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Subject: "Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'." Previous topic | Next topic
_Chewy_Tue May-29-07 05:01 PM
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"Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
Tue May-29-07 06:09 PM by _Chewy_

  

          

Bush Is 'the Worst in History' In Foreign Relations, Carter Says

Associated Press
Sunday, May 20, 2007; Page A07

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/19/AR2007051900212.html

LITTLE ROCK, May 19 -- Former president Jimmy Carter called President Bush's international relations "the worst in history" and also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative program.

The criticism came in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which reported Carter's remarks Saturday. The denunciation of a sitting president was unprecedented for Carter, a biographer said.

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."

In his interview with the 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.

"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," Carter said. "The overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations . . . has been the most disturbing to me."

Carter said that Bush's policy of preemptive war, "where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened," was "a radical departure from all previous administration policies."

Carter also offered a harsh assessment for the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which helps religious charities receive billions in federal grants.

"As a traditional Baptist, I've always believed in separation of church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one," he said.

Carter spoke while promoting his new audiobook series, "Sunday Mornings in Plains," a collection of weekly Bible lessons from his hometown of Plains, Ga.

"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."

"This is the most forceful denunciation President Carter has ever made about an American president," said Douglas Brinkley, a Tulane University presidential historian and Carter biographer. "When you call somebody the worst president, that's volatile. Those are fighting words."

In February, Carter indirectly criticized the Bush administration at the funeral of Coretta Scott King, when he alluded to its handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"The struggle for equality is not over," Carter said. "We only have to recall the color of the faces in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi -- those most devastated by Katrina -- to know there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans."

The comments drew a scornful reply from Bush's father, former president George H.W. Bush.

  

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RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'.
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AllynTue May-29-07 05:10 PM
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#1. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to _Chewy_ (Reply # 0)
Tue May-29-07 05:12 PM by Allyn

          

He also backpedaled later to clarify he meant Bush was the worst since Nixon.

Carter may have been right the first time.

John, you need to edit the link. It has "The" added to the extension which is causing an error.

  

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_Chewy_Tue May-29-07 06:08 PM
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#3. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to Allyn (Reply # 1)


  

          

Quote:
QUOTE:
He also backpedaled later to clarify he meant Bush was the worst since Nixon.

Carter may have been right the first time.

John, you need to edit the link. It has "The" added to the extension which is causing an error.


Oops - my bad. link edited. What was interesting to me was that there's this unspoken rule about former presidents not being overly critical of sitting presidents. And to hear this coming from someone as mild mannered as Pres. Jimmy Carter was sort of surprising to me.

  

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ShellyTue May-29-07 06:41 PM
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#4. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to _Chewy_ (Reply # 3)


  

          

Lots of former Presidents have blasted later Presidents, but it is interesting that Carter is still so perceptive these days. He still has his old problem of being indecisive, so his back pedaling did not come as a surprise.

I don't believe Bush is a racist though. Katrina relief was just handled as incompetently as everything else in this administration.

Shelly

  

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pakoTue May-29-07 05:31 PM
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#2. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to _Chewy_ (Reply # 0)


          

Jimmy Carter has been eating too many peanuts. He's gone nuts!
But then he has always been a little peculiar.


  

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jazz4freeTue May-29-07 07:51 PM
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#5. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to pako (Reply # 2)


  

          

Jimmy Carter is not nuts. He is and was an intellectual -- a condition of psyche in your sitting or potential presidents certainly not ill-suited to the office but just as certainly ill-received by all too many of its constituents who feel more comfortable doing BBQ and popping a beer with a boss who reflects their prejudice than having someone represent them who is able in ways that demand skills far beyond simple cowboy gut reaction and an ability to pander to the lowest common electoral and bible-based denominator, regardless of detriment to the greater good of not only your nation but the whole goddamned world.*

As your president, Carter was a leader perhaps suited to less turbulent times that were handed him, as was an ill-fated but brilliant Woodrow Wilson fifty years before. Admittedly, Carter because of his indecisive nature was not a good president in a time of crises -- although he came close – especially in regards his heroic effort as mediator between Israel and Egypt.

Whatever, President Carter retracted his legitimate and well-founded criticism of the unprecedented disaster that is George Wasted Bush only because of recent tradition in which former presidents remain mute as it concerns the person who sits in office. This “tradition” is something new. I could go into the boring history of it but I won't because I don't feel like it.

