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Jimmy Carter, our last honest, honorable President.
Too bad he had the economic blowback from the Vietnam War dumped on his Presidency.
Posted by: justintime | April 4, 2008 1:27 PM
I have always thought history would treat President Carter more kindly than his contemporaries. He may not be remembered as a successful president, but he will be remembered as an honorable man. This is something the Republican Social Darwinists who followed him have not earned, even among many of their political supporters.
Posted by: Sue | April 4, 2008 1:47 PM
The only president you have had in my lifetime who was neither a fool nor a knave
meurig
Posted by: meurig | April 4, 2008 3:26 PM
A decent man who was overwhelmed by a combination of honest mistakes and events out of his control, Out of office he turned bitter and just a bit dishonest.
In his defense, he was dealt a tough hand in office, and conservatives (IMHO) were rougher on him than he deserved. Ridicule will do that to a man sometimes.
Not our worst President, but far from our best.
Wolverine
Posted by: Wolverine | April 4, 2008 3:40 PM
Out of office he turned bitter and just a bit dishonest.
????
Posted by: Don | April 4, 2008 3:48 PM
In the best sense of being an elder, Jimmy Carter remains a remarkable statesman. Love, timely change, and dedication to truth appear to mark his personality.
Posted by: Rev. Gola Wolf Richards | April 4, 2008 5:16 PM
Weren't fellow Democrats in the Congress Carter's biggest obstacle politically? Remember he ran as a conservative southern governor. The lib. wing orf the party, led by Ted Kennedy seemed to have it out for him.
Yes, he did and does seem to be bitter.
Jeff
Posted by: Jeff | April 4, 2008 5:46 PM
Bitter, perhaps, especially over his election loss to Reagan in 1980, though I think he's gotten over that since. And certainly while he was president, he was in over his head, especially with the Iranian revolution.
Jeff, you're right from what I can recall regarding his relations with fellow Democrats in Congress.
But I question dishonest. Contrarily, I think he has been one of the most honest and forthright presidents we've ever had, and he's never struck me as one who dissembles or otherwise comes short in truthfulness. The work he's done in the years since he left office will be a greater legacy, perhaps, than his time in the White House.
D
Posted by: Don | April 4, 2008 7:12 PM
Don,
I agree, I wouldn't say he is dishonest.
Jeff
Posted by: Jeff | April 4, 2008 7:52 PM
Wolverine, in what way has Carter been dishonest and in what way bitter?
Posted by: carl copas | April 4, 2008 7:57 PM
Blaming the Carter administration's economic woes on the Vietnam War is something I've never heard before, and I commend justintime for his originality! In that the last U.S. troops departed Vietnam in March 1973 and Carter didn't leave office until 1981, I find it hard to believe that you could blame 20 percent interest rates and high unemployment on the war. I remember all too well the horrible economic times of the late 1970s and 1980 which make today's economic slowdown seem like a walk in the park. I'll agree with the "honorable man" label, but economics was not his area of expertise.
Posted by: Cads | April 4, 2008 9:07 PM
Vietnam War and the American Economy
The Vietnam War had several effects on the U.S. economy. The requirements of the war effort strained the nation's production capacities, leading to imbalances in the industrial sector. Factories that would have been producing consumer goods were being used to make items from the military, causing controversy over the government's handling of economic policy. In addition, the government's military spending caused several problems for the American economy. The funds were going overseas, which contributed to an imbalance in the balance of payments and a weak dollar, since no corresponding funds were returning to the country. In addition, military expenditures, combined with domestic social spending, created budget deficits which fueled inflation. Anti-war sentiments and dissatisfaction with government further eroded consumer confidence. Interest rates rose, restricting the amount of capital available for businesses and consumers. Despite the success of many Kennedy and Johnson economic policies, the Vietnam War was a important factor in bringing down the American economy from the growth and affluence of the early 1960s to the economic crises of the 1970s.
...
More detailed, scholarly discussions of the effects of economic blowback from the Vietnam War on the American economy are available. The effects took nearly a decade before on fiscal policy was able to restore balance to the economy.
Carter's appointee, Fed chairman Paul Volcker raised the Fed rate to 12%, and turned inflation around. This was a bitter pill for America to swallow and much of the blame was placed on Carter.
Those were rather bleak years for our family too but I didn't blame Carter for it.
Posted by: justintime | April 4, 2008 9:43 PM
justintime has it exactly right. Spending on Vietnam and the Cold War military was an enormous burden on the U.S. economy of the 70's, and led to the recession and inflation that began during Ford's short term. The single most intelligent economic policy idea of Carter's Presidency was his plan to make independent of foreign energy sources. Unfortunately those who succeeded him, right up to the current occupant of the White House, took us in another direction.
