This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Jimmy Carter

  • White House; Carter “increasingly irrelevant” (Updated)

    Former worst US President in my memory, Jimmy Carter, feeling left out of limelight lately, took time to bash the President on BBC last week, while taking a glancing blow at Tony Blair, according to the Washington Post;

    The former president also lashed out at British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Asked by BBC Radio how he would judge Blair’s support of Bush, Carter said: “Abominable. Loyal. Blind. Apparently subservient. And I think the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world.”

    Of course, this a foreign policy critique from the guy who not only aided the mullahs’ rise to power in Iran by abandoning our tradition ally the Shah, but he also facilitated the creation of the Taliban in Afghanistan by being such a spastic creampuff that the Soviets invaded Afghanistan during his Presidency without fear of retribution (except that we boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics – that must’ve really stung, huh?).

    Well, according to the Post (Reuters Wire service story), the White House fired back at Carter yesterday;

    White House spokesman Tony Fratto had declined to react on Saturday but on Sunday fired back.

    “I think it’s sad that President Carter’s reckless personal criticism is out there,” Fratto told reporters. “I think it’s unfortunate. And I think he is proving to be increasingly irrelevant with these kinds of comments.”

    Carter has been an outspoken critic of Bush, but the White House has largely refrained from attacking him in return. Sunday’s sharp response marks a departure from the deference that sitting presidents traditionally have shown their predecessors.

    Yeah, well Reuters forgets that former Presidents have traditionally kept their stupid mouths shut on policy, too. Especially when they’re talking to the foreign press. Carter has been a non-stop, yammering goofball since Clinton left office and the new administration has ignored him.

    Of course, Clinton sent Carter to negotiate with the Haitian Generals and North Korea (look how well those worked out for us) and he went to insure that Hugo Chavez won his re-election in Venezuela. I’m surprised he had nothing to do with his favorite Commie’s election in Nicaragua (Daniel Ortega, by the way).

    Carter, during his interview, went on to blather;

    In his interview with the [Arkansas] Democrat-Gazette, Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, criticized Bush for having “zero peace talks” in Israel. Carter also said the administration “abandoned or directly refuted” every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as environmental efforts, by other presidents.

    Look how well all of Carter’s negotiations have worked out for us – yet he thinks that there is something negotiate over in the Middle East. Hey, dipstick, Arabs don’t want to negotiate – they want to kill us all. Especially YOU.

    Carter went on to ignore history;

    “We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered,” Carter said.

    I guess Carter forgot that every other nation on Earth has waged pre-emptive war on us in the last century. Remember the Zimmerman Telegram? The sinking of the Lusitania? How about Pearl Harbor? And ya know what – the Carter Doctrine was a pre-emptive, unilateral move by your administration to protect the free flow of oil in the Persian Gulf.

    Don’t you think it’s time we stopped sitting still like ducks on a pond during opening day? Or would you prefer that we just sit by and wait for terrible things to happen like the embassy seizure in Iran?

    No, of course you don’t think we should get ahead of our enemies – that’s why you got to be the last President who could walk the mile down Pennsylvania Avenue on your inauguration day. By the end of your administration, you’d made the world so dangerous that every President since has had to ride in a bullet-proof limo.

    The RNC wasn’t so gentle with Carter as the White House;

    “Apparently, Sunday mornings in Plains for former President Carter includes hurling reckless accusations at your fellow man,” said Amber Wilkerson, Republican National Committee spokeswoman. She said that it was hard to take Carter seriously because he also “challenged Ronald Reagan’s strategy for the Cold War.”

    Carter’s been wrong about every one of his foreign policy criticisms and attempts over the last 35 years. Why should anyone think he has something substantial to add now?

    UPDATE: Fox News Channel (with an AP contribution) reports that Carter claims he was misunderstood;

    “My remarks were maybe careless or misinterpreted but I wasn’t comparing the overall administration and certainly not talking about anyone personally,” Carter said in an interview Monday when asked to explain.

    The comments “were interpreted as comparing this whole administration to all other administrations when what I was actually doing was responding to a question about foreign policy between [President Richard] Nixon and this administration, and I think that this administration’s foreign policy compared to Nixon’s was much worse. … I wasn’t comparing this administration with other administrations throughout history but just with President Nixon’s,” he told NBC’s “The Today Show.”

    What a doofus. In his quote above, he used the word “worst” which means he was comparing this administration with at least two other administrations, otherwise he would have used the word “worse” which would be used in comparing two administrations (Nixon versus Bush). Language means stuff.

