Thursday, February 02, 2006
The Democrats and their ex-presidents
Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, has turned himself into an internationalist activist. He no longer makes any pretense at all of speaking for American interests, but instead champions precisely the sort of feel-good internationalism that quite appropriately hurts Democrats with the voters. There he was, on CNN last night, arguing that we should continue aid to the Palestinian Authority notwithstanding that its new governing party, Hamas, bases its political power on the proposition that Israel must be destroyed:
"If there are prohibitions -- like, for instance, in the United States, against giving any money to a government that is controlled by Hamas -- then the United States could channel the same amount of money to the Palestinian people through the United Nations, through the refugee fund, through UNICEF, things of that kind," he added.
Carter expressed hope that "the people of Palestine -- who already suffer ... under Israeli occupation -- will not suffer because they are deprived of a right to pay their school teachers, policemen, welfare workers, health workers and provide food for people."
Before we get to the really stupid part, haven't we learned that "channeling" money through the United Nations -- which quite obviously has worse internal controls than Jeff Skilling's Enron -- is a profoundly bad idea? The left, which thinks that every nickel the Pentagon loses is a totem to financial mismanagement, suddenly gets all "billion here, billion there" when the United Nations is involved. The great American center knows that it would be asinine to recruit Kofi Annan's friends and relatives to launder our money so that we can skirt federal law and continue to fund the Palestinian Authority.
But, as I said, that isn't the really stupid part. This is:
Carter expressed hope that "the people of Palestine -- who already suffer ... under Israeli occupation -- will not suffer because they are deprived of a right to pay their school teachers, policemen, welfare workers, health workers and provide food for people."
The people of Palestine elected a government that is expressly at war with America's most stalwart ally outside of the Anglosphere, and Jimmy Carter declares that notwithstanding this they have a right "to pay their school teachers, policemen, welfare workers, health workers and provide food for people."
Wrong. The Palestinians have a right -- finally -- to elect their own leadership. They have exercised that right. They have a responsibility to pay their school teachers, policemen, welfare workers, health workers and provide food for people. That Palestinian Arabs have exercised their rights in a way that makes it very difficult for them to perform their responsibilities reflects on their immaturity -- or even incompetence -- as a society.
It is this kind of thinking that is killing the Democrats.
CWCID: LGF.
5 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Feb 02, 08:50:00 AM:
Wow! One wouldn't think there had been enough time yet for your marching orders to be faxed in from AIPAC.
By , at
Thu Feb 02, 12:14:00 PM:
"It is this kind of thinking that is killing the Democrats."
Democrats RIP - if it only were true.
By , at
Thu Feb 02, 12:55:00 PM:
He does make a decent enough point, but gets it ass backwards.
Hamas won the vote because of its social services. If those social services are cut off (as they would be because of a lack of international funding) Hamas loses out on its powerbase. Which will force it to splinter into those those who derive their personal power from the social services network and those who get theirs from blowing people up.
He thinks cutting funding off will cause people to support Hamas more. But that's not true.
By 
TigerHawk, at
Thu Feb 02, 01:15:00 PM:
Shloky, I think that you have nailed the problem with Jimmy Carter. He is a smart and knowledgeable man, but his instincts for human nature are just silly. Me, I'm with Bush: we'll support a Palestinian government that works for peace, but we will not support one that wants war. Hamas, by its platform, is the latter.
Carter believes in leading with rewards, hoping to induce better behavior through kindness. Bush believes in leading with coercion, and then rewarding better behavior if and when it occurs. I know which trait I want in a president.
By , at
Thu Feb 02, 02:47:00 PM:
Agree wit BatOne re
Bill, but will take it a bit
further;
The running for "president of the world" is correct and
strenghten by his comments at Dravos and his comparison
of those Danish cartoons to
rampant anti-Semitism.
I think Bill's been watching
the ABC "Commander-in-Chief",now on "hiatus" or in
plain english, cancelled,
and has decided he really does not want to be the
"First Laddy" if the UN thingy doesn't pan out.
If you consider the cartoon
comparison to anti-Semitism,
he may not want her to be
Senator from New York for
much longer either.
Poor Bill - photo in previous post could be the
one that reveals her soul.
Now we know why he likes those overseas gigs!