Posted by: phil | April 4, 2008 11:22 PM
I see that you quoted entirely from historycentral.com. It's ironic that they first praise Kennedy's and Johnson's economic policies and then fail to attribute the Vietnam War to those very same men who started and then escalated the event that they think brought on "the economic crises of the 1970s." How can one believe anything opinionated they say?
When Carter took office in 1/77, the misery index (unemployment + inflation rates) was a manageable 12.7% and was approximately the same at 12.6% some 16 months later. Only then did the downward spiral start, culminating in a 22.0% index in 6/80. This was a direct result of the Iranian Revolution in late 1978, which resulted in a terrific downturn in world oil production.
Carter's fault? Here's my take: Somewhat, because he certainly did nothing positive to help the situation. His decision to let the Shah into the U.S. for medical reasons in October 1979 (bad error) led to the hostage situation only 13 days later and stopped our importing of Iranian oil completely per executive order. The failed rescue attempt in 4/80 emboldened OPEC's decision to rapidly raise oil prices in response to perceived American weakness. IMO, these were the reasons for a worsening U.S. economy; not because of the Vietnam War.
Posted by: Cads | April 5, 2008 3:26 AM
Here's a link to a pretty thorough takedown of Jimmy Carter's latest book:
And if anyone can show that Fox News runs the Huffington Post, I give up.
Wolverine
Posted by: Wolverine | April 5, 2008 1:42 PM
Most people don't give Carter credit for being the father of the Islamic Revolution like they should. Atleast weknow hehates Jew's. And he's a moron. Know wonder he and Wallis get along so well.
Posted by: debarrio | April 5, 2008 2:02 PM
Reagan didn't handle Iran very well, either - recall the arms to Iran for hostages swap that got his administration in hot water over the Iran-Contra scandal, in two spheres of illegality - supplying arms to Iran through the Israeli cutout and then taking profits from that and funding the anti-Sandinista forces illegally, all under the table.
We could grant Reagan, like Carter, the benefit as to the doubt as to his good intentions.
The gross insults are out of place on a Christian forum and violate the rules for posting. Whoever does so in that manner undermines their own arguments thereby.
Posted by: N.M. Rod | April 5, 2008 4:42 PM
"A decent man who was overwhelmed by a combination of honest mistakes and events out of his control, Out of office he turned bitter and just a bit dishonest"
Wolverine I agree with your view , It appears to me Wallis and Carter are using each other as a platform , but only reaching the basic narrow audience . Jimmy Carter stated he promoted WIC because he was pro life , that was the man I liked .
Unless your a die hard liberal , Carter's years in ofice and legacy was failure , he made it worse by his negativitism and finger pointing , as if the way he handled terrosism was an example to be followed ?
Posted by: Mick | April 5, 2008 5:13 PM
Henry Kissinger summarized it this way: 'The Carter administration has managed the extraordinary feat of having, at one and the same time, the worst relations with our allies, the worst relations with our adversaries, and the most serious upheavals in the developing world since the end of the Second World War.'"
Posted by: Don | April 5, 2008 10:33 PM
Uh, Wolverine, I can see just from the URL that the review was written by Alan Dershowitz, who has an immense dislike for Carter and anyone else who speaks strongly about Israel's obligation to abide by human rights principles vis-a-vis the Palestinians. Dershowitz has tried to interfere with DePaul University's awarding of a department chairmanship to Norman Finkelstein for this reason. He has written that there are some instances in which torture is acceptable. He defends pornography and opposed the feminists in the Deep Throat hearings in the early 70's. All in all, he makes enemies very easily. Don't think his post on the Huffington blog will go down without controversy--
I doubt even Huff herself agrees with it.
Posted by: I and I | April 5, 2008 10:45 PM
Don:"...the worst relations with our allies, the worst relations with our adversaries..."
Funny, Kissinger should talk. He's the guy who overturned elected democracies and replaced them with dictatorships.
Mick: "Carter's years in office and legacy was failure..."
Mick, I suggest you Google "Sadat" and "Begin" and "Carter." Perhaps Kissinger is jealous that Carter did something he could not do.
Posted by: I and I | April 5, 2008 10:51 PM
I and I ,
Some how I doubt too many people are jealous of Carter . I liked him when he was in office , but I am prone to give most people the benefit of the doubt . I did not blame him for the high interest rates , remember the weird schemes banks came up with to allow the middle class to buy homes .
I always figured it was the results of oil shooting up in price and the results of our market compenasting for something that use to be cheap that we relied on becoming more expensive .
But the only market I knew of in those days was measured in grams .
But then again , Carter the inspiration told us to get use to it , defended the Shah , had the responsibility of doing nothing but one failed attemt while hostages were humiliated and held captive in front of the world , and oh yeah , he made peace in the middle east ?
I admit have just a newspaper account of the real history , perhaps some right winf blogs , the left wing stuff usually is insulting myself or my religion in every paragraph so I usually give it less creditability .
But Carter hates conservatives and blames Israel for everything , which makes him popular among liberals , but that is all I and I .