    Oh, and he admits that he’s irrelevant;

    Carter…said he doesn’t “claim to have any relevancy” on the Iraq issue, though he has sent reports for the president and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on his personal activities monitoring elections around the world.

    Well, he finally got something right. The old coot needs to go back to Plains, sit on the porch of his mansion and rock himself further into obscurity.

    Editor’s Note: I know I’ve said much of this before, but I feel it bears repeating. This a form of self-flagellation over the guilt that my first vote in a Presidential election went to Jimmy Carter. I regretted it within days after his inauguration when his first official act was to give amnesty to draft dodgers. And the main reason I’d voted for him was because he’d promised, during the campaign, to not surrender the Panama Canal (where I was stationed at the time) – we all know how that turned out.

    Later, I spent weeks on Green Ramp in Fort Bragg waiting for the signal to run a Soviet combat brigade out of our Hemisphere – that of course never came to fruition, to our great shame – but our equipment at the time had been manufactured during the Vietnam war and there were no parts available and mostly failed to work – none of us were surprised when Desert One ended because of maintenance failures.

    There was no fuel or money to train; we practiced jumping from the tailgate of moving duece-and-a-half trucks to simulate assembling on the drop zone. When I got promoted to Sergeant from Corporal, my raise was an whopping $22/month.

    So yeah, my beef with Carter is personal and will last until one of us dies. Expect one of these posts everytime he opens his stupid yap.

  • Partisanship; the last refuge of scoundrels

    Samuel Johnson once claimed that “patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels” meaning, not that all patriots are scoundrels as some on the Left have interpreted it in recent years, but that scoundrels hid behind a facade of false patriotism. Since Mr. Johnson has been dead for more than two hundred years, I’d like to change his phrase a bit; partisanship is the last refuge of scoundrels.

    Just looking through the stories at Drudge Report this morning, I see that Murtha is threatening the President with impeachment;

    Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) said Sunday that Democrats in Congress could consider impeachment as a way to pressure President Bush on his handling of the war in Iraq.

    “What I’m saying, there’s four ways to influence a president. And one of them’s impeachment,” Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

    In other words, since the Democrats don’t have the power they’d like to have in Congress – since there was no real mandate from the voters last November – they’re going to try and impeach him to get him to do their bidding, effectively overturning the last presidential election and the will of a majority of American voters.

    According to the Washington Post, Russ Feingold;

    Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) said he would “absolutely” oppose a bill that doesn’t contain a “binding proposal . . . for ending the war.”

    “Absolutely oppose” – that means Russ will only agree to the Far Left wing of the Party’s supporter – 33% of 33% of voters. Doesn’t sound very bi-partisan.

    Now, over in the Washington Times, Stephen Dinan writes that John Edwards, Democrats’ pretty boy hopeful, Addressed a Democrat state party convention in California;

    …Mr. Edwards spoke, urging congressional Democrats not to let Mr. Bush push them away from their war-spending bill, which sets a timeline for troops to begin pulling out.
        “If the president vetoes this bill, they should send him back another bill with a timetable for withdrawal,” he said.

    In other words, Democrats shouldn’t be negotiating with the White House on a defense bill that both the legislative and executive branches can agree on – only the Democrat agenda is acceptable. Of course, it’s easy for Edwards to say that – he doesn’t have a job, no one to be responsible to. And he’s trying to be an outsider – he’s trying to appeal to the Democrats who forget that he’s just another shyster lawyer who became a Senator.

    At the same convention, Maxine Waters, leader of the misinformed “Out of Iraq Caucus” in Congress, said;

       “Democrats, your presidential candidates and elected officials must stop nuancing, politicizing, sound-biting, benchmarking and playing it safe,” she said. “Democrats must have the courage to tell this president, ‘No, Mr. President, not another nickel, not another dime, not another soldier, not this time.’ “

    Bow down to the god of Leftism, drink the koolaid and do the bidding of MoveOn.org, the KosKids and Code Pink. Even though most Americans don’t want what the insane wing of Democrats are selling.

    Jeff Jacoby (by way of Hang Right Politics’ COgirl) wrote on the naked partisanship after the House vote to withdraw from Iraq last month;

    Yet when the House of Representatives voted last month to force a withdrawal from Iraq, Democrats were jubilant.

    “Many House Democrats stayed on the floor, reveling in their victory,” reported The Hill on March 23. “House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey and Representative John Murtha hugged each other while a smiling [majority leader Steny] Hoyer shook every hand he could find. . . . [majority whip James] Clyburn joked with members as [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi kissed and hugged her colleagues.”

