A Reason To Smile
For anybody who’s wondering whether we’re doing the right thing these days vis-a-vis foreign policy (and many other matters as well), this ought to put things in perspective and hopefully inspire a sigh of relief.
Surely disappointing certain people is the best sign you’re doing things right…kind of like Rosie telling you that you should lose some weight.
UPDATE (from GPW): Once again, Jimmy Carter shows a total absence of class. He seems to give President Bush the title that he himself earned while matching interest rates climb past 20% as the economy tanked and our image around the world became increainsgly tarnished, with a one-time ally (Iran) falling to Islamic radicals and emboldening terrorists. Yeah, Nick is right, Carter lecturing us on foreign policy is like Rosie lecturing on losing weight — or promoting decorum in public discourse.
Carter has just become a bitter (and miserable) old man, still smarting over his landslide loss to Ronald Reagan twenty-seven years ago. Yes, his bile is unprecedented. Because most prior ex-presidents have had the grace to express their criticism via private channels and/or with less vitriol or hyperbole..
Carter is little more than a laughingstock, an old crank who would be ignored by the media if they did not have their own axe to grind with the Administration.
For Jimmy Carter to lecture any successor on foreign relations is like a man offering driving lessons after completing a court-mandated course in traffic school. For him to fault the Administration for not engaging in peace talks in Israel after publishing his own dishonest screed on Israeli policy! This peanut farmer’s criticism is not only dishonest, but it also ignores the nature of the Palestinian regime which supports kidnapping, launches rockets at schools and refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist.
And Carter’s comments also ignore the change of governments in two major European countries, much more favorable now to the United States, with the new French foreign minister (Bernard Kouchner) having defended the U.S. operation in Iraq.
Yes, Carter’s comments do give us a reason to smile for they show how out of touch this unhappy man is with the state of the world. It’s unfortunate that the media does not wonder why this president who failed would level such mean-spirited and unsubstantiatd accusations. Perhaps they just want to show some sensitivity to the senile.
50 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
OMG… He has the freakin nerve to talk.
It was HE who failed to deal with Afghanistan being invaded by Soviet Union and it was HE who failed to deal with the establishment of an Islamic Republic in Iran.
He gave the Panama Canal away.. and now Hezbellah is down there
HE oppurtunistly took credit for Camp David accord and had us giving billions of dollars to egypt a year
and then there was the fiscal backwardness that occured under him.
Plus having to see Liza Minnelli do poppers at Studio 54.. no wonder I turned out gay.
Comment by Vince P — May 19, 2007 @ 6:13 pm - May 19, 2007
Yeah, I rolled my eyes when I heard that, though one could argue that he could be right, since, in theory, it takes a worst-on-foreign-policy president to know one.
Comment by sonicfrog — May 19, 2007 @ 6:14 pm - May 19, 2007
1: It was actually Carter who began the American involvement in Afghanistan; being advised that supporting/arming Afghanistan would turn it the Soviet Union’s own Vietnam – (which he now admits was his biggst foriegn policy mistake). That support grew and flourished under Republican control though. When the conflict ended, America abandoned Afghanistan – over a milion dead and lack of resources. It was left in a state that allowed the criminal control to overwhelm then country leaving it a prime place for terrorists to hide and plan the 9/11 attacks.
Comment by Kevin — May 19, 2007 @ 7:55 pm - May 19, 2007
[...] Original post by ColoradoPatriot [...]
Pingback by Politics: 2008 HQ » Blog Archive » A Reason To Smile — May 19, 2007 @ 8:07 pm - May 19, 2007
What? Is he gunning for another Nobel?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — May 19, 2007 @ 8:46 pm - May 19, 2007
These Muslims are no good.
They have to go
Our rights under seige not only by the Democrats.. but also by their allies… the Jihadis.
Read this and weep
NY Public School Madrassa Advisor Threatened NYU with Danish Cartoon JIHAD
atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2007/05/ny_public_schoo.html
Comment by Vince P — May 19, 2007 @ 9:14 pm - May 19, 2007
He has some nerve. For Carter to discuss foreign policy is like Clinton talking about ethics in leadership. And that goes for Bill as well.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — May 19, 2007 @ 9:55 pm - May 19, 2007
Does anyone know of any politician that actually cares about Americans and what “our” interests are???
…..crickets chirping, frogs croaking.
Comment by Pamela — May 19, 2007 @ 10:32 pm - May 19, 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G_jZljo12Q&mode=related&search=
This is from a Discovery Channel type docu of the people inside the WTC when it was struck.