Posted by: Mick | April 6, 2008 12:06 AM
Posted by: Don | April 5, 2008 10:33 PM
The comments attributed to Henry Kissinger were posted by another Don, not me, the one who usually posts under that name.
I and I:
I was going to say something about Dershowitz's not being exactly an unbiased observer, but you already did.
But Carter hates conservatives and blames Israel for everything , which makes him popular among liberals
Well, there's an over-generalization if I've ever seen one.
D
Posted by: Don | April 6, 2008 6:39 AM
Don:
No worse than:
I can see just from the URL that the review was written by Alan Dershowitz, who has an immense dislike for Carter and anyone else who speaks strongly about Israel's obligation to abide by human rights principles vis-a-vis the Palestinians.
Wolverine
Posted by: Wolverine | April 6, 2008 12:32 PM
Well, there's an over-generalization if I've ever seen one.
D
Posted by: Don
????????
Posted by: Mick | April 6, 2008 3:10 PM
There is a reason why Dershowitz dislikes Carter. It's not just his fashion sense. It is interesting that his critique of Carter is deemed illegitimate because he has criticized Carter. By this standard, we can dismiss literally any critique.
Posted by: Kevin S. | April 7, 2008 1:37 AM
Well, I actually read the column in Huffington that Wolverine directs us to. In it, Dershowitz claims that Carter erred in his reporting of history in his book on the Palestinian situation. I'm not familiar enough with the facts to determine whether Carter got these details wrong or not. But given Dershowitz's biases, I'm not sure I can fully trust his "corrections" either.
Regardless, Dershowitz's comments don't prove Carter's dishonesty, which was the reason Wolverine sent us there. Even if Dershowitz's version of the facts is correct, it doesn't prove that Carter deliberately misstated and misrepresented them, which is what we would need to know if we wanted to accuse Carter of dishonesty. I'd need to see more evidence to accuse Carter of dishonesty.
Mick, your statement is over-generalized because:
1 you claim that Carter "hates" conservatives. Hates is a strong word. Prove to me that he hates conservatives. Maybe he dislikes their policies and ideals, but I doubt whether he hates people who hold those ideals.
2. You claim that he likewise blames Israel for everything. Ignoring the fact that you don't define what you mean by 'everything,' since Carter brokered the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab state, I question that sentiment. And it isn't 'blaming' Israel to point out the fact that in their treatment of their Palestinian neighbors, they have become what they themselves have claimed to hate--Nazi-like authoritarians. This sounds more like Carter is offering tough love than simple blame. You can take issue with that characteristic if you want--but demonstrate with facts and examples--but you can't claim that Carter blames Israel for 'everything.'
There is a reason why Dershowitz dislikes Carter.
Dershowitz's first line is: "I like Jimmy Carter. I have known him since he began his run for president in early 1976. I worked hard for his election, and I have admired the work of the Carter Center throughout the world."
Peace,
Posted by: Don | April 7, 2008 8:15 AM
"The single most intelligent economic policy idea of Carter's Presidency was his plan to make independent of foreign energy sources. "
Just think where we would be now had we continued in those footsteps. We'd be independent of foreign oil by now. Alternative energy technology would be in the same place computer technology is today, perhaps even farther along. There would be no Iraq wars. No 9-11. Unless of course, they attacked us in some weird way to FORCE us to use their oil.
And this accusation of dishonesty really does need to be further supported. A person can believe very strongly in a cause, and may not have all the facts right, but that doesn't necessarily make that person dishonest. And if you disagree, do you also think Bush was being dishonest in starting the Iraq war?
Posted by: squeaky | April 7, 2008 9:36 AM
Kevin S., I didn't say Dershowitz' review was illegitimate. I said it probably did not represent the views of a lot of the writers on the Huffington Post. Wolverine seemed to imply that its appearance on that blog meant that it was representative of a view widely held by liberals.
What I was saying was illegitimate was the following statement: "Carter's years in ofice and legacy was failure."
And if anyone brings up the Iran hostage crisis, I would ask them, what would Reagan have done better? What DID Reagan do to free the hostages? Nothing.
Posted by: I and I | April 7, 2008 9:53 AM
Regarding Dershowitz, we also need to consider whether he represented Carter's views correctly. As we've seen with the examples of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons, it's pretty easy to take someone's words out of context and make them seem to say whatever one wants them to say.
That said, I never read Carter's book about Palestine. Has anyone hear read it to verify whether Dershowitz represents Carter correctly?
Peace,
Posted by: Don | April 7, 2008 10:10 AM
In other words, Americans beware of the Jew in your midst.