    According to the Washington Examiner, David Obey understands that the Democrats must appeal to Republicans in Congress;

    “The President is still standing in the way of the change the American people called for in the last election,” the congressman said. “We have to put enough pressure on the president’s Republican allies to leave him. That’s not going to happen overnight.”

    At least Obey is realistic enough to know that Democrats can’t coerce the President into turning moonbat overnight. Even though he can’t get it through his thick skull that most Americans stand foursquare against immediate withdrawal from the war against terrorists – and the Democrats only “mandate” is only in their rhetoric.

    Where were the Democrats when we had troops in Haiti. Remember that? At first our Navy showed up in Port Au Prince and was driven off by shirtless, shoeless thugs on the pier waving machetes. And then while Jimmy Carter was promising the “Generals” a big cash payoff for their expeditious exit from Haiti, President Clinton launched the 82d Airborne Division. Luckily for Jimmy Carter and the generals, Clinton recalled the 82d and coughed up Carter’s negotiated big cash payoff and sent civil affairs and special operators.

    Was anyone demanding a time schedule for withdrawal from that fiasco? Did it solve the Haitian exodus to Miami? In fact, when did the last US soldier leave Haiti? Was it in any of the newspapers? But I remember on September 20th, 1989, Charlie Rangel demanding a time schedule for the troops withdrawal from Panama before the air had cleared of gunsmoke.

    But for all of their incessant yammering over the last six years of “bipartisanship” and “coming together” the Democrats still hide behind their “mandate” of the November election to try and impose their will on the American people. But can Americans trust Democrats to do our bidding?

    Remember their baseless charge that the Bush economy was the worst since Hoover (made by MoveOn.org during the 2004 election and Hillary Clinton)? Did Hoover enjoy a 4.4% unemployment rate or a Dow Index that went from below 8,000 to over 13,000 in 5 years? If we can’t trust Democrats on things we can see with our own eyes, how can we trust them with our future and our security?

  • Just everybody shut up for a bit

    I’m reading Robert Novak’s column in the Washington Post this morning which is just so much hand-wringing over a missed opportunity for peace in Israel.

    The aphorism (originated by Israeli statesman Abba Eban) that Arabs “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” now can be applied to Israel. Last week’s Riyadh declaration indicated the willingness of the Arab world to consider a peaceful solution. Now, belief here among peace-seekers is that nothing will happen until a new president enters the Oval Office in 2009.

    Gee, I wonder why that is? Maybe it’s because the US isn’t perceived as a reliable broker any longer – not because of President Bush and his cabinet, but because, apparently we have 300 million Secretaries of State these days. Everyone with pocket change to buy a ticket flies off to the Middle East, presents themselves as negotiators, swap recipes and tramples innocent bystanders getting to the microphones to trumpet their accomplishments.

    With this president, it began with Congressman McDermott way back in October 2002 when McDermott announced that Saddam Hussein was more trustworthy than President Bush. I’ll use Larry Elder’s recount of the event;

    Standing in Iraq, McDermott incredibly insisted that Americans “have to take the Iraqis on their face value.” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked McDermott, “Before you left for Baghdad, you said the president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war. Do you really believe that?” Following a rambling reply, McDermott finally said, “I think the president would mislead the American people.”

    How can the world have trust in our word with crackpots like that getting face time? Then you’ve got Hillary Clinton telling the New York Post that the President knew about 9-11 attacks before hand and Cynthia McKinney calling for investigations of the Bush Administration before the dust had settled in New York City on that day?

    We left the South Vietnamese to be slaughtered, imprisoned, and floating around the South China Sea, the Cambodians to the whims of a blood-thirsty tyrant. We left the Shi’ites hanging in 1991 while Hussein murdered them in droves, we left the Somalis in a lurch in 1993, we left the Haitians in as bad or worse condition than they were when Jimmy Carter went there to negotiate (not to mention we scooped up every Haitian we found floating in the Caribbean and stuck them in a Guantanamo tent city for indeterminate amount of time) and now Congress is doing it’s level best to broadcast to world that we’re about to abandon the Iraqis. Why won’t Pakistan do more to stop al Qaida operations in their country? Because they’re sure we’ll pull out before the job is done.

    Who could trust us? We don’t speak with one voice – we speak with millions of voices. Spiro Agnew called them the “nattering nabobs of negativity” and, boy, he nailed it. Free speech doesn’t extend to flocks of hypocrits negotiating our surrender.

