Carter the Self-Aware

Jimmy Carter is at it again, though with an exceptional-for-him grasp of the truth. AP is reporting on the undistinguished ex-POTUS's recent pronouncements and forthcoming book that condenses his personal diaries from the White House years. Our take is that Carter manages some fractional truths of self-awareness, an exceptional achievement given his dismal record.

We will note his pronouncements and offer SWNIDisms in response:

Carter: The Tea Party is like the insurgent, outsider Carter campaign of 1976, but the Tea Party will not have lasting political influence.

SWNID: If that prognostication proves true, then the Tea Party will be exactly like the Carter.

Carter: As President, Carter overburdened Congress with too ambitious an agenda.

SWNID: That's true but less than half the point. Carter left Congress without ground for compromise, claiming perfect virtue for all of his positions. Six months into his term, every D on Capitol Hill was praying to Moloch for his demise.

Carter: Carter was a bad leader of the Democratic Party.

SWNID: Not that it's had a good leader in a couple of generations, but he was probably the worst, for reasons noted above. Carter thought himself too good for politics, making him too bad for politics.

Carter: If not for Ted Kennedy's campaign and the Iran Hostage Crisis, Carter would've won.

SWNID: And if not for the defection of Neocon Democrats like Jeanne Kirkpatrick because of Carter's utterly naive approach to Communism and foreign affairs. And if not for ruinous stagflation (not really his fault). And if not for the alienation of his own party that preceded the Kennedy campaign, which was more a symptom than a cause. And if not for the feckless approach to Iran that inflamed Iranian anti-Shah opinion and hardened it into anti-American opinion, propelling the radicals into leadership of the opposition, there would not have been a hostage crisis.

Truth is, except for calling for fiscal restraint, though not achieving it thanks to his poor management of Congress, appointing Paul Volcker as Fed chair, and starting a re-armament program to continue the Cold War after the humiliation of Vietnam, there's not much good to say about Mr. Carter. Now even Mr. Carter is beginning to admit that, if only a little.

Postscript Question: Has there ever been an ex-President as persistent in grabbing the microphone as The Man from Plains?

Jimmy Carter: Mind Reader

To his impressive list of accomplishments, Jimmy Carter now adds ESP. Man looks on the outward appearance; the Saint from Plains looks on the heart.

Reports the AP:

Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst to President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress last week was an act "based on racism" and rooted in fears of a black president.

"I think it's based on racism," Carter said in response to an audience question at a town hall held at his presidential center in Atlanta. "There is an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president."

So it wasn't a publicity stunt after all.

We stipulate that racists exist in large numbers in our large Republic. We insist that racism is bad. We aver that labeling any act as motivated by racism requires a kind of knowledge rightly called divine. We regret that Mr. Carter, having known God rather well for a lifetime, continues to confuse himself with the One he knows.

We SWNIDishly warn others of the same.

We additionally remind gentle readers that it's better to tell someone, "That sounded/looked/felt racist," than to tell that someone, "You are a racist."

More could be said, of course, e.g. the way that Carter decries comparisons of Obama to Hitler as prima facie evidence of racism but says nothing about what was said about former POTUS Chimpy W. Hitliar. But we leave it to others to say such things.

Carter Sanctimony Machine Now Turbocharged

We've been pretty hard on Jimmy Carter in the past. We'd like to stop. But he keeps making the most outrageous remarks, combining his patented sanctimony with a level of historical and political stupidity that insults everyone within earshot. With others, we keep responding.

Carter's recent derogatory remarks about Messrs. Blair and Bush have been well documented. Apparently Carter now characterizes these statements as at least in part "reckless." That's the closest thing to the truth that he's said in recent memory.

For some perspective on Carter's statement, let's imagine that it's 1951 and Herbert Hoover is criticizing Harry Truman for his handling of the economy. And for good measure, he criticizes Winston Churchill too.

Let it be said here that Messrs. Blair and Bush have done more than anyone before to recognize and address the mess that Mr. Carter's capitulating approach to radical Islam, too often followed by his successors, has engendered. When the radicals regard the West as a paper tiger, it is Mr. Carter who best epitomizes that judgment. He is, of course, the last person to recognize this.

We recently offered that Tony Blair, if he indeed offered a quid pro quo to Iran to get the British hostages released, might be known as the Jimmy Carter of Great Britain. We now think that such an eventuality is impossible. Blair didn't leave his hostages in Iran for the next prime minister to get released in the first fifteen minutes of his administration.

Hamas to Carter: What Hamas Were You Talking About?

It seems that Jimmy Carter's misoverestimation of Hamas's desire for peace was noticed by everyone except Jimmy Carter. This from the BBC:

Palestinian militant group Hamas will not recognise Israel, its political leader Khaled Meshaal has insisted.

He was responding to comments by former US President Jimmy Carter, following their talks in Syria at the weekend.

Seems Hamas's offer is to live in a Palestinian State that includes all the West Bank and Jerusalem with a 10-year truce and no recognition of Israel. In Israel, this alternative is known as "unconditional surrender followed by genocide."

