Jimmy and Me

It's been over twenty-five years since President Jimmy Carter left office. That's long enough, there's enough distance to be able to make an even-handed assessment of his presidency and his legacy.

My assessment of Jimmy Carter was that he was a miserable failure as president, an absolute disaster.

Still, I admired him. I admired him for being a good man. I thought he was an honorable man, a man of integrity. He was a horrible president, but he was a moral and decent man.

I don't think that anymore. Yes, I still believe he was a miserable failure as president.

In fact, I think it's fair to say that Carter's policies were instrumental in allowing the Islamofascism that threatens us today. That's why I think the War on Terror should be known as Carter's War.

Carter failed that test.

President Bush's critics like to call the Iraq war "Bush's war." For example, Ted Kennedy said:

Our men and women in uniform fought bravely and brilliantly, but the President's war has been revealed as mindless, needless, senseless, and reckless. The American people know all this. Our allies know it. Our soldiers know it.

Dems love to say that -- "Bush's war."

If you want to talk about failed policy, look at what Carter did. As a whole, his presidency was "mindless, needless, senseless, and reckless." It's amazing that he could make such a mess in four short years. We're still trying to dig out of it and finish Carter's war.

Is there anyone who would like to make a case that Carter was a great president?

I didn't think so.

What I really want to talk about is his character. As I said, I thought he was decent and honorable.

Now, I know that's not the case. The man is a disgrace.

He's a top contender for the worst former president in American history.

Carter goes on TV and writes his books and op-ed pieces, spewing his vitriolic ramblings on why President Bush is the worst thing that ever happened to our country and the world.

For a former president to give such a public airing of his grievances on a sitting president, DURING WARTIME, is unheard of.

It's "mindless, needless, senseless, and reckless."

A perfect example of Carter at his most mindless and reckless is his recent interview with Der Spiegel, a German publication.

From Spiegel Online:

Former US president Jimmy Carter speaks with DER SPIEGEL about the danger posed to American values by George W. Bush, the difficult situation in the Middle East and Cuba's ailing Fidel Castro.

Just this intro makes me sick!

Here are some particularly nauseating excerpts:

SPIEGEL: Mr. Carter, in your new book you write that only the American people can ensure that the US government returns to the country's old moral principles. Are you suggesting that the current US administration of George W. Bush of acting immorally?

Carter: There's no doubt that this administration has made a radical and unpressured departure from the basic policies of all previous administrations including those of both Republican and Democratic presidents.

SPIEGEL: For example?

Carter: Under all of its predecessors there was a commitment to peace instead of preemptive war. Our country always had a policy of not going to war unless our own security was directly threatened and now we have a new policy of going to war on a preemptive basis. Another very serious departure from past policies is the separation of church and state, which I describe in the book. This has been a policy since the time of Thomas Jefferson and my own religious beliefs are compatible with this. The other principle that I described in the book is basic justice. We've never had an administration before that so overtly and clearly and consistently passed tax reform bills that were uniquely targeted to benefit the richest people in our country at the expense or the detriment of the working families of America.

Carter's blathering is absolutely idiotic.

I get the feeling that Carter found a soul mate when he spent the evening with Michael Moore at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

SPIEGEL: You also mentioned the hatred for the United States throughout the Arab world which has ensued as a result of the invasion of Iraq. Given this circumstance, does it come as any surprise that Washington's call for democracy in the Middle East has been discredited?

Carter: No, as a matter of fact, the concerns I exposed have gotten even worse now with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon.

I wonder how Carter would feel if Hezbollah lobbed rockets at his peanut farm?

The guy is clueless. Israel's "unjustified attack"?

He's aiding and abetting terrorists!

SPIEGEL: But wasn't Israel the first to get attacked?

Carter: I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon. What happened is that Israel is holding almost 10,000 prisoners, so when the militants in Lebanon or in Gaza take one or two soldiers, Israel looks upon this as a justification for an attack on the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza. I do not think that's justified, no.

SPIEGEL: Do you think the United States is still an important factor in securing a peaceful solution to the Middle East crisis?

Carter: Yes, as a matter of fact as you know ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior, Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton. This administration has not attempted at all in the last six years to negotiate or attempt to negotiate a settlement between Israel and any of its neighbors or the Palestinians.

This is positively sickening.

Carter is saying that Israel, meaning the U.S., INTENTIONALLY targeted the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza. This from a former President of the United States.

He sounds like Ahmadinejad or Nasrallah.

SPIEGEL: What makes you personally so optimistic about the effectiveness of diplomacy? You are, so to speak, the father of Camp David negotiations.

Carter: When I became president we had had four terrible wars between the Arabs and Israelis (behind us). And I under great difficulty, particularly because Menachim Begin was elected, decided to try negotiation and it worked and we have a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt for 27 years that has never been violated. You never can be certain in advance that negotiations on difficult circumstances will be successful, but you can be certain in advance if you don't negotiate that your problem is going to continue and maybe even get worse.

Carter is rewriting history. He's touting what a great peacemaker he was.

Give me a break.

SPIEGEL: One main points of your book is the rather strange coalition between Christian fundamentalists and the Republican Party. How can such a coalition of the pious lead to moral catastrophes like the Iraqi prison scandal in Abu Ghraib and torture in Guantanamo?

