Thursday, August 11, 2005
America's worst ex-president caught in a lie
George Will takes Jimmy Carter to the woodshed for his allegation that Will was responsible for stealing Carter’s debate briefing book and handing it over to Reagan’s team. Will vehemently denies the charge, calls Carter a liar, and then basically mocks him for complaining about the brief since it was useless to both the Carter and Reagan campaigns.
Jimmy Carter is a sad and pathetic old man. What’s even more pathetic is that he builds a few houses and people suddenly are willing to forgive his enormous failings as a president. He can build houses until the day he dies and it wouldn’t make up for the fact that he is one of the five worst presidents in American history and arguably – heck, not even arguably, he IS the worst ex-President in American history. Perhaps he believes it is a noble thing to coddle tyrants like Fidel Castro and bash his country from across the seas, but frankly he’s such a hack that he makes Bill Clinton look like George Washington in terms of character and ability.
The man has an ego the size of Texas. Asked to give a eulogy and he’ll spend a paragraph praising himself. Perhaps that’s why he can’t seem to bare the thought that the reason he lost the 1980 election was not because he lost a debate, but because the majority of the American populace had the same correct appraisal of his presidency – a miserable failure.
The role of ex-president requires a grace and restraint notably absent from Carter. See, for example, his criticism of the United States when he is abroad, as in England two weeks ago. Having made such disappointing history as president, Carter as ex-president should at least refrain from disseminating a historical falsehood.It’s amazing that Carter has the gumption to blame the brief theft as the principal cause of his defeat. Umm, no Jim. It has a lot more to do with double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, a completely inadequate foreign policy, the general feeling that America was falling behind and losing the cold war, and your generally smug and egotistical attitude which a large part of your own party’s leadership found repellant. You know, when members of your party can’t even stand you, it might be a sign of some greater failing.
So strong, however, is the human impulse to believe comforting myths that Carter probably will continue to promulgate the fiction that I gave Reagan the utterly unimportant briefing book, thereby catalyzing the 1980 landslide. But to be fair: As a candidate, Carter promised only that as president he would never tell a lie, thereby leaving himself a loophole for his post-presidential career as a fabulist.
Jimmy Carter is a sad and pathetic old man. What’s even more pathetic is that he builds a few houses and people suddenly are willing to forgive his enormous failings as a president. He can build houses until the day he dies and it wouldn’t make up for the fact that he is one of the five worst presidents in American history and arguably – heck, not even arguably, he IS the worst ex-President in American history. Perhaps he believes it is a noble thing to coddle tyrants like Fidel Castro and bash his country from across the seas, but frankly he’s such a hack that he makes Bill Clinton look like George Washington in terms of character and ability.
The man has an ego the size of Texas. Asked to give a eulogy and he’ll spend a paragraph praising himself. Perhaps that’s why he can’t seem to bare the thought that the reason he lost the 1980 election was not because he lost a debate, but because the majority of the American populace had the same correct appraisal of his presidency – a miserable failure.
# posted by Paul Zummo : 2:07 PM