Also, I could include comments here about how inscrutably obtuse and simplistic you are, Pako, but I won't do that either because that would be redundant (I've already done that in detail) and, besides, it would certainly offend sensibilities.


*Whew -- that is, without a doubt, the longest, long-winded sentence I have ever written. Did I end up where I wanted to go when I started? I don't even know myself. Sorry.

  

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pakoTue May-29-07 09:23 PM
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#6. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to jazz4free (Reply # 5)


          

Sorry James, you have it all wrong again as you usual do. He was always an indecisive screwball who governed off polls. He was the worst of the worst and got very little right. He was never able to measure up to be an Untied States President and was nothing more than a joke. All the pretty words cant fix him now; he has gone over the hill and out of touch with reality.
Perhaps he should have left that peanut farm a little earlier and endeavored with the house building for humanity propaganda before the toxicity of the peanuts got him.

All he is looking for now is a little publicity and what better way to acquire it than joining in the Bush-bashing episodes with you nutty democrats.

Carter would not amount to a decent pimple on President G.W. Bush's butt.

I wish you well.



  

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Paul DTue May-29-07 09:56 PM
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#7. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to pako (Reply # 6)


  

          

No right-thinking person would want to amount to a pimple on Dubyer's butt.

Having said that, do some research on Carter's (and Lyndon Johnson's) roles in approving the vicious Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor.

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=jimmy+carter+east+timor&btnG=Google+Search&meta=




Paul D

  

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pakoTue May-29-07 10:40 PM
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#8. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to Paul D (Reply # 7)


          


Carter needs to go back to digging peanuts and leave the government to those who know how to govern.
What he did during his presidency is history. What he is doing now is sabotaging the US.

MORE OF HIS QUACKES....

There should be a sunset clause on the publication of comments by former Presidents who embarrass the nation. Depending on the failure rate of a presidency, or after a couple of dozen royal screw-ups, the former President should have no forum from which to spout his folly. When Ronald Reagan skunked Jimmy Carter in November, 1980, the nation breathed collective sigh of relief as we believed we were finished being lectured by the king of malaise. Jimmy Carter, the person whose method of fighting the cold war was to tell the communists that we would not attend the Olympics, the man who perfected the misery index, and the real accident of the Watergate history should be exposed for his sheer silliness.

The public is weary of hearing from the mainstream elite press that Jimmy Carter is the best former President in our nation’s history. Jimmy Carter is more dangerous now than when he was in The White House. While in the White House he had advisors who could partially protect him from his own stupidity. Along with many other Americans, I am ashamed of Jimmy Carter, and the efforts of a complicit liberal press to rehabilitate Mr. Carter will not be successful.

Mr. Carter has opened his mouth again, and while he is bashing President Bush, Carter succeeds in embarrassing himself and has given aid and comfort to the enemy once again. There has been a long standing policy that Former Presidents provide their critiques of current policies in private. Mr. Carter has never accommodated this unwritten rule. Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter have always the lacked the class, wisdom, wisdom, good judgment, and dignity to lead our nation in any meaningful manner. The following are three of the ludicrous points made by Mr. Carter.

• President Bush has pursued an "erroneous policy" that has fostered violence in the Middle East, said former President Jimmy Carter, who brokered the historic Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt. "In my opinion, maybe the worst ally Israel has had in Washington has been the George W. Bush administration, which hasn't worked to bring a permanent peace to Israel," Carter said Friday during a stop in West Michigan.

• "It depends on whether world opinion is strong enough to get the administration to change its erroneous policy, which has been to encourage the continuation of attacks on both sides."

• "In my opinion, we should make every effort now to withdraw American troops from Iraq," he said. "I would say certainly begin a major withdrawal no later than the end of this year."

The guys at Powerline have extensive research on the disastrous former presidency of Jimmy Carter. They state the ideas extremely well, and provide a compelling indictment of Mr. Carter’s worth as a statesman in the post September 11 political climate.