This part is right before teh 2nd plane hits…. a guy went all the way to lobby and was told to go back up. when he’s back at his desk, he looks out the window and sees the plane coming at him eye level (he survives)
Comment by Vince P — May 19, 2007 @ 10:55 pm - May 19, 2007
Carter criticized Bush for having “zero peace talks in Israel.” Golly, those peace talks have always worked in the past…oh wait.
Anyway it’s clear why Carter wants Bush to be the worst president ever: he no longer wants that dubious legacy for himself.
Comment by Pink Elephant — May 20, 2007 @ 12:32 am - May 20, 2007
What was more embarrasing than Yassir Arafat getting up and leaving the “final status” talks of 2000 and having Madeline Albright literally run after him to beg him not to leave.
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 12:47 am - May 20, 2007
#9
How about Albright’s shock that NoKo would actually build bombs with the nuclear material she and Jimmy gave them?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — May 20, 2007 @ 1:23 am - May 20, 2007
I’m listening to the NYFD dispatch tapes from 9/11… oh it’s horrible. After teh first bldg falls, a civilian ends up in a firetruck and is screaming desperately in the Fire Dept radios.. all the firemen are out of breath and desprate. I dont know why i’m doing this tot myself.
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 1:24 am - May 20, 2007
Kevin: I’m humored you think I need a history lesson.
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 1:31 am - May 20, 2007
“What? Is he gunning for another Nobel?”
He would have to actually kill Jews to get a second one. They only give Peace Nobels to real Nazis these days.
BTW, when I went to that link I saw a picture of Jimmy with a big pucker over top of “The week in photos May 11-17″ featuring a chameleon blasting something with its tongue. Sort of a before and after shot. LOL!
Comment by Saul Wall — May 20, 2007 @ 1:32 am - May 20, 2007
Carter didn’t seem so bad at the time.
Granted, that was jr. highschool for me, but I knew whatever was on the news at that time, just without the context for it. When Carter got criticized the worst it was for talking about Jesus to the leader of Vietnam. (IIRC). One of my college poly-sci teachers expressed the opinion that his greatest weakness was that he wouldn’t delegate and basically ran himself ragged. At that point, that seemed insightful to me, and worked right in with what I knew and remembered.
No… people weren’t *happy* with him but I don’t think that people thought he was anything like the worst president ever. Camp David was hopeful… And while the Iranian crisis was an issue, probably the decisive one (other than the economy) for his losing the presidency… it was the indecisiveness, I think, rather than any lack of militant solutions… I mean, IIRC, the thing about Delta Force was that either he should have *done* it, or done something else, not dinked around. I don’t think it was that people *wanted* war, but he dinked around without conviction in *any* direction.
Anyhow… I think that the horrible results of what he did as president have come to light since then as we actually live those results.
We sort of laugh about Clinton’s care for his “legacy” but it is how president’s work holds up to time that matters and that only becomes apparent later. Much, much later.
Which is a really windy way of me getting around to saying that the title of “worst president ever” is completely meaningless *during* a presidency.
I hear people say it about Bush all the time but I figure that it’s just as likely to go the other way in History. But that’s something that we have to wait for.
We look back at Carter and it’s appalling. And he wants more of the same and thinks it’s making progress… I feel sorry for the man. I really do.
Comment by Synova — May 20, 2007 @ 2:35 am - May 20, 2007
Carter is so many things in your so many paragraphs telling us that he is a luaghingstock that needs so many paragraphs. Now I’m laughing.
Comment by sean — May 20, 2007 @ 4:08 am - May 20, 2007
Oh if only we had a liberal president, back then, who would have pushed for “earmarks” and extension of our constitution to protect their Taliban buddies.
BTW, how many U.S. presidents have been attacked by a bunny rabbit?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — May 20, 2007 @ 5:51 am - May 20, 2007
Y’know, I’m increasingly of the mind that Bush should just become a Democrat. He’d stop disgracing the Republicans, and he’d suddenly be a hero to guys like Carter. Plus, Bush and his BFF Ted Kennedy would get to work together on all kinds of domestic legislation. And the Democrats would finally get behind winning the war because one of their own would be in charge.
Comment by V the K — May 20, 2007 @ 8:23 am - May 20, 2007
Also, as NDT will tell you, Bush’s endorsement of the FMA would be seen as gay-friendly and gay-supportive were he a Democrat.
Comment by V the K — May 20, 2007 @ 8:34 am - May 20, 2007
lest we forget, jimmy carter is a nobel peace prize winner. the only prize bushco will win is the ignominous title of worst president ever.
Comment by rightiswrong — May 20, 2007 @ 9:29 am - May 20, 2007
rightiswrong:
You are so right. Carter belongs to that exclusive club that includes Yassir Arafat.