    And a note to Blinky, Queen of Botox, Jimmy Carter’s endorsement of your “mission” to Syria in no way reflects favorably.  Although Hezbollah may name a rocket after you.

  • Where are the Human Rights Democrats?

    According to John at Powerline, the Democrats are sitting on HR 267 that would condemn the Iranian capture and treatment of 15 British sailors and marines. The Democrats keep preparing for their Spring Break.

    Meanwhile the Iranians are broadcasting video footage of the capture and propaganda footage of the Brits along with the public release of their mail, a clear violation of the laws of land warfare.

    Dick Durbin couldn’t wait to call our own troops SS guards, so where is on this? Why is Pelosi so retiscent about being on the side of our closest and oldest ally? Where’s Amnesty International and the Red Cross who’ve spent reams of paper trying to convince the American public that the US is the worst terrorist in the world?

    Jimmy Carter called Israel an apartheid government. So where is the little cretin now? You’d think he’d have lots of advice and thoughts on dealing with hostages in Iran, but apparently not. I guess he’s still a little gun shy about Iran.

    John Murtha said our troops were cold-blooded murders. What has he got to say about this illegal capture and mistreatment of British troops by the Iranians?

    Not a friggin’ peep from the self-righteous Left.

    Pound sand you hypocritical freaks.

    Read the Right Wing Nut House’s Iran tries the old bait and switch.

  • Biggie as a fearmonger

    Zbigniew “Biggie” Brzezinski, National Security advisor to Jimmy Carter during the decade of National Security advisors with heavy European accents, decides to provide his worthless opinion in the Washington Post on the dangers of the PATRIOT Act and the general and vague dangers of having Republicans fighting terror that he calls “Terrorized by the War on Terror”;

    The “war on terror” has created a culture of fear in America. The Bush administration’s elevation of these three words into a national mantra since the horrific events of 9/11 has had a pernicious impact on American democracy, on America’s psyche and on U.S. standing in the world. Using this phrase has actually undermined our ability to effectively confront the real challenges we face from fanatics who may use terrorism against us.

    The damage these three words have done — a classic self-inflicted wound — is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves. The phrase itself is meaningless. It defines neither a geographic context nor our presumed enemies. Terrorism is not an enemy but a technique of warfare — political intimidation through the killing of unarmed non-combatants.

    The only damage these three words have done has been propagated by the Left in denying that there is a terror threat. The Left’s pooh-poohing of the threat of terrorists against Americans is the greatest danger to our security.

    But the little secret here may be that the vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a “war on terror” did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Support for President Bush in the 2004 elections was also mobilized in part by the notion that “a nation at war” does not change its commander in chief in midstream. The sense of a pervasive but otherwise imprecise danger was thus channeled in a politically expedient direction by the mobilizing appeal of being “at war.”

    So, by describing the war in simplistic terms that everyone can understand, the Republicans are coming for our children under the guise of fighting Islamists. Biggie continues on describing in simplistic terms why we should be afraid of our Republican government while he doesn’t provide one concrete example of the government’s abuse of it’s newfound power in those three magic words. He contends that by calling it a War on Terror, it somehow has the force of law. If that’s not fearmongerng, I don’t know fearmongering.

    If you wade through Biggie’s idiot rant about security checkpoints at the Washington Post, you discover that somehow security checkpoints in Washington are worthless symbols of this administration’s fearmongering. The Washington Post is a private company who sells it’s stock on the New York Stock Exchange – President Bush didn’t personally or indirectly erect the metal detectors in WaPo’s foyer. In fact, most of Washington was hiding behind metal detectors and security badges when I first moved to Washington DC in 1999 – more than two years before the evil Republican neocons attacked the poor Muslims, Biggie. That was when government employees were afraid of another attack by the Michigan Militia.

    The record is even more troubling in the general area of civil rights. The culture of fear has bred intolerance, suspicion of foreigners and the adoption of legal procedures that undermine fundamental notions of justice. Innocent until proven guilty has been diluted if not undone, with some — even U.S. citizens — incarcerated for lengthy periods of time without effective and prompt access to due process. There is no known, hard evidence that such excess has prevented significant acts of terrorism, and convictions for would-be terrorists of any kind have been few and far between. 