Jimmy Carter is a disgrace. We've said so before, and we'll continue saying so as long as he merits the criticism. If you want to learn more, read Steven Hayward's book The Real Jimmy Carter. Carter panted after the Nobe Peace Prize for years, seeing it as a means of gaining official redemption for his humiliation at the hands of the voters in 1980. He lobbied quietly behind the scenes for years to get the prize, and finally met with success in 2002 when the left-wing Nobel Prize committee saw an opportunity to use Carter as a way of attacking President Bush and embarrassing the United States. The head of the Nobel Prize committee openly admitted that this was their motivation in selecting Carter. Any other ex-president would have refused to be a part of such an obvious anti-American intrigue, but not Jimmy. Here we should observe that Carter conceives himself much more as a citizen of the world than as a citizen of the United States, and I think it is highly revealing that Carter is most popular overseas in those nations that hate America the most, such as Syria, where they lined the streets cheering for Carter when he visited.



  

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jazz4freeWed May-30-07 12:40 AM
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#11. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to pako (Reply # 8)


  

          

Quote:
Carter needs to go back to digging peanuts and leave the government to those who know how to govern.
What he did during his presidency is history. What he is doing now is sabotaging the US.


OK... Those are the extent of your (Pako's) original juvenile and totally, as usual, disjointed and irrelevant thoughts which you have repeated here today as an idiot mantra. But the remainder of your post is not only borrowed but obviously outright thieved from another forum populated by morons the like of you. And you didn't even bother to credit your idiot friends but agreeably assumed yourself the blame for their childish ravings.

What incredible nerve! And we know from past experience you'll come back for more. Bravo! What balls!



  

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ShellyWed May-30-07 01:24 PM
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#16. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to pako (Reply # 8)


  

          

When you cut and paste someone elses comentary, even one as stupid as that one, you should cite the source you plagerized from.

Shelly

  

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pakoWed May-30-07 02:24 PM
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#20. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to Shelly (Reply # 16)
Wed May-30-07 02:51 PM by pako

          

Quote:
QUOTE:
plagerized


As always you are entirely right. But when you critique my publications please pay more attention to your spelling.
Poor spelling sets a cloud of suspicion over the capability of an individual to retain his or her thoughts.

  

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JordanWed May-30-07 04:44 PM
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#22. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to pako (Reply # 8)
Wed May-30-07 04:46 PM by Jordan

  

          

When the peanut farmer left office inflation and interest rates were running around 18% and home mortgage rates were around 10% plus 2 points. And the unemployment rate was around 8%.

  

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jazz4freeTue May-29-07 11:56 PM
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#9. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to pako (Reply # 6)


  

          

I'm tempted to engage you further, not because your opinion as presented is worthy of consideration, but merely because you reflect a larger shared opinion. Thankfully, that pool of thought each moment grows smaller through its lack of intellectual substance.

You are welcome to your superficial world where all exists in shades of black and white and the leader rules supreme, and I wish you luck in it. But, by outside chance, should your nightmare -- which as often here implied by you engenders the acceptance of unquestioned authoritarianism based in fear and prejudice and the almost religious fervor of blind nationalism -- come to fruition, your great grandchildren and mine will need all the f'n luck they can get and then some.

In the meantime, as I have said before, you remain either a fool or a genius of Machiavellian proportion.

So, for the moment I concede the point -- Jimmy Carter is driven crazy by eating peanuts. What's George W's excuse?


  

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pakoWed May-30-07 12:14 AM
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#10. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to jazz4free (Reply # 9)


          

A wise decision. Now, lay down your sword and surrender!




  

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jazz4freeWed May-30-07 12:52 AM
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#12. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to pako (Reply # 10)


  

          

Vous gagnez. Je suis fini avec vous.

  

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ablibWed May-30-07 01:24 AM
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#15. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to jazz4free (Reply # 12)
Wed May-30-07 01:24 AM by ablib

  

          

Quote:
Vous gagnez. Je suis fini avec vous.


James to Pako: You win. I am finished with you

Visit the Basement

  

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bobwWed May-30-07 01:04 AM
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#13. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to _Chewy_ (Reply # 0)


  

          

Another interesting article about Jimmy Carter ! And yes in the words of James " stolen from another forum anyhoo,it's bash Bush week. And maybe time about is fair play Fact or fiction " I don't know.


Will the real Jimmy Carter please stand up.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Real Jimmy Carter
By Alan M. Dershowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | April 30, 2007
I have known Jimmy Carter for years. I first met him in the spring of 1976 when, as a relatively unknown candidate for president, he sent me a handwritten letter asking for my help in his campaign on issues of crime and justice. I had just published an article in The New York Times Magazine on sentencing reform, and he expressed interest in my ideas and asked me to come up with additional ones for his campaign. Shortly thereafter, my former student, Stuart Eisenstadt, brought Carter to Harvard to meet with some faculty members, me among them. I immediately liked Jimmy Carter and saw him as a man of integrity and principle. I signed on to his campaign and worked very hard for his election.
When Newsweek magazine asked his campaign for the names of people on whom Carter relied for advice, my name was among those given out. I continued to work for Carter over the years, most recently I met him in Jerusalem a year ago, and we briefly discussed the Mid-East. Though I disagreed with some of his points, I continued to believe that he was making them out of a deep commitment to principle and to human rights.