How proud you all must be .
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 9:59 am - May 20, 2007
How come this isn’t in the news yet?
The DNC is being sued for discriminating against Gays.
HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
Howard Dean and the DNC are being sued for defamation and discrimination by a former employee – claiming among other things that Dean discriminates against gays and violated the “D.C. Human Rights Act”.
hotair.com/archives/2007/05/14/deans-dnc-reaping-what-it-has-sewn/
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 10:01 am - May 20, 2007
Here are some good parts from the lawsuit (I have to retype it, so i’m paraphrasing)
10 – Defendant Howard Dean ran for Chair of DNC. During campaign, Dean said DNC would continue to employ individuals to work with the LGBT community including outreach
11 – Immediately after his election, Dean broke his campaign pledge to the LGBT community and took a number of deliberate steps to deemphasize the role, resources, and prominense of the LGBT contituency within the DNC
(Love that)
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 10:26 am - May 20, 2007
12 – Dean eliminated the DNC’s Director of LGBT Outreach position, which was the Party’s only LGBT outreach position. The reason Dean gave was that every department within the DNC would perform outreach. Dean did not eliminate outreach positions for other constituencies.
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 10:28 am - May 20, 2007
The only job left for LGBT was in the Fundraising arm of DNC (of course)
Gay activist groups compained about the loss of the political postition
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 10:30 am - May 20, 2007
the DNC said the guy who gets the money job could also do the political work
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 10:30 am - May 20, 2007
They hired the plantiff
After placating the gay groups by saying the new guy could do fundraising AND political work, “the DNC did not support Hitcocks work in the political department to the same extent that it supported the work of the other constituencies
When hitchcock would invite himself to the political meetings of the DNC, OTHER STAFF TREATED HIM WITH HOSTILITY
(so much for tolerance of Democrats)
And it goes on and on,, I’m not typing all the whining and complaining he put in the lawsuit
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 10:30 am - May 20, 2007
http://www.courthousenews.com/HitchDNC.pdf
Read it yourself.
I never want to hear about how the Democrats are “pro-gay” again from you hyprocrites.
[ Sorry for posting this with like 10 indidivual posts.. The blog thing was rejecting some word and i was trying to narrow down what word it was]
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 10:31 am - May 20, 2007
Carter didn’t seem so bad at the time.
Oh Please! I was twelve years old. The price of a snickers bar went from 15 to 35 cents. I HATED him for that
.
Comment by sonicfrog — May 20, 2007 @ 11:10 am - May 20, 2007
#30 I don’t remember the price of snickers bars but I was in high school when Reagan became president and unemployment was 14%. None of us believed we’d ever find a job, be able to buy a house. The economy was sooo bad. (NOW, of course, unemployment of 5% or less is soooo bad, and it’s all Bush’s fault.)
#21 Does anyone take the peace prize seriously anymore? It seems pretty obvious that it’s the equivalent of teachers voting to give the trouble makers and bad students “student of the week” at school in the hopes that they will be encouraged to behave better. (The perfect students *never* got student of the week. I assume it was because they *didn’t* need this encouragement.)
You know… reliving high school is not something I find pleasant.
Comment by Synova — May 20, 2007 @ 1:49 pm - May 20, 2007
Vince and Syn, it’s been a generation since Carter. Americans have forgotten how truly awful it is to live under unchallenged liberal Democrat rule. Maybe 2009-2013 should remind them.
Comment by V the K — May 20, 2007 @ 2:07 pm - May 20, 2007
32: It doesn’t help when the Congressional Republicans cant help themselves fast enough when self-destructing.
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 2:18 pm - May 20, 2007
I will if Rush wins. I have a low opinion of it now which will only be cemented if Gore wins for his docu-ganda film.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — May 20, 2007 @ 5:05 pm - May 20, 2007
Speaking of which, what kind of HACK goes over to Oslo to campaign for the Nobel?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — May 20, 2007 @ 5:06 pm - May 20, 2007
Carter holds the worst-president-ever spot in my book.
But Bush may end up being the runner-up.
I think it’s time to amend the Constitution to elect presidents for a single, six-year term. They’re worthless in the second term.
I cite as this weeks example the immigration “reform” bill.
From the Boston Globe:
Bush removes provision requiring back taxes from illegal immigrants
Apparently, last-years requirement that they pay some amount of back taxes is too much to swallow. Sure with I could skip paying taxes now and then.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/05/19/bush_removes_provision_requiring_back_taxes_from_illegal_immigrants/
Criminy.
