Friday, April 25, 2008
The moral confusion of Jimmy Carter
Bernard-Henri Levy writes about the "sad end" of Jimmy Carter in today's Wall Street Journal. Levy exposes a moral confusion so deep one is forced to wonder -- and Levy does wonder -- what has happened to Carter's mind.
The problem is not that he is, or is not, talking to the Syrians – everyone does it to some degree.
It isn't that he went to Damascus to meet with the exiled head of Hamas – everyone, including the Israelis, will one day have to do that too, in accordance with that old rule which says that in the end it is with your enemies not your friends that you have to come to an understanding and make peace.
No.
The problem is how Jimmy Carter went about it.
The problem is the spectacular and useless embrace he exchanged with the senior Hamas dignitary, Nasser Shaer, in Ramallah.
The problem is the wreath he laid piously at the grave of Yasser Arafat, who, as Mr. Carter knows better than anyone else, was a real obstacle to peace.
It is that in Cairo, if we are to believe another Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, whose statement has so far not been denied, Mr. Carter apparently described Hamas as a "national liberation movement" – this party which has made a cult of death, a mythology of blood and race, and an anti-Semitism along the lines of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion into the linchpin of its ideology.
The problem is also the formidable nose thumbing he got from Hamas's exiled leader, Khaled Mashaal, who, at the very moment he was receiving Mr. Carter, also triggered the first car bombing in several months in Keren Shalom on the Gaza strip – and that this event elicited from poor Mr. Carter, all tangled up in his small-time mediator calculations, not one disapproving or empathetic word.
The former president, it will be recalled, is an old hand at this sort of thing.
Read the whole thing, and ask yourself whether Israel's ambassador to the United Nations was wrong to describe Carter as a bigot. I think he nailed it. In his actions and body language, Jimmy Carter at least seems to hold the Jews to an entirely different standard of behavior than the Arabs. Are there good arguments to the contrary?
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Apr 25, 07:34:00 AM:
Perhaps a good argument is that Jimmy had to endure a childhood competing against an intellectually superior sibling, Billy. And now he is attempting to change that perception?
By 
Escort81, at
Fri Apr 25, 01:00:00 PM:
I spend a fair amount of time around octogenarians and nonagenarians. Clinically and physiologically, the mind simply does not function as well, and certain personality traits can become exaggerated. Also, there can be an obsessive focus on seemingly nonsensical issues, in addition to a continued effort to assert physical independence, even when that no longer truly exists (that is, the elder person needs more help to get around). There is an effective loss of IQ points, to put it in blunt terms. This can all be intermittent and progressive.
I am willing to dismiss Carter’s current behavior of veering wildly around U.S. interests in the Middle East (and perhaps the last year or two) to a kind of pre-irrational senility – he is still coherent in some sense, but he simply isn’t firing on all cylinders. All of his previous behavior – for that, he is accountable.
The fact that his latest escapade falls into a logical progression of previous behavior actually supports my theory. His brain can’t control impulses he feels, and he has to act out more and more to achieve the same level of satisfaction. When you see Carter don a black Hamas hood on the Larry King show, remember that you heard it here first.
By Hope Muntz, at
Fri Apr 25, 02:09:00 PM:
Yeah but Carter's always been disturbed. My uncle was a volunteer for McCarty in '68, McGovern in '72, and Carter in '76. He met all three of them (McGovern several times, including recently), and says in his opinion Carter has Asperger's Syndrome, the 'bug-eyed, best-boy, temper-tantrum throwing kind'. He says he wanted to vote for Ford after spending 5 minutes with Carter.
By , at
Fri Apr 25, 06:09:00 PM:
keep supporting the zionists and see what happens
By , at
Sat Apr 26, 09:29:00 AM:
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat Apr 26, 11:25:00 AM:
Vague threat. People who issue vague threats 1) believe them to be scary, and 2) usually have no means or intention of carrying it out.
See my other post under 'Vietnam Rage Syndrome' about today's weakling leftists.
By , at
Wed Apr 30, 11:31:00 AM:
Jimmy Carter the best job he ever had was with HABITAT FOR HUMANITY at least he didnt do any bungling