Recent disclosures of Carter's extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia, had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source?

And let there be no mistake about how dirty the Zayed Foundation is. I know because I was involved, in a small way, in helping to persuade Harvard University to return more than $2 million that the financially strapped Divinity School received from this source. Initially, I was reluctant to put pressure on Harvard to turn back money for the Divinity School, but then a student at the Divinity School, Rachael Lea Fish showed me the facts.
They were staggering. I was amazed that in the twenty-first century there were still foundations that espoused these views. The Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up, a think-tank funded by the Shiekh and run by his son, hosted speakers who called Jews "the enemies of all nations," attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel and the Mossad and the 9/11 attacks to the United States' own military, and stated that the Holocaust was a "fable." (They also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter.) To its credit, Harvard turned the money back. To his discredit, Carter did not.

Jimmy Carter was, of course, aware of Harvard's decision, since it was highly publicized. Yet he kept the money. Indeed, this is what he said in accepting the funds: "This award has special significance for me because it is named for my personal friend, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan." Carter's personal friend, it turns out, was an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot.
In reading Carter's statements, I was reminded of the bad old Harvard of the nineteen thirties, which continued to honor Nazi academics after the anti-Semitic policies of Hitler's government became clear. Harvard of the nineteen thirties was complicit in evil. I sadly concluded that Jimmy Carter of the twenty-first century has become complicit in evil.

The extent of Carter's financial support from, and even dependence on, dirty money is still not fully known. What we do know is deeply troubling. Carter and his Center have accepted millions of dollars from suspect sources, beginning with the bail-out of the Carter family peanut business in the late 1970s by BCCI, a now-defunct and virulently anti-Israeli bank indirectly controlled by the Saudi Royal family, and among whose principal investors is Carter's friend, Sheikh Zayed. Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of the bank, gave Carter "$500,000 to help the former president establish his center... more than $10 million to Mr. Carter's different projects."

Carter gladly accepted the money, though Abedi had called his bank, ostensibly the source of his funding, "the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists." BCCI isn't the only source: Saudi King Fahd contributed millions to the Carter Center "in 1993 alone...$7.6 million" as have other members of the Saudi Royal Family. Carter also received a million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family, as well as a personal $500,000 environmental award named for Sheikh Zayed, and paid for by the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. It's worth noting that, despite the influx of Saudi money funding the Carter Center, and despite the Saudi Arabian government's myriad human rights abuses, the Carter Center's Human Rights program has no activity whatever in Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis have apparently bought his silence for a steep price. The bought quality of the Center's activities becomes even more clear, however, when reviewing the Center's human rights activities in other countries: essentially no human rights activities in China or in North Korea, or in Iran, Iraq, the Sudan, or Syria, but activity regarding Israel and its alleged abuses, according to the Center's website.
The Carter Center's mission statement claims that "The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution activities." How can that be, given that its coffers are full of Arab money, and that its focus is away from significant Arab abuses and on Israel's far less serious ones?
No reasonable person can dispute therefore that Jimmy Carter has been and remains dependent on Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia. Does this mean that Carter has necessarily been influenced in his thinking about the Middle East by receipt of such enormous amounts of money? Ask Carter.
The entire premise of his criticism of Jewish influence on American foreign policy is that money talks. It is Carter, not me, who has made the point that if politicians receive money from Jewish sources, then they are not free to decide issues regarding the Middle East for themselves. It is Carter, not me, who has argued that distinguished reporters cannot honestly report on the Middle East because they are being paid by Jewish money. So, by Carter's own standards, it would be almost economically "suicidal" for Carter "to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine."
By Carter's own standards, therefore, his views on the Middle East must be discounted. It is certainly possible that he now believes them. Money, particularly large amounts of money, has a way of persuading people to a particular position. It would not surprise me if Carter, having received so much Arab money, is now honestly committed to their cause. But his failure to disclose the extent of his financial dependence on Arab money, and the absence of any self reflection on whether the receipt of this money has unduly influenced his views, is a form of deception bordering on corruption.