    Ya mean like these poor innocent muslims have been victimized, Biggie? How about how Arabs are inflicting their barbaric forms of justice on the rest of us? How many terrorists have we beheaded on video? Have we dragged any of the Guantanamo residents through the streets or hung their bodies from overpasses? Do you recommend that we just let the Islamofacists do what they please like they do in Thailand? And how about some examples of this alleged abuse of the civil rights of the people who don’t believe in civil rights anyway? Others can’t find examples either, Biggie, no matter how hard they look.

    Where is the U.S. leader ready to say, “Enough of this hysteria, stop this paranoia”? Even in the face of future terrorist attacks, the likelihood of which cannot be denied, let us show some sense. Let us be true to our traditions.

    Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. This from the guy who didn’t get exercised about 10,000 Soviet combat troops stationed 90 miles from our coastline to prevent us from reacting to the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The guy who let communist guerillas run rampant throughout Central and South America and Africa. The guy whose President was able to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue on his inauguration day in full view of his constituency, but who’s successor, four years later, had to make the trip in a bullet-proof limosine because the Carter Clowns had made the world too dangerous for our leader to walk in his own country amongst the people who’d elected him.

    Why shouldn’t there be a reasonable attempt to protect our citizens, Biggie? Just because you don’t give a tiny rat’s ass, doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t. I don’t see how a reasonable person can even think that our government is a bigger threat to our citizenry than a culture that already plans our irradication. Honestly, I hope you’re next.

  • Will all of you retired people please stay at home

    I work in an office that has been around for more than 70 years and many of the people that worked here when I started here had been around about half that time. Luckily, they’ve retired. Unluckily, they still come back and kibutz and advise us when their days aren’t as full as they’d like.

    You know what I mean right? After all, we have national examples. Jimmy Carter, for one. I just “googled” “Jimmy Carter criticizes” and got 325,000 results. I guess being the worst president in history isn’t enough for one lifetime.

    Another example is Alan Greenspan who sent world financial markets into a spin last week with his “recession is possible…” comment, can’t seem to shut up. 28 minutes ago, Bloomberg put up a story that reports Greenspan just said that there’s a 1/3 chance of recession this year (whatever the Hell that means) – and they called it “update 1”. Alan, go home and hug your wife and watch some Judge Judy. You have enough money, you don’t need the attention anymore so why do you want to pester us – and poor Ben Bernanke?

    And if that’s not enough, four has-been Senate majority leaders are forming a “bi-partisan” advisory group”.

    The Bipartisan Policy Center, to be announced at a news conference Tuesday, will be directed by former Sens. Howard Baker, R-Tenn.; George Mitchell, D-Maine; Bob Dole, R-Kan.; and Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

    “We’ve all been leaders and you know how difficult it is,” said Dole, who served as both majority and minority leader between 1985 and 1996. “We’re all partisan in a way,” Dole said in an interview Monday, adding they also hope to show that “compromise is not a bad word.”

    Mitchell, who led the Senate from 1989 to 1995, added, “If the four of us can reach consensus in some areas it might have a beneficial effect.”

    What, for Pete’s sake could this cabal of politicians who are no longer in office possibly offer the world besides worthless opions. If I’m subjected to Tom Dascle’s “I’m concerned…” one more time, I’ll have to track him down and put a boot in his behind. 

    You can bet that when I finally retire again, I’ll not pester any-damn-body with my opinions – well, except here, of course.

  • Albright; Iraq policy worst disaster in US foreign policy history

    The ugliest, and arguably the most worthless Secretary of State in history, Madeleine Albright, claims that Iraq may be the greatest US foreign policy failure in history;

    “I think that Iraq is going to go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy,” Albright said, with former President Jimmy Carter at her side in one of a series of “Conversations at the Carter Center.”

    “We have lost the element of goodness in American power, and we have lost our moral authority,” she said. “The job of the next president will be to restore the goodness of American power.”

    I guess she didn’t hear that Haiti is still going badly, the Somalis just now rid themselves, for however briefly, of the al Qaida influeces in their country after the Klintoons bailed on them nearly 13 years ago. How’s that Bosnia thing going, Maddy? Remember the one that you and the guys promised we’d be out of 11 years ago?

    And do you remember that Yassir Arafat was begging for a peace deal with Israel under President Bush 41, but by the end of your administration, he was strutting around rejecting the sweetheart deals you and your boss were offering?

    Since you had Jimmy Carter next to you, ask him how the hostage crisis went in Iran. Ask him about the 9,000 Soviet combat soldiers that were stationed in Cuba to prevent us from responding to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (as if Carter would have responded anyway). And I guess a reasonable person could draw a straight line from the policy failures of Carter and Clintoon to the troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan today, couldn’t they?