How did our Republic ever elect that sanctimonious Southern clown to anything? Or as Mort Zuckerman of US News closes his column this week (hat tip to JB in CA): "A senior foreign policy official summed it all up: 'Carter is an idiot savant,' he said with a sigh. 'But hold the savant!'"

"Inner Core of Awfulness" in Carter's Endangered Values

Gentle readers have no doubt noted SWNID's contempt for the sourly sanctimonious Jimmy Carter, forcibly retired President, inactive Habitat for Humanity volunteer, celebrity Sunday School teacher and national busybody. Today we note that such contempt is recently expressed in a rather late but rather delicious review of Carter's recent book Our Endangered Values (N.B. that the title apparently expresses the royal "we," as it is unclear whether anyone shares Carter's values) by National Review Online's John Derbyshire. Derbyshire's characterization of Carter is fair, as evinced by his concession that Carter governed in difficult times, and correct, evinced by his complete agreement with SWNID.

We urge gentle readers to follow the link, offering the following quotation as an appetizer:

Yet still, with all allowances made and all excuses listed, there is an inner core of awfulness to Jimmy Carter. Our Endangered Values--it is his 20th book--makes this clear.

Waters Muddied: Did Blair Wimp Out Too?

Today's Financial Times reports that an Iranian official is claiming that Tony Blair wrote a letter of apology that sprung the British sailors and marines. Blairs denial was phrased evasively, though an underling offered a categorical "no." Still, no Iranian has produced a letter.

SWNID thinks that if Blair didn't issue a letter, his own denial should be as ringing as Bill Clinton's denial of his involvement with Monica Lewinsky. If he did, we take back all the nice things we've said about Tony Blair.

Certain gentle readers, suddenly transformed into zealous commenters, have suggested that negotiations with heads of state who sponsor terrorism bestows on said leaders the legitimacy that they covet, thereby ameliorating their alienation, lessening tensions and reducing the potential and need for conflict. We confess our puzzlement that a thoughtful person would hold such a view when we lack examples in history that demonstrate its plausibility. Of course, it's been tried--remember Jimmy Carter? But it's been found wanting--remember Jimmy Carter?

It would be a shame if Tony Blair retires with the label "the English Jimmy Carter."

A Commentary on the Celebrity Sunday School Teacher

Part-time ex-President and full-time self-promoter Jimmy Carter presents a precis of his latest book, Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, in the ever-obliging LA Times.

On the book, Publishers Weekly has already said (as quoted on Amazon.com), "Too much of the book, however, is a scattershot catalogue of standard liberal gripes against the current administration. Throwing in everything from human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib to global warming, Carter spreads himself too thin over talking points that have already been covered extensively. "

But for the sake of thoroughness, and because commentary is what we do, SWNID here offers the full text of the Times's article with our trenchant commentary. Mr. Carter's words are italicized; the SWNID commentary is in plain type with bold for emphasis.

IN RECENT YEARS, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.

The Carter mythology depends on the notion of a bipartisan consensus stretching back to George Washington. We will note below some of the more obvious exceptions to this imagined consensus, some recent, some very old.

These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.

Like many on the left, and as Carter himself did in the 1980 presidential campaign, Carter equates his partisan positions with categories of virtue. Differences of opinion are not simply that; they are moral failings. Note that this rhetoric seeks to stifle debate, not engage it. Disagree with Carter, and you're immoral.

Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.

Here the irony is ripe: Carter's rhetoric only works if it silences "dissenting voices," i.e., voices that disagree with Carter. But as to the effect of the so-called lack of respect for dissenting voices, we note that his book was published by Simon & Schuester and his column by the LA Times.

As to state and local autonomy, we believe that the administration that Carter criticizes was lambasted for insisting on some degree of state and local autonomy in disaster response. As to fiscal responsibility, well, we believe that the nation's accounts are have been in better shape in every year since Mr. Carter left office than they were in any year during is misrule.

As to truthfulness, the "Bush lied" thesis has been examined twice by the Senate, and now will get a third hearing because of Harry Reid's hissy fit a few weeks ago. So could we at least assume innocence until guilt is proved, even if the President must be subject to triple jeopardy?

At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organizations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements — including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.

Now here's where Carter imagines his own special America. The United States, since throwing off the shackles of British imperialism, has been singularly independent in its approach to world affairs. Remember Washington's warnings about "foreign entanglements"? Remember the Monroe Doctrine? Remember nonmembership in the League of Nations? Our relationship to international organizations and treaties has always been ambivalent at best.

Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive war," an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes.

Yes, this is indeed a difference. Except with Grenada in the 80s. Or Panama, for that matter. Well, and then we weren't exactly attacked in the Mexican-American War. And there's the question as to whether the Spanish really did sink the Maine. And the case for war in WWI was not entirely clear-cut, especially after Wilson (whose policies Bush's resemble remarkably) campaigned on a pledge not to enter Europe's war.