I have met cigarette lobbyists, who are supported by the cigarette industry, and who have come to believe honestly that cigarettes are merely a safe form of adult recreation, that cigarettes are not addicting and that the cigarette industry is really trying to persuade children not to smoke. These people are fooling themselves (or fooling us into believing that they are fooling themselves) just as Jimmy Carter is fooling himself (or persuading us to believe that he is fooling himself).

If money determines political and public views as Carter insists "Jewish money" does, Carter's views on the Middle East must be deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received. If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Carter's off-key tunes have been called by his Saudi Arabian paymasters. It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter. The public perception of his integrity is extraordinarily high. His real integrity, it now turns out, is extraordinarily low. He is no better than so many former American politicians who, after leaving public life, sell themselves to the highest bidder and become lobbyists for despicable causes. That is now Jimmy Carter's sad legacy.

Microsoft Windows XP Home
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jazz4freeWed May-30-07 01:23 AM
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#14. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to bobw (Reply # 13)


  

          

From Winkipedia:

"Dershowitz comments regularly on issues related to Judaism, Israel, civil liberties, the war on terror, and the First Amendment and appears frequently in the mainstream media as a guest commentator, analyst, or consultant. A self-proclaimed liberal and civil libertarian, an outspoken analyst on the history and politics of Israel, and an impassioned defender of his own positions on these various, often-interrelated issues, he has engaged in highly-publicized media confrontations with Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, and former President Jimmy Carter, among others."

We each have an axe to grind.

  

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ShellyWed May-30-07 01:48 PM
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#18. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to bobw (Reply # 13)


  

          

Some other views:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jc39.html

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2002/carter-bio.html

Unfortunately, If we were to list all the Presidents that had some anti-semetic views. The list would include nearly every President in at least the past century.

Shelly

  

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EthanWed May-30-07 02:42 PM
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#21. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to bobw (Reply # 13)


  

          

That's what I wanted to say.

Ethan

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
"Why shouldn't the American people take half my money from me? I took it all from them." - Edward Filene

  

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JordanWed May-30-07 01:30 PM
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#17. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to _Chewy_ (Reply # 0)


  

          

A Feeble President
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Leadership: When men of strength are presented with difficult problems, their responses are firm and decisive. Jimmy Carter spent four years as president of the United States responding with weakness.

Profile In Incompetence: Sixth In A Series

Carter's legacy is marked by a series of lame responses to historic challenges. His reputation as a failed president is well-deserved. From January 1977 to January 1981, Carter routinely let America down.

Economic malaise. The 1970s will not be remembered as America's greatest decade. Morale was low, inflation and unemployment were high, and the economy was ugly. When Carter took office, he had a chance to end the skid. He made it worse.

The 39th president's response to our "crisis of confidence" was not a bold move forward. It did nothing to inspire the country. It was a surrender. He had no tax-cut plan but he did increase government spending, his leftist notions only making conditions worse.

Carter's answer to his counterproductive solutions was to tell America that its best days were over. He nagged us to turn down our thermostats in the winter and turn them up in the summer, since the nation could not possibly overcome its energy problems.

"I think it's inevitable that there will be a lower standard of living than what everybody had always anticipated," he told advisers in 1979. "The only trend is downward."

In July of that year, Carter delivered what has become known as his malaise speech. It was more of an accusatory sermon. In endorsing John Anderson for president in 1980, the New Republic described the speech as "a lot of mystical mumbo jumbo." Instead of rousing the American spirit, Carter wounded it. He blamed Americans for America's problems.

"In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption," he fussed.

He asked an America that was accustomed to prosperity to get along with less — which it had to do since his policies crippled an already hobbling economy.

Iranian Hostage Crisis. Perhaps the darkest stain on a presidency that had an extraordinarily large load of dirty laundry was the Iranian hostage crisis. Carter's watery reply was to sit for more than five months before launching a rescue mission that was symbolic of his presidency: It crashed and burned.

Had Carter responded swiftly and forcefully when the Iranian radicals stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran in November 1979, Americans would not have suffered the indignity of having been so easily violated or the anxiety — magnified by daily news updates — of not knowing what would become of their countrymen.

But just as he responded weakly to at least one previous brief occupation of the embassy grounds, Carter begged for the hostages' release rather than demand it.