Carter: The fundamentalists believe they have a unique relationship with God, and that they and their ideas are God's ideas and God's premises on the particular issue. Therefore, by definition since they are speaking for God anyone who disagrees with them is inherently wrong. And the next step is: Those who disagree with them are inherently inferior, and in extreme cases -- as is the case with some fundamentalists around the world -- it makes your opponents sub-humans, so that their lives are not significant. Another thing is that a fundamentalist can't bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality. And so this administration, for instance, has a policy of just refusing to talk to someone who is in strong disagreement with them -- which is also a radical departure from past history. So these are the kinds of things that cause me concern. And, of course, fundamentalists don't believe they can make mistakes, so when we permit the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, it's just impossible for a fundamentalist to admit that a mistake was made.

SPIEGEL: So how does this proximity to Christian fundamentalism manifest itself politically?

Carter: Unfortunately, after Sept., there was an outburst in America of intense suffering and patriotism, and the Bush administration was very shrewd and effective in painting anyone who disagreed with the policies as unpatriotic or even traitorous. For three years, I'd say, the major news media in our country were complicit in this subservience to the Bush administration out of fear that they would be accused of being disloyal. I think in the last six months or so some of the media have now begun to be critical. But it's a long time coming.

I'm not a Christian fundamentalist, but it disgusts me that Carter talks as if Christian fundamentalism and the Bush administration are the root of the evil in the world.

If Carter wants to cast stones, which he obviously loves to do, how about throwing some at Islamic fundamentalists along with the Christian fundamentalists?

Carter, like other extremists on the far Left fringe, such as Madeleine Albright, doesn't criticize the Islamic fanaticism that directed planes into the World Trade Center. No. Instead, he attacks Christians.

SPIEGEL: Take your fellow Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton. These days she is demanding the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But she, like many others, allowed President Bush to invade Iraq under a false pretext.

Carter: That's correct.

SPIEGEL: Was the whole country in danger of losing its core values?

Carter: For a while, yes. As you possibly know, historically, our country has had the capability of self-correcting our own mistakes. This applied to slavery in 1865, it applied to legal racial segregation a hundred years later or so. It applied to the Joe McCarthy era when anti-communism was in a fearsome phase in the country like terrorism now. So we have an ability to correct ourselves and I believe that nowadays there is a self-correction taking place. In my opinion the election results in Connecticut (Eds: The primary loss of war supporter Senator Joseph Lieberman) were an indication that Americans realized very clearly that we made a mistake in going into Iraq and staying there too long.

Carter has really gone off the deep end.

Does he sound like a former President of the United States?

He sounds like a loony Lefty. Carter thinks that the country is swinging wildly to the Left -- WRONG!

I think it's funny that he talks about our country having the ability to correct our own mistakes. That's true.

Case in point -- RONALD REAGAN.

Yes, that was a wonderful correction.

I think Carter can't cope with that reality, so he lashes out and finds solace in anyone willing to lend a sympathetic liberal ear.
Carter and the Spiegel interviewer are obviously kindred spirits.

SPIEGEL: Now even President Bush appears to have learned something from the catastrophe in Iraq. During his second term he has taken a more multilateral approach and has seemed to return to international cooperation.

Carter: I think the administration learned a lesson, but I don't see any indication that the administration would ever admit that it did make a mistake and needed to learn a lesson. I haven't seen much indication, by the way, of your premise that this administration is now reconciling itself to other countries. I think that at this moment the United States and Israel probably stand more alone than our country has in generations.

What has made Carter such a bitter man?

I suppose his bitterness is grounded in the fact that he was the worst U.S. president in the 20th century.

Many people were disturbed by what Natalie Maines said about President Bush when she was on foreign soil. That was nothing compared to how Carter conducts himself when he is overseas.

SPIEGEL: You've been called the moral conscience of your country. How do you look at it yourself? Are you an outsider in American politics these days or do you represent a political demographic that could maybe elect the next US president?

Carter: I think I represent the vast majority of Democrats in this country. I think there is a substantial portion of American people that completely agree with me. I can't say a majority because we have fragmented portions in our country and divisions concerning gun control and the death penalty and abortion and gay marriage.

Who has called Carter the "moral conscience" of the U.S.?

If he is, God help us.

What sort of "moral conscience" is blind to the immorality of a band of terrorists using schools, private homes, and mosques as bases to conduct its military operations -- operations that INTENTIONALLY target innocent Israeli civilians?

SPIEGEL: As president, your performance was often criticized. But the work you did after leaving office to promote human rights has been widely praised. Has life been unfair to you?

Carter: I've been lucky in my life. Everything that I've done has brought great pleasure and gratification to me and my wife. I had four years in the White House -- it was not a failure. For someone to serve as president of the United States you can't say it is a political failure.

WRONG!

Carter was a complete failure in the White House. And now he's an embarrassment out of office.

SPIEGEL: Does America need a regime change?

Carter: As I've said before, there is a self-corrective aspect to our country. And I think that the first step is going to be in the November election this year. This year, the Democrats have good chance of capturing one of the houses of Congress. I think the Senate is going to be a very close decision. My oldest son is running for the US Senate in the state of Nevada. And if just he and a few others can be successful then you have the US Senate in Democratic hands and that will make a profound and immediate difference.

I don't think it's out of line to consider this interview a shocking display of bad judgment on Carter's part.

He grants moral equivalence to Israel's right to defend itself and the actions of ruthless terrorists.

I once thought Carter was a good man.

I don't think he is. I think he has conducted himself in a manner that disgraces the office of the presidency.

It's wrong for Carter to be on a book tour that bashes President Bush.

I sincerely believe that he has abused his position as a former president.

Moreover, I believe that Carter has done what seemed unfathomable.

He has managed to do more damage to the country out of office than he did while he was president.

That's saying a lot.