Really, one can make the case that the only clearly justified American war was the Pacific portion of WWII, and then one can make the case that it didn't need to be carried out to its conclusion of unconditional surrender.

As to the nations branded "pariahs," one shudders to think that Carter is ready to admit the People's Republic of Korea back into the family of respectable nations. And one shudders that Carter is indifferent to the manifest reform of such nations as Lebanon and Libya (cf. discussion of human rights below).

In Carter's world, Kim Jong Il is a world citizen and George W. Bush is a world pariah. Hmm.

Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by topUS. leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world.

I recall another President who insisted that we "speak softly and carry a big stick." But this Bush's policy is not Teddy's. The First and Better Roosevelt wanted to use American naval and military might to promote American commercial interests. Loosely that can be called imperialism, but of a capitalist variety. Bush's policy, however, is more like TR's projection of power with Wilson's expansion of democracy. Call it muscular Wilsonian foreign policy. Is it imperialism to risk lives, treasure and sacred honor to overthrow someone else's dictator and give that someone else a vote?

Hmm. Sounds pretty American. And pretty bipartisan.

These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be internationally constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and America facing the threat of additional terrorist attacks, our declaration of "You are either with us or against us!" has replaced the forming of alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests, including the threat of terrorism.

Well, there are a lot of alliances out there, Mr. Carter. There are the 40 or so nations involved in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are all the nations that voted for various UN resolutions, on the basis of which American and British forces invaded Iraq.

Well, the French aren't there. And do you see how well that's going for them right now?

We didn't mention the five-nation talks about North Korea's nukes, but then to do that would simply bring up another Carter failure, that infamous "agreement" he free-lanced during the Clinton administration with North Korea.

Another disturbing realization is that, unlike during other times of national crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively on the few heroic men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the quagmire of Iraq. The rest of our nation has not been asked to make any sacrifice, and every effort has been made to conceal or minimize public awareness of casualties.

Sigh. We hate to mention this, but the only war that really fits this "sacrifice" mode that wasn't fought on American soil is World War II. If national mobilization would help, well, maybe someone would propose it. Do you see a place for Victory Gardens in the Global War on Terror, Mr. Carter?

But let's remember that for Mr. Carter, a sacrifice is turning down the thermostat, putting on a sweater, buying a compact car, and pledging not to leave the White House until the hostages are free.

Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under some extreme provisions of the Patriot Act.

Let's name one clear example of a gross violation of human rights under the Patriot Act, passed 99-0 by the US Senate. Name one, Mr. Carter! We dare you!

Now, let's talk about what's at stake. The last terrorist attack on American soil took about 3000 lives. So are you cool with the idea of the FBI and CIA sharing information in that light?

The Constitution is not a suicide pact. Yet SWNID notices no spooks at our public library branch or listening in on our mobile phone.

Of even greater concern is that theUS. has repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition program. It is embarrassing to see the president and vice president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment" on people inUS. custody.

The value of torture as a means of interrogation is debatable. But this moral quandary is not: if torture can yield information that will prevent and imminent terrorist attack that will take many lives, should it be used? Mr. Carter, is your own sense of your moral purity so important that you would not authorize that someone be put in pain and fear so that many other people would not be killed or injured?

Instead of reducing America's reliance on nuclear weapons and their further proliferation, we have insisted on our right (and that of others) to retain our arsenals, expand them, and therefore abrogate or derogate almost all nuclear arms control agreements negotiated during the last 50 years. We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation. America also has abandoned the prohibition of "first use" of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear nations, and is contemplating the previously condemned deployment of weapons in space.

As Baroness Thatcher observed before she was a baroness, "You can't uninvent nuclear weapons." The usefulness of American nuclear arms remains their deterrent value. Mr. Kim knows that if he uses a single nuke, he and all of his friends will be vaporized. Those who insist on following Cold War treaties after the Cold War is over risk being labeled Battleship Admirials.

And those who think that if the US reduces its arsenal, other nations will give up their nuclear ambitions risk being labeled naive.

Protection of the environment has fallen by the wayside because of government subservience to political pressure from the oil industry and other powerful lobbying groups. The last five years have brought continued lowering of pollution standards at home and almost universal condemnation of our nation's global environmental policies.

So the rest of the world doesn't like our environmental policies, even though we enjoy a very fine level of environmental quality on our shores? Hmm. So the rest of the world wants us to ratify and follow Kyoto? Hmm. How are they doing with it? Oh, yes: none of the signatories have met their targets so far. Hmm.

To speak plainly: Mr. Carter insists on morally vilifying policies on which there is simple disagreement. Bush and the Republicans simply have a different view on the effectiveness of various kinds of environmental legislation.

Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by unprecedented favors to the rich, while neglecting America's working families. Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $30,000 per year since freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the lowest among industrialized nations).

Well, I'm glad I'm rich, because I got a nice tax cut from Mr. Bush and company. And how is it helpful to the poor if the government takes away more money from Bill Gates? Does that create jobs, or lower consumer prices, or spark innovation, or encourage philanthropy?