Here is Carter’s description of the Middle East conflict in his own words, delivered during an interview he gave on National Public Radio during the second day of the Holocaust deniers’ conference in Teheran:
“I have spent a lot of time in Palestine in recent years. … The Palestinians have had their own land, first of all, occupied and then confiscated and then colonized. They’ve been excluded from their own gardens and fields, and pastures and churches. They have been severely restrained in their movements. They have to have different kinds of passes to go through different checkpoints inside their own lands on their own roads. The Israelis have built more than 200 settlements inside Palestine.They connect these settlements with very nice roads for the Israeli settlers, and then superhighways and so forth going into Jerusalem. Quite often the Palestinians are prevented from even riding on those roads that have been built in their own territory. So this has been in many ways worse than it was in South Africa.”
When hundreds of millions of Muslims are calling for the extermination of the Jews of Israel this is more than a lie;
It is a lie that Palestinians “had their own land, first of all, occupied.”. The very word Palestine is a Roman appellation for the people called Philistines, who were not Arabs but red-haired sailors from the Aegean. The Jews were there as well., inshort, first of all the Jews were in the land before the Arabs.
Second of all, the Arabs who inhabited the Palestine Mandate in 1948, at the time of the creation the state of Israel, considered themselves Syrians. Third, the Palestine Mandate was not created on land taken from the Syrians or the Arabs. It was taken from the Turks. It was not taken from the Turks by the Jews, but by the British and the French. They took it because Turkey sided with Germany in the First World War and, of course, lost. The Turkish empire had ruled the entire region including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan for four hundred years before Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan were artificially created by the English and the French. Jordan – a state whose majority is Palestinian – occupies 80% of the Palestine Mandate.
So it is a preposterous lie to say that the Palestinians had their own land and that it was occupied by the Jews.
Posted by: Don | April 7, 2008 4:09 PM
Donald Sacco
The individual plots of land that Jews now own were in the first instance bought from the Arabs who regarded themselves as Syrians and who lived in the area of Israel. The only property that was confiscated was confiscated as a spoil of the aggressive war that five Arab states waged against Israel from the day of its birth. Five Arab armies invaded Israel, a sovereign state, with the declared intent of “pushing the Jews into the sea.” The cry today of the Muslim majority in the Middle East is to “liberate Palestine from the river to the sea.” In other words push the Jews into the sea.
By the standards of occupation and legitimacy Jimmy Carter invokes, Israel has more legitimacy as a Jewish state than Texas does as an American state, rather than a Mexican province.
Another Jimmy Carter lie in this lone Jimmy Carter sentence is the claim that the Jews have colonized anything. “The Israelis have built more than 200 settlements inside Palestine.”Why is it wrong of the Jews to live in the West Bank? (The 7000 Jews of Gaza, of course, have already been expunged as result of the Arabs’ genocidal hate.) Why can’t Jews have settlements in the West Bank?
The answer is because the Palestinians Arabs are filled with a racist and theocratic hate towards the Jews. They can’t tolerate a non-Muslim, non-Arab people --however small a minority -- living in their midst. (The 7000 Jews of Gaza – out of a population of 1.2 million – were law-abiding and peaceful and created a horticultural industry that produced ten percent of Gaza’s gross national product. But they were Jews. And that was intolerable to Palestine’s Nazis. So they had to be removed.)
Contrast Carter’s attack on Jews living in the West bank as “colonizers” who must be expelled with the fact that more than a million Arabs live in Israel, where Israel provides them with more rights – including the right to vote and elect Arab members of Israel’s government – than any Arab who lives in any Arab state in the Middle East.
Posted by: Other Don | April 7, 2008 4:15 PM
"There is a reason why Dershowitz dislikes Carter"
Its not as much Carter It is because too many Palestinians have shown themselves to be bloodthirsty, murderers who have been indoctrinated by their religious leaders and their government to believe in a sick Islamic fantasy that it is their Muslim duty to kill Jews by blowing themselves up; and that, if they do so, they will go to heaven along with 70 members of their family; and, that, if they are lucky enough to be male they will be rewarded by 72 virgins on the other side.
On this side they will be regarded as martyrs and saints and honored by their government.
To ignore these facts and to invert them, as Jimmy Carter does, is to mark yourself as a moral defective.
To take on as a mission the spreading of lies that enable Islamic Nazis to carry out their final solution is the epitome of the evil that America’s fifth column left and its reprehensible ex-President represent in our time.
Posted by: OtherDon | April 7, 2008 4:21 PM
Part of the protocol of posting on a blog is to not use the same name as someone else on the thread or who is a blog regular. I appreciate "Other Don" making the distinction, but there seems to be a third Don who is not the one who often posts on GP including on this thread.
Posted by: I and I | April 7, 2008 5:24 PM
Given what was happening in those times between Vietnam and the Middle East, thank God we had a Jimmy Carter making decisions in that office and not a George Bush.
Heaven knows where we would be by now. Iran?
We should have so much appreciation for what the next president will be faced with as we repair what Iraq is doing to our economy.
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Comments
Jimmy Carter, our last honest, honorable President.
