the founder of the Open Foundation Society which financed soft-on-crime Democratic candidates for district attorney cross the country.

Biden’s awards were not without zingers, however, in that he awarded the Medal of Freedom to the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the late Michigan Gov. George Romney.

Both their sons, RFK Jr, a Trump-proposed cabinet member, and retiring Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, are Biden critics.

Biden, in the bizarro waning days of his administration, earlier presented the Presidential Citizen’s Medal, the nation’s second highest civilian award, to Trump haters former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Bernie Thompson of Mississippi.

They were both members of the Democratic-controlled House Select Committee that investigated Trump’s alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The White House said the awards were for “exemplary deeds of service to their country and their fellow citizens.”

Thompson was the committee chairman, and Cheney was vice chair. The committee recommended that Trump be prosecuted and jailed. Instead, he was elected president.

Trump called the pair “political thugs” and “creeps.”

Carter will be honored Thursday at a state funeral in Washington.

Biden will be there, of course. He is a fellow one-term president. But time and the human condition being what they are, he will not best Carter’s record of humane accomplishments.

Joe Biden is no Jimmy Carter.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com