As to that minimum wage: how many people are earning it these days? And how are the higher minimums working in France, just to pick a nation at random? How do you feel about 12% unemployment, with 40% among people 15-25?

And while we're on it, what's your deal for royalties from Simon & Schuester? What's that Presidential pension these days?

I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in many houses of worship and in government, as church and state have become increasingly intertwined in ways previously thought unimaginable.

We note that you didn't have the nerve to say "a fundamentalist shift in many Americans' religious views." You had to depersonalize and institutionalize it with "houses of worship," as if "houses" believed anything.

First, Mr. Carter, stop dropping the f-word. "Fundamentalist" represents something very specific in American Christianity, and the fundies are not your problem. By definition, fundies are not politically engaged; they withdraw. The evangelicals are your problem. You used to be one, until you were turned off by what you saw in the Southern Baptist Convention. Your social tastes and political alliances drove you from the church of your childhood and adulthood.

Second, how can you criticize Americans for having thereligiouss views that they do and then say that your opponent is being un-American? Are you not down with the First Amendment?

Third, please note that American religion has always tended toward conservatism, revivalism, and the move from faith to social activism.

Fourth, where is this sinister intertwining of religion and government? In the essentially stillborn "faith-based initiatives"? In the discussion of intelligent design in the classroom? These shake the foundations of our freedoms? How fragile do you think our freedoms are?

As the world's only superpower, America should be seen as the unswerving champion of peace, freedom and human rights. Our country should be the focal point around which other nations can gather to combat threats to international security and to enhance the quality of our common environment. We should be in the forefront of providing human assistance to people in need.

Mr. Carter, please note: peace, freedom and human rights are exactly what we're fighting to create in Iraq and Afghanistan. And guess what: it's working. Not perfectly. Nothing does. But it's working. And you know it.

Iraq is free. Tibet is not. See the difference?

It is time for the deep and disturbing political divisions within our country to be substantially healed, with Americans united in a common commitment to revive and nourish the historic political and moral values that we have espoused during the last 230 years.

Spare us the rhetoric on division. You learned that from the other lefty whiners. "Division" for the left is what exists when people dissent from the conventional wisdom of the left.

As to historic political and moral values that we have espoused during the last 230 years, I'd say that we're right in line with those. We're using our considerable economic and military strength to promote democracy. As we declared the Western Hemisphere closed to colonization, as we resisted British attempts to reassert sovereignty, as we fought to liberate the Southwest from dictatorship and blacks from slavery, as we pre-empted Spanish imperialism, as we fought for democracy against imperialism and fascism, as we contained and battled communism, so we are fighting Islamo-fascist imperialsm and its Baathist ally. Sounds familiar to me!

American history is filled with all kinds of nastiness. But to say that the Bushadministrationn is un-American in its policies is, well, uninformed historically and un-American rhetorically.

At least we remember why we all voted against this guy in 1980.

Viva la Reagan Revolution!

To Correct His Sanctimony, Carter Serves Up More Sanctimony

Ex-President and Current National Embarrassment Jimmy Carter today defends his much-maligned book on Israel and the Palestinians in the LA Times. Which is to say he once again claims to be the only person in America doing the moral thing.

We are particularly irritated by Carter's implication there's no real debate in the United States on this subject and that he is breaking the silence by setting forth a vision of "Israelis and Palestinians living side by side within their own internationally recognized boundaries." Apparently the only debates that Carter knows about are the ones that play out between the voices in his head. The two-state solution has been debated in this country for years, so much so that it goes by that shorthand expression. As we recall, the current President is the first in that office to have explicitly endorsed it, and he did it at the beginning of his first term.

We are not just irritated but amazed that Carter describes Professor Kenneth Stein's criticism of the book as coming from "a former Carter Center fellow" who "took issue." Well, he became a "former" fellow because of his objection to the book. He resigned in protest. And he didn't just take issue. He said that the book is full of factual lies.

If a history of ex-Presidents is ever written, it will have to note the irony that the shamed Richard Nixon, after his years of exile, with his occasional articles and few books contributed tremendously more to public life in retirement than Carter did with all his self-righteous blather.

Carter Leverages into Contention for Most Embarrassing Christian Ever

Ex-President and self-righteous self-promoter Jimmy Carter today made his move to challenge Pat Robertson for the title Most Embarrassing Christian Ever.

Promoting his latest literary self indulgence, a book criticizing the Bush administration's policies from the informed perspective of Plains, Georgia's most famous citizen, Carter offered the following remark: "I can't deny that I am a better ex-president than I was a president."

In response, millions were heard to say, "We can! You're terrible at both, and this book proves it."

Carter, most famous as a celebrity Sunday School teacher, injected Christianity into his discussion, thereby qualifying his remarks for the Most Embarrassing Christian standings, with the following, as reported by USA Today:

"I don't have any doubt that he is very sincere about his Christian faith," Carter said of Bush. "There are some differences in interpretation. ... I have a commitment to worship the Prince of Peace, not the prince of pre-emptive war. I believe that Christ taught us to give special attention to the plight of the poor."