Too bad he had the economic blowback from the Vietnam War dumped on his Presidency.
Posted by: justintime | April 4, 2008 1:27 PM
I have always thought history would treat President Carter more kindly than his contemporaries. He may not be remembered as a successful president, but he will be remembered as an honorable man. This is something the Republican Social Darwinists who followed him have not earned, even among many of their political supporters.
Posted by: Sue | April 4, 2008 1:47 PM
The only president you have had in my lifetime who was neither a fool nor a knave
meurig
Posted by: meurig | April 4, 2008 3:26 PM
A decent man who was overwhelmed by a combination of honest mistakes and events out of his control, Out of office he turned bitter and just a bit dishonest.
In his defense, he was dealt a tough hand in office, and conservatives (IMHO) were rougher on him than he deserved. Ridicule will do that to a man sometimes.
Not our worst President, but far from our best.
Wolverine
Posted by: Wolverine | April 4, 2008 3:40 PM
Out of office he turned bitter and just a bit dishonest.
????
Posted by: Don | April 4, 2008 3:48 PM
In the best sense of being an elder, Jimmy Carter remains a remarkable statesman. Love, timely change, and dedication to truth appear to mark his personality.
Posted by: Rev. Gola Wolf Richards | April 4, 2008 5:16 PM
Weren't fellow Democrats in the Congress Carter's biggest obstacle politically? Remember he ran as a conservative southern governor. The lib. wing orf the party, led by Ted Kennedy seemed to have it out for him.
Yes, he did and does seem to be bitter.
Jeff
Posted by: Jeff | April 4, 2008 5:46 PM
Bitter, perhaps, especially over his election loss to Reagan in 1980, though I think he's gotten over that since. And certainly while he was president, he was in over his head, especially with the Iranian revolution.
Jeff, you're right from what I can recall regarding his relations with fellow Democrats in Congress.
But I question dishonest. Contrarily, I think he has been one of the most honest and forthright presidents we've ever had, and he's never struck me as one who dissembles or otherwise comes short in truthfulness. The work he's done in the years since he left office will be a greater legacy, perhaps, than his time in the White House.
D
Posted by: Don | April 4, 2008 7:12 PM
Don,
I agree, I wouldn't say he is dishonest.
Jeff
Posted by: Jeff | April 4, 2008 7:52 PM
Wolverine, in what way has Carter been dishonest and in what way bitter?
Posted by: carl copas | April 4, 2008 7:57 PM
Blaming the Carter administration's economic woes on the Vietnam War is something I've never heard before, and I commend justintime for his originality! In that the last U.S. troops departed Vietnam in March 1973 and Carter didn't leave office until 1981, I find it hard to believe that you could blame 20 percent interest rates and high unemployment on the war. I remember all too well the horrible economic times of the late 1970s and 1980 which make today's economic slowdown seem like a walk in the park. I'll agree with the "honorable man" label, but economics was not his area of expertise.
Posted by: Cads | April 4, 2008 9:07 PM
Vietnam War and the American Economy
The Vietnam War had several effects on the U.S. economy. The requirements of the war effort strained the nation's production capacities, leading to imbalances in the industrial sector. Factories that would have been producing consumer goods were being used to make items from the military, causing controversy over the government's handling of economic policy. In addition, the government's military spending caused several problems for the American economy. The funds were going overseas, which contributed to an imbalance in the balance of payments and a weak dollar, since no corresponding funds were returning to the country. In addition, military expenditures, combined with domestic social spending, created budget deficits which fueled inflation. Anti-war sentiments and dissatisfaction with government further eroded consumer confidence. Interest rates rose, restricting the amount of capital available for businesses and consumers. Despite the success of many Kennedy and Johnson economic policies, the Vietnam War was a important factor in bringing down the American economy from the growth and affluence of the early 1960s to the economic crises of the 1970s.
...
More detailed, scholarly discussions of the effects of economic blowback from the Vietnam War on the American economy are available. The effects took nearly a decade before on fiscal policy was able to restore balance to the economy.
Carter's appointee, Fed chairman Paul Volcker raised the Fed rate to 12%, and turned inflation around. This was a bitter pill for America to swallow and much of the blame was placed on Carter.
Those were rather bleak years for our family too but I didn't blame Carter for it.
Posted by: justintime | April 4, 2008 9:43 PM
justintime has it exactly right. Spending on Vietnam and the Cold War military was an enormous burden on the U.S. economy of the 70's, and led to the recession and inflation that began during Ford's short term. The single most intelligent economic policy idea of Carter's Presidency was his plan to make independent of foreign energy sources. Unfortunately those who succeeded him, right up to the current occupant of the White House, took us in another direction.
Posted by: phil | April 4, 2008 11:22 PM
I see that you quoted entirely from historycentral.com. It's ironic that they first praise Kennedy's and Johnson's economic policies and then fail to attribute the Vietnam War to those very same men who started and then escalated the event that they think brought on "the economic crises of the 1970s." How can one believe anything opinionated they say?
