Carter's folly

It is getting more and more difficult to give Jimmy Carter a pass on his foolishness.

He wrote a book on the Israeli vs. Palestinian conflict in 2006 called Peace, Not Apartheid, not so subtly linking the debate on Palestinian statehood in the Middle East to the repression of blacks for decades by a wealthy white minority in South Africa. He has also shown extremely poor judgment when paying calls on certain dictators; Oliver North reports here that he once clinked glasses with Fidel Castro, which indeed did occur in May of 2002. Read about that here.

But now, laying a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat?

Stephen Hayward, of the American Enterprise Institute, authored a book in 2004 called The Real Jimmy Carter. The book provides a lot of fodder for Hayward's belief that Carter's reputation for post-presidential "statesmanship" is vastly overrated. While I differ with some of Hayward's more vicious pronouncements, I am fast coming to the same conclusion.

I don't think Carter is an evil man, as some conservatives argue. I am a big admirer of all he has done for the Habitat for Humanity; he has really brought their work to a level of awareness that it probably would never have achieved without his assistance in the mid-'80's. The Carter Center in Atlanta also seems to be responsible for a lot of needed humanitarian effort, though I haven't done a lot of homework on what they have accomplished.

Today, though, the world suffers from an overabundance of good people who "know" falsely and act with accompanying arrogance, and Carter qualifies for this description, as well as another label: "useful idiot."

Jimmy Carter was sent packing in 1980 because the American public was weary of his blustering moral certainty accompanied by a lackluster leadership performance across the board. The same man who declared "I'll never lie to you" in 1976 was responsible for one of the most disastrous Presidencies of modern times, rendered stuttering and helpless by the twin factors of inflation and unemployment (stagflation).

He seems to have learned nothing from this electoral whipping in the ensuing 28 years. The term "useful idiot" was applied in the days of Communist predominance by Communist officials toward westerners who were highly regarded in their home countries and were perceived as "good people" but sympathetic toward the Communists. It is too bad that we have to consign an ex-President who has indeed done good things to this category, but that conclusion is becoming more difficult to forestall.

Jimmy, just stay home with Rosalynn and grow peanuts!