Bush, he said, "has committed himself to extol the advantages of the rich."

Questions about specks in others' eyes and logs in one's own and about the nature and consequences of false witness and slander were not answered by the retired peanut farmer.

Likewise, questions about the benefit to the poor of Carter's ruinous fiscal policies versus the steady economic growth under Bush were ignored.

Likewise, questions about the efficacy of Carter's sword-into-plowshares tactics for the liberation of American hostages versus the Bush doctrine on terrorism received no answer.

SWNID Thanks Ted Kennedy

Today everyone has something to thank the late Ted Kennedy for.

If you're a liberal, you can thank him for being the leader of your cause for a generation. Not that in leading it he actually accomplished much, in our view. As it stands, about the same percentage of Americans identify themselves as liberal as did when he was a young Senator who swam better than he drove. And the major liberal causes have in his time arguably been rolled back, as the Republic has gone through rearmament, income and capital-gains tax cuts, and welfare reform. Kennedy's pet project, raising the minimum wage, proved next to impossible through much of his political life. Meanwhile, the holy grail of "universal health care" remains unattained.

If you're a conservative, you can thank him for Ronald Reagan, whom he worked vigorously to elect in 1980.

Our favorite Ted Kennedy moment was when he joined Jimmy Carter on stage on the closing night of the 1980 Democratic Convention. Teddy had challenged the incumbent Jimmy in the Democratic primaries, and he very nearly toppled him. And so at the convention, in what was to be a show of party unity, he joined Carter on stage.

Except he didn't stand with him. Kennedy didn't shake Carter's hand or give him a shoulder-hug or lift his hand in the air. He simply stood on the side of the stage, grim-faced, and waved to the crowd, who responded with their only enthusiastic ovation of the convention.

Carter lost in epic style to Ronald Reagan. He probably would have lost without Kennedy's help, but at least Kennedy ended up on the right side of history in that election.

So who will take Ted's place? Certainly not another Kennedy. The clan's present generation are political dwarfs. But from the looks of things, the party of Reid and Pelosi, Waxman and Frank has plenty of characters who can courageously undermine liberal initiatives and torpedo party unity.

Mondale: BHO = Carter

It is a curious day for our Republic when the only man to have lost statewide elections in all fifty states agrees with SWNID.

Walter Mondale says that BHO's administration is a lot like Jimmy Carter's. Of course, that's not BHO's fault, per Mondale, just as it wasn't Carter's. The problems just can't be solved, darn it!

Oh, by the way, Reagan was "already losing it" in 1984.

We note that Carter's first big problem ended minutes after Reagan's inauguration, when the hostages got on planes for home.

We note that Carter's second big problem ended when the macroeconomic effects of Reagan's tax cuts were felt throughout the land.

Hence, "Morning in America," with Reagan reelected by every state except MN (yes, MA voted for four more years of the Reagan Revolution). If Reagan was "losing it," he was still marvelously more able than his political rivals, yes?

To explain our earlier note, Mondale went on to lose statewide in Minnesota's 2002 Senate election.

To those who object factually to the "every state except" remark above, we provide a brief civics lesson that constitutionally DC is not a state.

To wrap up the thread of this post, we affirm that no one should be able to recognize a failed politician quite so well as can Walter Mondale.

Carter: This Time We Can Really Trust the Terrorists

AP reports the following:

Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that Hamas — the Islamic militant group that has called for the destruction of Israel — is prepared to accept the
right of the Jewish state to "live as a neighbor next door in peace."

We're not amazed that Carter is naive enough to believe these guys. We're amazed that he's still that naive after the number of times he's been through things like this.

We're also amazed that (a) after all these years the press still reports Carter's babe-in-the-woods comments; (b) Americans voted for this guy once.*

The phrase "prepared to accept" should be considered in other hypothetical contexts:

• The alcoholic: "I am prepared to attend AA meetings."
• The smoker: "I am prepared to quit smoking."
• Bill Clinton: "I am prepared to stop seeing young women."
• SWNID: "I am prepared to stop blogging arrogantly."

We expect adults to understand the nature of statements like this.

And we urge gentle readers to remember that no current politician resembles Carter more than the one who says that he'll immediately have talks with all the Bad Guys as soon as he's inaugurated.

_________________
*That, at least, can be ascribed to the grim despair of the 1970s, and maybe partly to the use of illegal narcotics.

A SWNIDish Thanksgiving

On the eve of every American's favorite holiday, we offer a list of items, mostly in random order, for which to give thanks SWNIDishly.