When Carter took office in 1/77, the misery index (unemployment + inflation rates) was a manageable 12.7% and was approximately the same at 12.6% some 16 months later. Only then did the downward spiral start, culminating in a 22.0% index in 6/80. This was a direct result of the Iranian Revolution in late 1978, which resulted in a terrific downturn in world oil production.
Carter's fault? Here's my take: Somewhat, because he certainly did nothing positive to help the situation. His decision to let the Shah into the U.S. for medical reasons in October 1979 (bad error) led to the hostage situation only 13 days later and stopped our importing of Iranian oil completely per executive order. The failed rescue attempt in 4/80 emboldened OPEC's decision to rapidly raise oil prices in response to perceived American weakness. IMO, these were the reasons for a worsening U.S. economy; not because of the Vietnam War.
Posted by: Cads | April 5, 2008 3:26 AM
Here's a link to a pretty thorough takedown of Jimmy Carter's latest book:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/the-world-according-to-ji_b_34702.html
And if anyone can show that Fox News runs the Huffington Post, I give up.
Wolverine
Posted by: Wolverine | April 5, 2008 1:42 PM
Most people don't give Carter credit for being the father of the Islamic Revolution like they should. Atleast weknow hehates Jew's. And he's a moron. Know wonder he and Wallis get along so well.
Posted by: debarrio | April 5, 2008 2:02 PM
Reagan didn't handle Iran very well, either - recall the arms to Iran for hostages swap that got his administration in hot water over the Iran-Contra scandal, in two spheres of illegality - supplying arms to Iran through the Israeli cutout and then taking profits from that and funding the anti-Sandinista forces illegally, all under the table.
We could grant Reagan, like Carter, the benefit as to the doubt as to his good intentions.
The gross insults are out of place on a Christian forum and violate the rules for posting. Whoever does so in that manner undermines their own arguments thereby.
Posted by: N.M. Rod | April 5, 2008 4:42 PM
"A decent man who was overwhelmed by a combination of honest mistakes and events out of his control, Out of office he turned bitter and just a bit dishonest"
Wolverine I agree with your view , It appears to me Wallis and Carter are using each other as a platform , but only reaching the basic narrow audience . Jimmy Carter stated he promoted WIC because he was pro life , that was the man I liked .
Unless your a die hard liberal , Carter's years in ofice and legacy was failure , he made it worse by his negativitism and finger pointing , as if the way he handled terrosism was an example to be followed ?
Posted by: Mick | April 5, 2008 5:13 PM
Henry Kissinger summarized it this way: 'The Carter administration has managed the extraordinary feat of having, at one and the same time, the worst relations with our allies, the worst relations with our adversaries, and the most serious upheavals in the developing world since the end of the Second World War.'"
Posted by: Don | April 5, 2008 10:33 PM
Uh, Wolverine, I can see just from the URL that the review was written by Alan Dershowitz, who has an immense dislike for Carter and anyone else who speaks strongly about Israel's obligation to abide by human rights principles vis-a-vis the Palestinians. Dershowitz has tried to interfere with DePaul University's awarding of a department chairmanship to Norman Finkelstein for this reason. He has written that there are some instances in which torture is acceptable. He defends pornography and opposed the feminists in the Deep Throat hearings in the early 70's. All in all, he makes enemies very easily. Don't think his post on the Huffington blog will go down without controversy--
I doubt even Huff herself agrees with it.
Posted by: I and I | April 5, 2008 10:45 PM
Don:"...the worst relations with our allies, the worst relations with our adversaries..."
Funny, Kissinger should talk. He's the guy who overturned elected democracies and replaced them with dictatorships.
Mick: "Carter's years in office and legacy was failure..."
Mick, I suggest you Google "Sadat" and "Begin" and "Carter." Perhaps Kissinger is jealous that Carter did something he could not do.
Posted by: I and I | April 5, 2008 10:51 PM
I and I ,
Some how I doubt too many people are jealous of Carter . I liked him when he was in office , but I am prone to give most people the benefit of the doubt . I did not blame him for the high interest rates , remember the weird schemes banks came up with to allow the middle class to buy homes .
I always figured it was the results of oil shooting up in price and the results of our market compenasting for something that use to be cheap that we relied on becoming more expensive .
But the only market I knew of in those days was measured in grams .
But then again , Carter the inspiration told us to get use to it , defended the Shah , had the responsibility of doing nothing but one failed attemt while hostages were humiliated and held captive in front of the world , and oh yeah , he made peace in the middle east ?
I admit have just a newspaper account of the real history , perhaps some right winf blogs , the left wing stuff usually is insulting myself or my religion in every paragraph so I usually give it less creditability .
But Carter hates conservatives and blames Israel for everything , which makes him popular among liberals , but that is all I and I .