Comment by Robert — May 20, 2007 @ 6:31 pm - May 20, 2007
love the revisionist history. “WIN” whip inflation now. thank you conservatives. delusion reigns.
Comment by george — May 20, 2007 @ 6:56 pm - May 20, 2007
George, what is your comment in #37 supposed to mean? How does it even address the point of this post?
Comment by GayPatriotWest — May 20, 2007 @ 7:05 pm - May 20, 2007
37: try making some sense.
Comment by Vince P — May 20, 2007 @ 8:07 pm - May 20, 2007
The White House responds by calling Carter “increasingly irrelevant”:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/05/20/carter.bush.ap/index.html
Comment by Pink Elephant — May 20, 2007 @ 9:32 pm - May 20, 2007
Carter = Misery Index. If you were born after 1976, this phrase would be absolutely meaningless for you.
Enough said.
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — May 20, 2007 @ 10:22 pm - May 20, 2007
#40
For that to be true, though, you have to be relevant in the first place.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — May 21, 2007 @ 1:18 am - May 21, 2007
So now Carter has begun to backtrack, implying that the fault of his comments was not his, but those who misinterpreted them. This line of self-defense is not backtracking at all; it allows him to indulge in shifting blame while implying that he didn’t really mean to ‘go there’. This is rather like someone saying “You know, I’d mention how awful you are, but I’d rather not go there”, allowing the conversation indeed to go there (which was the purpose of the comment) while giving themselves the false claim they didn’t want to and the platform of denial if asked to elaborate.
Comment by HardHobbit — May 21, 2007 @ 2:13 pm - May 21, 2007
I like this threadline from another blog: “Rusted, Leaky, Decrepit Pot Says Kettle ‘Worst Ever.’”
Comment by V the K — May 21, 2007 @ 2:19 pm - May 21, 2007
Carter farms peanuts – ’nuff said.
Comment by LesbianNeoCon — May 21, 2007 @ 4:34 pm - May 21, 2007
Let’s see…Southern democrat governor, harridan wife, weird kid, still unable to stay out of the spotlight…
Sounds familiar?
And we want this AGAIN? Sheesh…
Regards,
Peter H.
Comment by Peter Hughes — May 21, 2007 @ 6:04 pm - May 21, 2007
Who is Jimmy Carter?
Comment by Sean — May 21, 2007 @ 6:55 pm - May 21, 2007
#16 “Carter didn’t seem so bad at the time” You were in JR high at the time eh. Let me tell you how bad it was. 20% interest rates when I bought my first house. That’s like buyng a house on a credit card. Unbelievable interest payments. Can you imagine what that did to the housing market and subsequent home goods retailers? It was depression like. 7% unemployment…If we had that today imagine the medias hysteria. 10% inflation..people were actually making purchases quickly trying to avoid rising prices. We ran to stores hoping to out run the guy with the sticker gun. (back then, yeah thats how things were priced, no bar codes). TV ran pictures of pre Nazi Germany when they had to pay for things with suitcases full of DeucheMARKS. In Carters second Presidential campaign, Reagan’s team invented the “misery index”. The 3 numbers above added together. 20+7+10= 37 misery index. It is a good guage of an economy. Today…the index is 13. Imagine interest rates, inflation, and unemployment nearly triple what it is now. Carter’s final abomination was when he told the nation, America must get used to not being the best in the world. That every nation must accept it’s fate. And that our greatest days were behind us. He sat in a cold White House in a sweater, telling the nation to adjust our goals and hopes. It was called the malaise speech. Imagine an American President saying those things. He lost to an amazing man, Ronald Wilson Reagan, my hero. He saved us. Carter wants W to be considered the worst President because then he won’t be on the bottom. He counts on living long enough that there will be fewer to remember how horrible he was as President. If our schools actually taught kids history and civics, our children would know to snicker whenever they saw Mr Carter.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — May 21, 2007 @ 10:14 pm - May 21, 2007
So now Carter has begun to backtrack,
It was a “botched joke”.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — May 22, 2007 @ 2:01 am - May 22, 2007
Gene, the period of Carter’s presidency (1977-1981) was a disaster for America. But the sad truth is, it would have been no different if Ford had been re-elected in 1976. Ford and Carter were both, essentially, status quo establishment politicians. It took a visionary, Reagan, to shake things up and make real change… like ending the 70% marginal tax rate.
Party affiliation does not matter nearly so much as first principles.
And in our own time, we are facing serious economic and international challenges. But this time, we have exactly zero serious candidates capable of shaking up the status quo.
Comment by V the K — May 22, 2007 @ 9:42 am - May 22, 2007