We have no doubt whatsoever that we are thankful for the following, and urge you to be thankful for them also:

• Joe Lieberman. We like a politician who is old enough and successful enough to speak his mind directly and consequentially. We figure that Lieberman was steeled in contrarian thinking through a lifetime of Jewish observance in a nominally Christian, essentially post-Christian culture. Hooray for Joe's stand on no public option of any kind.
• Dick Cheney. Those old enough to remember the VP debate at Centre College in 2000 will recall that it was billed beforehand as the battle of the solons and hailed afterward as a pinnacle of informed, civil political discourse. Thirty months later, Cheney was evil personified. Lieberman got the same tar and feathers about six months later. Like Lieberman, Cheney didn't care. Now he's a sort of political prophet, calling out the present administration's fecklessness about security matters and, it appears, successfully goading them into taking some kind of reasonable action in Afghanistan.
• The 24-hour news cycle's accelerating of political developments. Thanks to the way that everything political is sliced and diced all the time, folks are modifying their opinions with reckless abandon. That doesn't promote stability, but stability is not a good thing when courses need correcting. The public has now made up its mind about Obama's actual political agenda, faster than one could have imagined it would. We therefore hope for real change in the coming months.
  
• Moral hazard. We refer to the way that certain rewards and punishments created by authorities can perversely act on individuals to incentivize them to do bad things. Moral hazard is at work when loans are too cheap and easy, incentivizing people to overspend. It's at work when investors can expect to be bailed out by the government, incentivizing stupid risks. It's at work when a third party pays for something, incentivizing overconsumption. We give thanks for it because it becomes so obvious over time, providing repeated cautionary tales that the body politic must reckon constantly with the perversity of human nature. Which leads us to . . .
• Cautionary tales. History provides bushels of examples of what not to do. Don't invade Russia. Don't tax without representation. Don't impose protective tariffs during a recession. Don't believe it when someone says, "Things are totally different now." Etc. Which leads us to . . .
• The 1970s. It was a bad era for just about everything, and it steeled us late boomers for the present. Attention, Generations X, Y, Z, Millennials and whatever other term some pop demographer has applied to the latest group of post-adolescents going through their predictable and constant developmental stages: things are bad, but they've been worse. Not only did my generation have to endure the Munich Olympics Massacre, Watergate, Saigon's fall, Whip Inflation Now, multiple fuel crises, stagflation, the Iran Hostage Crisis, Jimmy Carter, Roselyn Carter, Amy Carter, Billy Carter, Miss Lillian Carter, and KC and the Sunshine Band, we also had to endure our parents' stories about the Great Depression. Which leads us to . . .
  
• Adaptability. Say what you will about Darwinism, it identifies something that makes us happy. Successful species, like humans, manage to adapt to a changing environment. We are grateful for the dozens of people we know who have not just endured but overcome the kinds of circumstances that--we are told on a daily basis--ought to be dreadfully feared with dreadful fear by all thoughtful individuals. And we therefore castigate those who strive to create a nanny state to protect what they imagine as masses of frozen androids incapable of changing as circumstances change.
  
• Music educators. Despite constant publicity given to cutbacks on music education in schools, the observable fact is that musicians are getting better and better with every passing year. Popular music has always been mostly dreck, and it remains so today. But looking beyond what is sold to the Philistine masses, we can honestly say that more people play and sing better today than ever before. Many truly amazing musicians live in penury, simply because there are so many of them. That ensures a massive supply of fine sounds for all of us. Furthermore, many who learn music but don't pursue it professionally later testify to the way that their music educations formed them for other things. Behind lots of amazing people are music teachers, whom we invite to take a bow.
  
• Agricultural sciences. The true "green revolution" continues as folks who study the raising of food continue to discover and propagate innovations that increase yields. Just this week we noted a friend who is busy showing subsistence farmers in east Africa how improved cultivation techniques can increase their yields from 300 kg per hectare to several metric tons per hectare, while vastly reducing wind erosion and overcultivation. And as the production of surplus food has historically been the key to improved social welfare, we figure that the world is getting not just less hungry but more enriched generally.
• The profit motive.The possibility of profits induces selfish humans to do good things for others. Aside from conversion, it's the main force keeping people from simply killing each other. Hooray for capitalism, which has done more to alleviate poverty, sickness and illiteracy than just about anything, including something that we note below.
• Immigration, free trade and global travel. Thanks to these things, our Republic enjoy a surfeit of foods, manufactured goods, arts, sciences, and friendships. Facilitated by these things, the family of Christian faith is expanded so that the people in the East and South considerably outnumber SWNID and SWNIDish neighbors in the north.
  
• Altruism. Despite the constant disappointment that human nature provides, the human family continues to celebrate those who give of themselves for the sake of others and to aspire to do the same. The motive gives meaning to lives that would otherwise be lived in brutish shortness. Of course, we are confident that the impulse has little do to with the sociological and biological factors imagined by, well, sociobiologists. Rather, we affirm it as a sign that humans bear the image of their Creator, the God who gave his own life for the sake of others. Our altruism doesn't so much make the world substantially better in the big picture, though it definitely does in the small cases. Rather, it points us to the One who does offer what we comprehensively call "salvation."
  