Posted by: Mick | April 6, 2008 12:06 AM
Posted by: Don | April 5, 2008 10:33 PM
The comments attributed to Henry Kissinger were posted by another Don, not me, the one who usually posts under that name.
I and I:
I was going to say something about Dershowitz's not being exactly an unbiased observer, but you already did.
But Carter hates conservatives and blames Israel for everything , which makes him popular among liberals
Well, there's an over-generalization if I've ever seen one.
D
Posted by: Don | April 6, 2008 6:39 AM
Don:
No worse than:
I can see just from the URL that the review was written by Alan Dershowitz, who has an immense dislike for Carter and anyone else who speaks strongly about Israel's obligation to abide by human rights principles vis-a-vis the Palestinians.
Wolverine
Posted by: Wolverine | April 6, 2008 12:32 PM
Well, there's an over-generalization if I've ever seen one.
D
Posted by: Don
????????
Posted by: Mick | April 6, 2008 3:10 PM
There is a reason why Dershowitz dislikes Carter. It's not just his fashion sense. It is interesting that his critique of Carter is deemed illegitimate because he has criticized Carter. By this standard, we can dismiss literally any critique.
Posted by: Kevin S. | April 7, 2008 1:37 AM
Well, I actually read the column in Huffington that Wolverine directs us to. In it, Dershowitz claims that Carter erred in his reporting of history in his book on the Palestinian situation. I'm not familiar enough with the facts to determine whether Carter got these details wrong or not. But given Dershowitz's biases, I'm not sure I can fully trust his "corrections" either.
Regardless, Dershowitz's comments don't prove Carter's dishonesty, which was the reason Wolverine sent us there. Even if Dershowitz's version of the facts is correct, it doesn't prove that Carter deliberately misstated and misrepresented them, which is what we would need to know if we wanted to accuse Carter of dishonesty. I'd need to see more evidence to accuse Carter of dishonesty.
Mick, your statement is over-generalized because:
1 you claim that Carter "hates" conservatives. Hates is a strong word. Prove to me that he hates conservatives. Maybe he dislikes their policies and ideals, but I doubt whether he hates people who hold those ideals.
2. You claim that he likewise blames Israel for everything. Ignoring the fact that you don't define what you mean by 'everything,' since Carter brokered the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab state, I question that sentiment. And it isn't 'blaming' Israel to point out the fact that in their treatment of their Palestinian neighbors, they have become what they themselves have claimed to hate--Nazi-like authoritarians. This sounds more like Carter is offering tough love than simple blame. You can take issue with that characteristic if you want--but demonstrate with facts and examples--but you can't claim that Carter blames Israel for 'everything.'
There is a reason why Dershowitz dislikes Carter.
Dershowitz's first line is: "I like Jimmy Carter. I have known him since he began his run for president in early 1976. I worked hard for his election, and I have admired the work of the Carter Center throughout the world."
Peace,
Posted by: Don | April 7, 2008 8:15 AM
"The single most intelligent economic policy idea of Carter's Presidency was his plan to make independent of foreign energy sources. "
Just think where we would be now had we continued in those footsteps. We'd be independent of foreign oil by now. Alternative energy technology would be in the same place computer technology is today, perhaps even farther along. There would be no Iraq wars. No 9-11. Unless of course, they attacked us in some weird way to FORCE us to use their oil.
And this accusation of dishonesty really does need to be further supported. A person can believe very strongly in a cause, and may not have all the facts right, but that doesn't necessarily make that person dishonest. And if you disagree, do you also think Bush was being dishonest in starting the Iraq war?
Posted by: squeaky | April 7, 2008 9:36 AM
Kevin S., I didn't say Dershowitz' review was illegitimate. I said it probably did not represent the views of a lot of the writers on the Huffington Post. Wolverine seemed to imply that its appearance on that blog meant that it was representative of a view widely held by liberals.
What I was saying was illegitimate was the following statement: "Carter's years in ofice and legacy was failure."
And if anyone brings up the Iran hostage crisis, I would ask them, what would Reagan have done better? What DID Reagan do to free the hostages? Nothing.
Posted by: I and I | April 7, 2008 9:53 AM
Regarding Dershowitz, we also need to consider whether he represented Carter's views correctly. As we've seen with the examples of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons, it's pretty easy to take someone's words out of context and make them seem to say whatever one wants them to say.
That said, I never read Carter's book about Palestine. Has anyone hear read it to verify whether Dershowitz represents Carter correctly?
Peace,
Posted by: Don | April 7, 2008 10:10 AM
In other words, Americans beware of the Jew in your midst.
