Monday, September 21, 2009
The 39th President
I suppose there is always the chance that something was lost in translation, but this looks pretty bad:
"I think there is no doubt that in 2002, the United States had at the very least full knowledge about the coup, and could even have been directly involved"The quote is attributed to Jimmy Carter, speaking to the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo yesterday (link in Spanish) regarding the failed coup attempt against Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
Such a statement coming from a former POTUS is not very helpful to the current administration, or U.S. interests generally, regardless of its veracity. Frankly, the CIA can only wish that it still had that kind of juice in the Americas, hearkening back to the days of Arbenz in 1954 in Guatemala, or Chile in the early 1970s. Or maybe Darth Cheney didn't even need to use the CIA for this operation, and just had Scooter Libby run it out of a basement in the White House. Sometimes, all that's needed is a larger tinfoil hat.
"At the very least full knowledge..."
Possibly "directly involved."
I thought that it was a customary courtesy for sitting Presidents to give former Presidents a briefing -- an advance heads-up -- about impending major international events, especially military operations and the like. For example, George W. Bush would have notified Bill Clinton, et al., a short time before the operation to remove Saddam in 2003 took place. Did President Carter not receive his call about Chavez in 2002, and he is upset, or did he in fact receive the call, and he's just now saying something? Or is he simply not getting enough oxygen to his brain these days? He'll be 85 years old next week, and such things happen.
CWCID: Hot Air
6 Comments:
By 
Mystery Meat, at
Mon Sep 21, 06:57:00 PM:
Jimmy Carter desperately wants to drag this country down and has for years. What a sorry excuse for an ex-president. Now his boy Zbigniew Brzezinski wants America to shoot down Israeli jets if they attack the nuclear sites in Iraq. What is it with these reprehensible people?
By 
, at
Tue Sep 22, 09:04:00 AM:
Why should he be given a heads up on anything. He can't get back in power so sit down and shut up.
By Andrew X, at
Tue Sep 22, 02:06:00 PM:
(I posted the below verbatim around the 'sphere as soon as Carter opened his "big, smug (piehole)" last week, and three days later Instapundit linked to it, even though it's two years old. I'd like to think I made a slight little ripple. :-) I will continue to post this link every time "History's Greatest Monster" drools out his latest contemptible nonsense.)
--
You may disagree with Christopher Hitchens on some matters, but if you want a rollicking good and oh-SO-deserved owning of the fathomlessly contemptible Djimmah Carter, read this link. It’s rich, fudgy goodness, and I love linking to it every time this pusbag opens his sanctimonious gob-smackingly inept mouth.
http://www.slate.com/id/2166661/
(To spread the good word, just tell people to google “Hitchens+peanut envy”)
By Andrew X, at
Tue Sep 22, 02:09:00 PM:
Boo. If anyone can figure out how to cut and past the link just above, and make it active, please do.
It's WELL worth it..... trust me!
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Tue Sep 22, 08:21:00 PM:
PJ O'Rourke did a takedown of Carter thant's even better than Hitchens's. And that's saying some.
By Brian Schmidt, at
Fri Sep 25, 01:03:00 PM:
Really? One of the most buffoonish mistakes of the Republicans was to immediately recognize the coup as legitimate, only to see it fall apart the next day, and you really want to draw attention to the incident?
As for this customary notification you're talking about, that's the first I've heard of it. Care to give a link or reference? I could imagine a "something's about to go down, don't travel abroad" notice, but you seem to think it's more specific.