    Let’s talk about the “goodness” of American power. The truth is, Maddy, most Americans could give a tiny rat’s ass what the rest of the world thinks of us as long as we have food on the table, clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads. And we’re not worried that we might get blown to pieces on the way to the supermarket this morning. 

    Regardless of what you might think, the “goodness” of American power is in the eyes of the beholder. Countries who don’t see the goodness of America’s power today aren’t acting in the best interests of their own people, and they certainly don’t care a whit whether you, an American (I’m guessing you’re an American this week) are still breathing in the morning.

    Oh, and then, all pumped by Maddy, Jimmy Carter (my favorite pointer-outer of American failures) started yapping;

    Carter said all previous presidents have said the United States would go to war only if its security was endangered, but that President Bush made it clear that there is a new policy of pre-emptive war.

    Um, Jimmy, do you remember the Carter Doctrine? Do you remember that you pre-emptively stationed a couple of US warships in the Persian Gulf to protect the free flow of Gulf oil at market prices? Apparently not.

    This what is killing the Democrat Party. The people who claim to be the voice of the Democrat Party just act like they’re so damn smart – and there are enough syncophantic lunkheads out there who want to be thought of as smart, too. So they just nod and smile like a class full of college freshmen who just heard the first paragraph of The Odessey read to them in Greek.Then the lunkheads go forth and regurgitate this baseless, vile stuff everywhere across the internet on discussion boards – then they link to mierda like this as if it’s some sort of evidence of their towering intellect. And other lunkheads join the choir.

    Someone prove me wrong and tell me about one enduring foreign policy triumph of either Carter or Albright. Just one. Successfully forcing the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1988 by boycotting the Moscow Olympics in 1980 doesn’t count, however.

  • The Carter Clan still doesn’t get it

    Apparently, Jimmy Carter was busy elsewhere this weekend before he embarrassed himself at Brandeis. From an article by the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (by way of Little Green Footballs) we discover that Carter’s old crew had a big celebration in Athens, GA this last weekend trying to rewrite his legacy;

    Tom Johnson, former president of CNN, said Carter should be judged by his body of work, not the disappointments of his final year in the White House.

    “That obscured four years of achievement,” Johnson said.

    So what did I miss in the previous three years? Was it the double-digit inflation? Surrendering the Panama Canal? Doubled fuel prices? Jimmy Carter’s “malaise speech” was given the summer before the election year (“his final year”) and by that time Americans were pretty dissappointed in their choice.

    Jim Wooten, a New York Times reporter in the 1970s and later an ABC correspondent, said it would be interesting to play out 1980 without the hostages.

    “I think Carter would probably have won,” Wooten said.

    Sorry, Wooten, but the Iranian hostage crisis was a symptom, not the cause. By the time the Iranians had taken hostages, the Soviets had stationed a 9,000-man combat brigade in Cuba and had invaded Afghanistan because Carter had made it clear that there would be no tangible reaction from the US.

    And of course, the man, Jimmy Carter, who lost control of our foreign policy, had advice for us for the future;

    “We are developing an ingrained hatred for people who aren’t Christians,” said Carter, a Sunday School teacher since he was 18 years old.

    Unwarranted fear of terrorism is behind these feelings, he said.

    “The distortion that we are about to be destroyed makes us suspicious of those who don’t worship the way we do,” he said. “And our country has no reason to be afraid.”

    Other than the fact that an entire religion wants to destroy our way of life. It’s not that they don’t worship the way we do, numbnuts, it’s WHAT they worship and WHAT they value that should give us reason to be afraid.

    And need I remind you, Jimmy, you walked the entire distance from the Capitol to the White House on your Inauguration Day – just like every President before you for nearly two hundred years. You were the last. By the time you left office, it wasn’t safe for the new American President to walk the street among his fellow citizens to mark the celebration of a government by the People. Every President since Jimmy Carter has had to ride that magic mile in a bulletproof limosine. Let’s talk about fear being unwarranted, you snaggle-toothed bumpkin.

    Unwarranted fear from stuff like this I suppose;

    Israel and the United States will soon be destroyed, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday during a meeting with Syria’s foreign minister, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) website said in a report.

    Sounds like someone we can reason with, doesn’t it? But he’s not worried because apparently he knows that Democrats won’t let happen an attack on his rogue state;

    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday he did not expect a U.S. attack on Iran because there were plenty of “wise people” in the United States who would not let it happen.

    “Wise people” can be roughly translated to “useful idiots”.

    At least some people get it.