• The human condition. It's miserable all the time, but that's not all bad. People who imagine that their job, workplace, family, friends, circumstances and prospects are the worst ever need only contemplate the lives of others. Count your blessings indeed, but count the curse and be amazed that people whose lives are like yours can survive and even thrive. Put your misery in perspective, get to know the God whose strength is made perfect in weakness, and find out who in the world you are.
• Bullet points. This typographical invention makes possible essay writing without genuine coherence, a boon to bloggers everywhere.
• Hyperlinks. Like breadcrumbs dropped on the path but never eaten by birds, they let us follow where others have surfed before, providing an endless set of opportunities to absorb the wonders of cyberspace. But when absent, as in this posting, they unburden us from the temptation to linger too long on pointless blather.
  

Carter's Humility Also Superior

More Carter!

Promoting his latest book (honest question: who buys these books?), blessedly ex-President Jimmy Carter is quoted as saying the following:

I feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents. Primarily because of the activism and the injection of working at the Carter Center and in international affairs, and to some degree, domestic affairs, on energy conservation, on environment and things of that kind.

Is this how Miss Lillian raised her boy to talk?

Can we imagine a more blatant way that Carter could confirm the miserable impression that most people presently have of him?

Prof to Carter: Even Ex-Presidents Shouldn't Lie

The Ueber-bloggers at Powerline have performed a major public service by printing Emory University Professor Kenneth Stein's letter of resignation as a fellow of the [Jimmy] Carter Center at Emory. His reason for resigning is his objection to Carter's new book on the Middle East, Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid (that is not a joke, by the way).

We quote the most telling paragraph:

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. Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook. Having little access to Arabic and Hebrew sources, I believe, clearly handicapped his understanding and analyses of how history has unfolded over the last decade. Falsehoods, if repeated often enough become meta-truths, and they then can become the erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and for policy-making. The history and interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict is already drowning in half-truths, suppositions, and self-serving myths; more are not necessary. In due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins.

Once again, Carter, still America's most embarrassing political figure, demonstrates that sanctimony is no substitute for actual morality.

Carter Effect Kicks In

Rasmussen's latest poll shows Ds and Rs even in the generic Congressional ballot (for the uninitiated, the pollster asks the citizen whether the citizen would vote for a Democrat or a Republican for Congress, without naming the candidate).

This is, of course, awful news for Ds, who have not been able to translate their considerable wins in 2006 and 2008 into a base of popular support. Independents, not Democrats, are the political grouping that's growing.

That doesn't mean that Republicans are not on the rise, however. The Republican brand remains deeply stained, but individual candidates are thriving. In the few elections of stature this year, Rs are doing nicely: NJ's Democratic governor Corzine is way behind the GOP challenger, Republican Crist looks strong in the Senate race in Florida. In Virginia, Clinton apparatchik Terry McAuliffe lost the primary, the winner of which now faces a Republican to whom he has previously lost in a statewide race.

The reason for this is, of course, transparent to everyone who is not a Democrat: no one is pleased that the Democrats are using their present, unchecked political power to spend the Republic into penury. The Ds risk sullying their "brand" in a matter of months, something that took the Rs at least eight years of excessive government spending to accomplish.

A generation ago, Americans turned to the eminently upright Jimmy Carter to correct the era of corruption of 1970s politics. But within months, the electorate experienced buyers regret as they realized what the stubbornly sanctimonious Carter would do when given the power to govern. More recently, the body politic asked the eminently charming and diplomatic Barack Obama to restore grace and understanding after the distasteful aggression of the Bush years. Now that they've tasted what it means to be governed by someone used to giving everyone what they want, they experience a parallel regret.

Worst Ex-President Becomes Worst Sunday School Teacher

Jimmy Carter has topped his high standard of posturing his own moral superiority.

As reported by John Sugg of Creative Loafing, Carter recounts this recent exchange from one of his celebrated Sunday School classes:

"I was teaching a Sunday school class two weeks ago," he recalls. "A girl, she was about 16 years old from Panama City [Fla.], asked me about the differences between Democrats and Republicans.

"I asked her, 'Are you for peace, or do you want more war?' Then I asked her, 'Do you favor government helping the rich, or should it seek to help the poorest members of society? Do you want to preserve the environment, or do you want to destroy it? Do you believe this nation should engage in torture, or should we condemn it? Do you think each child today should start life responsible for $28,000 in [federal government] debt, or do you think we should be fiscally responsible?'

"I told her that if she answered all of those questions, that she believed in peace, aiding the poor and weak, saving the environment, opposing torture ... then I told her, 'You should be a Democrat.'"

Partisan as we are politically, smug as we are personally, sarcastic as we are rhetorically, SWNID cannot imagine seriously saying to a teenager that one political party holds all the moral high ground on every issue, much less saying it in the context of what is supposed to be biblical instruction. We say without irony or reservation that this may be the most outrageous thing Carter has ever said.

When the party of Jackson, FDR, Truman and JFK has two living ex-Presidents, one the epitome of the moralistic prig and the other the epitome of the amoral hedonist, both self-absorbed to the greatest degree imaginable, one should fear for the health of the body politic.

