JC, as in Jimmy Carter

Well he has done it again. The worst American president in the 20th century has written a new book that has offended everyone but the Palestinians. Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid strongly criticizes Israel and the US for “blocking serious peace initiatives and for exacerbating terrorism in the Middle East.” JC likes to blame Israel second, right after the US.

Carter’s longtime adviser Kenneth Stein resigned his position as a Carter Center fellow in response to the book. “President Carter's book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments. Being president doesn't give one the prerogative to bend the facts to reach a prescribed reality.”

Ambassador Dennis Ross claims maps commissioned and published by him were improperly republished in Carter's book. Alan Dershowitz called the book's title indecent. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights group based in Los Angeles, has received more than 16,000 signatures to an online petition to "act now against President Carter's one-sided bias against Israel." Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the center, said people in the Jewish community are outraged at Carter's book. “I think the point of the book is to be hostile to Israel,” Hier said.

Top Democrats are rushing to repudiate the book in which he accuses the Israeli government of maintaining an apartheid system. Dem Chairman Howard Dean and House Leader Nancy Pelosi and several congressmen issued statements saying that the book does not represent their views on the Jewish state. “It is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression, and Democrats reject that allegation vigorously,” Pelosi wrote.

But the latimes loved the book, and a bunch of my Omnilore friends gushed over the ex-pres. Mike flatly called Jimmy Carter the best ex-president through the 20th Century but says he was “too sincere to run this country well.” Hal thinks that JC “crippled his presidency by his supreme sense of idealism.” Burt sees “the guy as a combo saint and hero.” No faint praise here.

I believe that JC was the worst president in my lifetime, by a landslide, and has been the worst ex-president. In saying that, I grant him full credit for Habitat for Humanity and for his health initiatives in Africa. I’ll even credit him with good intentions (as in the road to hell) in trying to promote peace and human rights. I cannot read his heart or mind but I can look at what his intentions wrought.

Granted, anything he has done since leaving office pales in comparison to his disastrous presidency. I recall his doing nothing to thwart the Soviet arms build up, his gutting the CIA and giving away the Panama Canal. (Senator Thurmond responded by stating in a speech, “The canal is ours, we bought and we paid for it and we should keep it.”)

Worst of all, Carter's undermining the Shah of Iran, one of the few friends of America in the Muslim world, resulted in the rise of radical Islam. His Camp David Accords incited enough hatred in the Arab world to bring about Anwar Sadat's assassination, and created a power vacuum that Saddam Hussein filled.

At home, and his financial policies and pessimism brought us stagflation and a depressed population. Under Carter, the Misery Index (Unemployment + Inflation) reached 22%.

But JC was fun too. Remember when he confessed to consulting Amy about nuclear disarmament. Bob Hope noted: “Amy’s interest in nuclear weapons began when Uncle Billy gave her a Raggedy Ann doll with a nuclear warhead. The only difference between Billy Carter and Jimmy Carter is that Billy has a foreign policy.”

After his dismal record and being slaughtered by Reagan, you’d think Carter would be smart to burnish his reputation through charity work. But no, the egomaniac cannot resist meddling in foreign affairs and criticizing America and his successors.

You may recall these incidents.

In May 1993, Somali warlord Mohammed Aideed killed more that 20 UN peacekeepers. Madam Albright sponsored a UN resolution to get those responsible. But Carter urged Clinton to use diplomacy instead. (Pay attention to that word). Clinton ordered the military to capture Aideed but not to use weapons judged too threatening. Aideed’s forces attacked and killed 18 US soldiers, wounding 78. (See the movie “Black Hawk Down.”)

Clinton was furious saying, “I believe in killing people who try to hurt you, and I can’t believe we’re being pushed around by the two-bit pricks.” Thanks for the advice, JC.

In 1994, Clinton declared “North Korea cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear bomb.” Nice talk, but then he allowed JC to visit Kim Il Sung in NoKo where he declared that the evil dictator was “alert, intelligent and very friendly toward Christianity.” Right!

Then JC got down to business. “In my opinion,” said Carter, “the pursuit of sanctions is counterproductive in this particular and unique society.” Sanctions were lifted, Madam Albright signed the “Agreed Framework” and the NoKos immediately began cheating (this means building nuclear weapons), finally admitting to it in 2002. Good work, JC, and Billy C.

In 1998 Carter brokered a deal backed by an invasion force that returned exiled thug Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power in Haiti. Thanks for the basket case, JC. Meddling down South was his specialty.

In 2002 Carter visited Cuba, met with evil dictator Fidel Castro and addressed the Cuban public on national television. This made JC the first President of the United States, in or out of office, to visit there since the Cuban revolution of 1959. Millions of Cuban-Americans, many who escaped from Castro’s prisons, thank you, JC.

Also in 2002, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Carter for his objections to America’s war on terror. “Fundamental changes,” said JC, “are taking place in the historical policies of the United States with regard to human rights, our role in the community of nations and the Middle East peace process.” Human rights?

The Nobel Committee officially awarded him the prize for brokering the magnificent 1994 NoKo deal, only because they could not award it for America bashing. The Nobel chairman said “it’s a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as the United States.” Thanks for blaming America first, JC.

I remember Carter best as the guy who was hunted by the killer rabbit and as the president who once greeted Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother of the United Kingdom, with a kiss on the lips. Angered, she reprimanded him by saying: “No man has done that since my husband died.”

If only he would be content to lust in his heart, and shut the hell up!