Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Jimmy Carter: Partisan hack
Jane Galt has exposed Jimmy Carter, Nobel Laureate and citizen of the world, as just the next result-oriented political partisan. Here's a tidbit, but you really should read the whole thing:
Although John Kerry, the national press corps and the 527s have all worked diligently to persuade us that this election is all about Vietnam, I think that this election is all about the presidency of Jimmy Carter. The establishment of the Democratic party nominated Vietnam medalist John Kerry (after flirting with Wesley Clark) because with a war on the Democrats needed to exorcize their reputation for weakness in national security matters (even if it is bizarre to think that an anti-war activist would meet that requirement). Whence did that reputation come? Surely not from FDR, JFK (the first one), or even Bill Clinton, who bombed the shit out of any number of disgusting places. It comes from Jimmy Carter, who as his first act as president pardoned the draft dodgers, who thought that boycotting the Olympics would make the Russians quake in their boots, and who dealt with the Iran crisis by wasting our military in a fantastically subtle rescue mission rather than run the risk that they might kill some "innocent" Iranians.
This election is also about the Carter legacy in other, more subtle ways. Jimmy Carter established our reputation among the Islamists for fleeing at the first sign of trouble. We may very well be at war today because Carter did not just pound away at Iran until it released our people. It is also, finally, about the value -- or profound insufficiency -- of the brand of inclusive multi-lateral internationalism that he advocates alone among the former presidents of the United States (living or dead).
Mr Carter, if you are going to rhetorically lump the US in with tinpot dictatorships that stage elections, there are a few things you might want to consider, so that the effect redounds to the greater glory of yourself and your party, rather than alienating the unwashed masses who will be voting in this sham election....
2) You should not, immediately after lumping Florida in with places like Saddam Hussein's Iraq, lambaste the Republican Secretary of State for undemocratically, illegally, and unjustly . . . allowing too many political parties on the ballot.
"The top election official has also played a leading role in qualifying Ralph Nader as a candidate, knowing that two-thirds of his votes in the previous election came at the expense of Al Gore."
Your outrage at the idea of a supervisor brazenly allowing people to vote for someone other than Al Gore might give people the mistaken idea that you care less about having democratic elections than having Democratic elections.
Although John Kerry, the national press corps and the 527s have all worked diligently to persuade us that this election is all about Vietnam, I think that this election is all about the presidency of Jimmy Carter. The establishment of the Democratic party nominated Vietnam medalist John Kerry (after flirting with Wesley Clark) because with a war on the Democrats needed to exorcize their reputation for weakness in national security matters (even if it is bizarre to think that an anti-war activist would meet that requirement). Whence did that reputation come? Surely not from FDR, JFK (the first one), or even Bill Clinton, who bombed the shit out of any number of disgusting places. It comes from Jimmy Carter, who as his first act as president pardoned the draft dodgers, who thought that boycotting the Olympics would make the Russians quake in their boots, and who dealt with the Iran crisis by wasting our military in a fantastically subtle rescue mission rather than run the risk that they might kill some "innocent" Iranians.
This election is also about the Carter legacy in other, more subtle ways. Jimmy Carter established our reputation among the Islamists for fleeing at the first sign of trouble. We may very well be at war today because Carter did not just pound away at Iran until it released our people. It is also, finally, about the value -- or profound insufficiency -- of the brand of inclusive multi-lateral internationalism that he advocates alone among the former presidents of the United States (living or dead).
1 Comments:
By 
Fausta, at
Tue Sep 28, 09:50:00 AM:
(In selfelf-congratulatory mode, here) I got an Instapundit avallanche by noticing the Kerry/Carter similarities back in July after reading an Economist article that featured a photo of Kerry with the caption "An acute sense of America's fallibilities".
Carter's poisonous legacy is the root cause of many of the problems we still have to deal with today, and will deal with for decades to come.