Robertson Widens Lead Again

Not content with his massive lead in the standings for Most Embarrassing Christian Ever, televangelist and erstwhile presidential candidate Pat Robertson yesterday issued yet another embarrassing statement. Responding on his TV program the 700 Club to the Dover, Pennsylvania, School Board election that removed from office incumbent school board members who had passed a policy requiring the teaching of intelligent design (ID) with evolution, Robertson said,

I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God, you just rejected Him from your city.

In addition to identifying support for ID as a means to securing God's favor, Robertson's remark continued his recent string of statements invoking divine judgment on people who oppose his politics.

After the program aired, Robertson attempted to soften his original statement with qualifications and explanations. Claiming that he was pointing out that "our spiritual actions have consequences," he offered:

God is tolerant and loving, but we can't keep sticking our finger in His eye forever.... If they have future problems in Dover, I recommend they call on Charles Darwin. Maybe he can help them.

analysts noted that Robertson's explanations continued his pattern of pronouncements on divine judgment and conditions for divine favor and were interpreted as a means of adding additional embarrassment to his original statement.

Promoting his book at a meeting of disaffected Southern Baptists at Mercer University, Jimmy Carter refused comment when asked if he thought that Robertson's statement was in response to Carter's recent embarrassing remarks pronouncing on the authenticity of George W. Bush's Christianity.

P. J. on Jimmy

P. J. O'Rourke sobered up enough to write a column for the Weekly Standard skewering Jimmy Carter's racism remark, plus related sentiments. As usual, Miami of Ohio's Greatest Graduate cannot be epitomized in a quotation. Nevertheless, we offer a paragraph:

I hadn't noticed I was a racist, but that was no doubt because I was too busy being a homophobe. Nancy Pelosi says the angry opposition to health care reform is like the angry opposition to gay rights that led to Harvey Milk being shot. Since I do not want America to suffer another Sean Penn movie, I will accept that I'm a homophobe, too. And I'm a male chauvinist due to the fact that I think Nancy Pelosi is blowing smoke--excuse me, carbon neutral, biodegradable airborne particulate matter--out her pantsuit.

If the world were a decent place, this man, not Al Franken, would be the Senate's comedian.

Hillary Revives Dixiecrat Party, But Where's Harry?

Gentle readers are no doubt familiar with the outlines of the 1948 presidential election. Harry Truman was the Democrat incumbent, but the immortal Missourian had managed to alienate two crucial constituencies, both of which broke from the party to run independent campaigns.

On the left, Truman had alienated the pinkish, socialist Ds with his confrontation of the Soviets after the close of WWII. Those folks ran Henry Wallace, FDR's VP in his third term, finding Truman's anticommunism repugnant.*

Elsewhere (but it's not the right, as racism is in fact alien to conservatism), the segregationists of the solidly Democratic South were incensed by Truman's integration of the armed forces.** They ran South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond (who later switched to the Republican Party that embraced a mild form of segregationist rhetoric in 1968) to punish Truman for stepping away from segregationist orthodoxy.

Truman, of course, managed somehow to win, having been expected to lose to Republican nominee Thomas Dewey, a popular governor of New York who had given FDR a decent challenge in 1944. His blend of populist rhetoric, anticommunism, folksy charm, unimpeachable integrity and political energy proved irresistible to the mainstream of American voters.

On Wednesday, remarking that hard-working folk and white folk would prefer to vote for her than Obama, Hillary Clinton evoked memories of Strom Thurmond. It remains to be seen whether she or her party will ever pay for this awful revival of everything that is worst about the political party that Lincoln didn't belong to. If recent history is any predictor of the near future, the answer is no. Latent racism in the Democratic Party is still largely eclipsed by the Republicans' adoption of the so-called "southern strategy" in 1968, a legacy that continues to hinder their wider demographic appeal.

In this comparison between 2008 and 1948, what strikes us is the absence of a figure like Truman among the Democrats. There has been no vigorous internationalist and economic moderate among the Ds. Indeed, there hasn't been one on the national scene (though locally they do seem to survive) in decades.

While it would be unfair to say that Obama, or virtually any recent Democrat, is as hospitable to socialism as Henry Wallace and his menagerie of Trotskyites, Obama is certainly more a man of the conventional left than the mainstream middle. What record of legislation Obama has and what specifics of policy proposals he lays forth are all the predictable, dreary, oft-proved-to-be-self-defeating positions in the heritage of Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern (now an Obama supporter, as if anyone wanted his support), Walter Mondale, Tom Daschele, Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman.

To put it differently, Obama is clearly to the left of where Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton governed. The blood runs cold at the thought.

As to Obama's being the post-racial candidate, Hillary has now spoiled that celebration, with unfortunate help from Jeremiah Wright.

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*Democratic party leaders, the guys now derided as inhabiting the "smoke-filled room," forced FDR to accept Truman as running mate because they expected FDR to die in office and believed that Wallace would be awful for the country as President. Those were the days!

**Truman in his personal life expressed the conventional racism of his time, using racial and ethnic slurs and stereotypes and enjoying racist jokes. Yet he had the courage, principle and vision to integrate the armed forces. That impresses us all the more.