There he goes again. In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Jimmy Carter has called George W. Bush’s presidency “the worst in history” in the area of foreign affairs. In a separate interview on the BBC, the former President also blasted the conduct of Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain, the leader of America’s closest ally, as “abominable,” and also “loyal, blind, apparently subservient.” Said Carter, ”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.”
Has any American President ever lambasted one of his successors with language such as this, and on foreign soil—or at least on foreign airwaves—to boot?
Speaking of the “worst in history,” there can be little doubt that Jimmy Carter is himself Our Worst Ex-President—which is the title of a comprehensive, timely, and utterly devastating essay by Josh Muravchik that COMMENTARY published in February.
What explains Carter’s own abominable conduct? “Ever since his presidency,” writes Muravchik, “there has been a wide gap between Carter’s estimation of himself and the esteem in which other Americans hold him.” And it is this gap that
has manifestly embittered him. For all his talk of “love,” the driving motives behind his post-presidential ventures seem, in fact, to be bitterness together with narcissism (as it happens, two prime ingredients of a martyr complex). But he has worked hard to earn the reputation he enjoys. In contravention of the elementary responsibilities of loyalty for one in his position, he has denigrated American policies and leaders in his public and private discussions in foreign lands. He has undertaken personal diplomacy to thwart the policies of the men elected to succeed him. And in doing so he has, at least in the case of North Korea, actively damaged our security.
Muravchik notes that there can be little doubt that the American electorate was right in 1980 when it tossed out Carter in a landslide, thereby judging him to have been “among our worst Presidents.” Muravchik is himself undoubtedly right in his certainty that “history will judge him to have been our very worst ex-President.” Read Muravchik’s indispensable essay here.
To learn about how Carter helped to destabilize America’s most critical ally in the Persian Gulf, click here.
To learn about how Jimmy Carter bungled the Iranian hostage crisis, click here.
To learn more about what I think about Jimmy Carter, and what he thinks about me, click here.
But I thought everyone in Gitmo now was just sweetness and light. Why would any country turn them down?
Could it be they are terrorist scum?
See what happens when we try to get the world to love us? It is like Lucy yanking the football away just as Charlie Brown is about to kick it. With the left in power, we’ll be doing a powerful lot of belly crawling in the future. Instead of asking how high, it will be how far.
Is there a more humane prison in the world in relation to the insidiousness of its inmates?
A paraphrase “The US created the problem.” Yeah by not killing every one of those bas**rds on the battle field. There’s a lesson and a big incentive in this, maybe even the idiot Euros can learn it.
I love hearing the Eurotrash talking about how Obama’s trying to solve the problem with the same solution that Bush was trying to use. The Euro-Obama honeymoon won’t last the year and Barney Frank’s frank admonition that Obama’s “I can talk the world into peace –yada, yada, yada” nonsense is vastly overstated, comes true.
Bigger question is why are most of the dirtballs at Gitmo still alive.
We’re over 5 years into a conflict, and not a single dirtball taken to Gitmo has been executed.
And we were told “the gloves were coming off.”
Seems some politicians slipped the kid gloves back on and didn’t care to inform the American people.
The refusal of the Europeans to accept Gitmo detainees is all the proof you ever needed (as if!) that the Europeans knew all along that these men were dangerous. Given the existing and worsening tensions between the indigenous populations of some EU countries and their Muslim immigrants, no EU government is going to take the risk involved in importing potential terrorists.
All of Guantanamo Bay detaines should be sent to the Aloha State. The Hawaii ACLU will help the the detainees to assimilate into multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural Hawaii which should reform their way of thinking because of the many different nationalities here. The people of Hawaii wouild be understanding since 70% voted for Barack Obama.