The initial plan was for the terrorists to hold the embassy for only a few hours. But the Iranians sensed weakness in Carter and decided to keep the Americans long term. Carter's attempts to win the hostages' release through diplomatic and economic pressure were met with scorn.

It wasn't until April 1980 that Carter opted for a military solution. The attempt failed. Two of eight helicopters that met with military transport airplanes on a desert airstrip in Iran were damaged by a sandstorm, a third while landing. The mission was aborted, but on the way out eight servicemen were killed when a helicopter collided with an airplane.

The hostages were eventually released, just moments after Ronald Reagan took office, through the so-called Algiers Accords.

Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, a longtime Democratic party operative who was secretary of state for Bill Clinton, negotiated the deal. The Iranian terrorists got what they wanted from Carter — prestige and economic sanctions removed — and avoided having to face a more resolute Reagan.

Energy. As he did with the economy, Carter inherited a bad situation and made it much worse.

Under the Georgia peanut farmer, the country experienced a second oil shock. His solutions included the usual tongue-wagging at Americans who were burning too much oil, creation of the Energy Department, the Synthetic Fuels Corp. and other similar silliness, and a tax hike on oil companies.

As poor as all those ideas were, the latter did the most damage. The Crude Oil Windfall Profits Tax Act, which raised far less in revenue (a mere $80 billion rather than the estimated $320 billion) than hoped, had a devastating effect on oil supply and did nothing to diminish OPEC's stranglehold on the U.S.

"The 1980s windfall profits tax depressed the domestic production and extraction industry," the Congressional Research Service found, " and furthered our dependence on foreign sources of oil."

This was of no help to Americans who had grown weary of long lines at service stations and the prices that seemed like they would never stop spiraling upward. Relief came only when Reagan, just one week in office, fully decontrolled oil prices — leading to a surge in oil output, lower prices and the end of 1970s-style stagflation.

Rather than press for policies that would boost domestic output, Carter took the easy route and ordered a quota on imported oil. The result — falling supply and soaring prices — was predictable.

1980 Olympics. When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Carter's response was not a show of strength or a sharp rebuke, but a childish and self-serving decision that cemented the impression across the world that America had gone soft. Carter decided he would show the Soviet Union by keeping American athletes home from the 1980 Summer Olympics held in Moscow.

Hundreds of athletes who had trained for years to represent their country in the Olympics were abruptly stripped of their dreams. Any American athlete who tried to compete would have had his or her passport revoked by Carter's order. More than 50 nations joined the boycott, but its only discernible result, aside from taking the politicization of the Olympics to a new high, was Soviet medal domination in the absence of competition from U.S. athletes.

Oh, yes — Carter also began a limited trade embargo against the Soviets, killing the Russian wheat deal, which was intended to increase trade with the USSR. and ease Cold War tensions. U.S. farmers and their families who relied on the deal were hurt more than the Soviet apparatchiks whom Carter imagined he was punishing.

Four years, four weak responses to major events. This is the legacy of the failed presidency of Jimmy Carter.

  

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JohnnyRebWed May-30-07 01:49 PM
Member since Oct 04th 2002
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#19. "RE: Pres. Carter calls Bush 'the worst in history'."
In response to Jordan (Reply # 17)


  

          

Again from Wikipedia:

""Investor's Business Daily (IBD) is a national newspaper in the United States, published Monday through Friday, that covers international business, finance, and the global economy. It was founded in 1984 by William O'Neil. Its headquarters are in Los Angeles, California.

Its politics on economics are strong fiscal conservatism even libertarianism and on foreign policy its politics are hard-line counter-terrorism, even more so than the stance taken by The Wall Street Journal. Its editorial page is especially pro-capitalist, vociferous against taxes, vocally advocates globalization and free-trade, is thoroughly critical of the Democratic Party and global left-wing movements, is skeptical of mankind's involvement in global warming, is loudly defensive of Israel as a legitimate state and advocates an exceedingly assertive, aggressive American foreign policy against Islamist terrorism.

Guest writers come primarily from capitalist-conservative and libertarian think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution, the Heritage Foundation, and the Cato Institute. IBD's editorial page has come under fire from anti-war blogs for its endorsement of the Iraq War, its call to increase military spending, its robust support for military mobilization and intervention against Iran, and its support for an all-comprehensive national missile defense system."

They, too, appear to have an axe to grind.

  

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