Here is Carter’s description of the Middle East conflict in his own words, delivered during an interview he gave on National Public Radio during the second day of the Holocaust deniers’ conference in Teheran:
“I have spent a lot of time in Palestine in recent years. … The Palestinians have had their own land, first of all, occupied and then confiscated and then colonized. They’ve been excluded from their own gardens and fields, and pastures and churches. They have been severely restrained in their movements. They have to have different kinds of passes to go through different checkpoints inside their own lands on their own roads. The Israelis have built more than 200 settlements inside Palestine.They connect these settlements with very nice roads for the Israeli settlers, and then superhighways and so forth going into Jerusalem. Quite often the Palestinians are prevented from even riding on those roads that have been built in their own territory. So this has been in many ways worse than it was in South Africa.”
When hundreds of millions of Muslims are calling for the extermination of the Jews of Israel this is more than a lie;
It is a lie that Palestinians “had their own land, first of all, occupied.”. The very word Palestine is a Roman appellation for the people called Philistines, who were not Arabs but red-haired sailors from the Aegean. The Jews were there as well., inshort, first of all the Jews were in the land before the Arabs.
Second of all, the Arabs who inhabited the Palestine Mandate in 1948, at the time of the creation the state of Israel, considered themselves Syrians. Third, the Palestine Mandate was not created on land taken from the Syrians or the Arabs. It was taken from the Turks. It was not taken from the Turks by the Jews, but by the British and the French. They took it because Turkey sided with Germany in the First World War and, of course, lost. The Turkish empire had ruled the entire region including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan for four hundred years before Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan were artificially created by the English and the French. Jordan – a state whose majority is Palestinian – occupies 80% of the Palestine Mandate.
So it is a preposterous lie to say that the Palestinians had their own land and that it was occupied by the Jews.
Posted by: Don | April 7, 2008 4:09 PM
Donald Sacco
The individual plots of land that Jews now own were in the first instance bought from the Arabs who regarded themselves as Syrians and who lived in the area of Israel. The only property that was confiscated was confiscated as a spoil of the aggressive war that five Arab states waged against Israel from the day of its birth. Five Arab armies invaded Israel, a sovereign state, with the declared intent of “pushing the Jews into the sea.” The cry today of the Muslim majority in the Middle East is to “liberate Palestine from the river to the sea.” In other words push the Jews into the sea.
By the standards of occupation and legitimacy Jimmy Carter invokes, Israel has more legitimacy as a Jewish state than Texas does as an American state, rather than a Mexican province.
Another Jimmy Carter lie in this lone Jimmy Carter sentence is the claim that the Jews have colonized anything. “The Israelis have built more than 200 settlements inside Palestine.”Why is it wrong of the Jews to live in the West Bank? (The 7000 Jews of Gaza, of course, have already been expunged as result of the Arabs’ genocidal hate.) Why can’t Jews have settlements in the West Bank?
The answer is because the Palestinians Arabs are filled with a racist and theocratic hate towards the Jews. They can’t tolerate a non-Muslim, non-Arab people --however small a minority -- living in their midst. (The 7000 Jews of Gaza – out of a population of 1.2 million – were law-abiding and peaceful and created a horticultural industry that produced ten percent of Gaza’s gross national product. But they were Jews. And that was intolerable to Palestine’s Nazis. So they had to be removed.)
Contrast Carter’s attack on Jews living in the West bank as “colonizers” who must be expelled with the fact that more than a million Arabs live in Israel, where Israel provides them with more rights – including the right to vote and elect Arab members of Israel’s government – than any Arab who lives in any Arab state in the Middle East.
Posted by: Other Don | April 7, 2008 4:15 PM
"There is a reason why Dershowitz dislikes Carter"
Its not as much Carter It is because too many Palestinians have shown themselves to be bloodthirsty, murderers who have been indoctrinated by their religious leaders and their government to believe in a sick Islamic fantasy that it is their Muslim duty to kill Jews by blowing themselves up; and that, if they do so, they will go to heaven along with 70 members of their family; and, that, if they are lucky enough to be male they will be rewarded by 72 virgins on the other side.
On this side they will be regarded as martyrs and saints and honored by their government.
To ignore these facts and to invert them, as Jimmy Carter does, is to mark yourself as a moral defective.
To take on as a mission the spreading of lies that enable Islamic Nazis to carry out their final solution is the epitome of the evil that America’s fifth column left and its reprehensible ex-President represent in our time.
Posted by: OtherDon | April 7, 2008 4:21 PM
Part of the protocol of posting on a blog is to not use the same name as someone else on the thread or who is a blog regular. I appreciate "Other Don" making the distinction, but there seems to be a third Don who is not the one who often posts on GP including on this thread.
Posted by: I and I | April 7, 2008 5:24 PM
Given what was happening in those times between Vietnam and the Middle East, thank God we had a Jimmy Carter making decisions in that office and not a George Bush.
Heaven knows where we would be by now. Iran?
We should have so much appreciation for what the next president will be faced with as we repair what Iraq is doing to our economy.
Posted by: Ms. Cynthia | April 8, 2008 2:25 AM
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