Posted on 08/19/2006 5:57:59 AM PDT by conservativecorner
There are so many sad things to write about today but we all need the cathartic diversion of a true laughingstock, so let us talk about Jimmy Carter. Carter, by all biological indications, is still alive, so we may speak of him ill. Very, very, incurably ill.
From Jan. 20, 1977, through Jan. 20, 1981, our nation endured an unpleasant, aberrant, tragicomic episode. In the somewhat confused political atmosphere subsequent to the resignation of Richard Nixon, the electorate succumbed to the blandishments of a folksy Georgia governor who espoused a form of bland centrism. The theory, presumably, was that boredom was preferable to the rather disorienting excitement of daily following the antics of such eccentrics as G. Gordon Liddy, Martha Mitchell and Sam Ervin. The new President, James Earl Carter, was said to be a man of great learning who would repair the fracture of our body politic: a polymath for the aftermath.
This cleverly packaged (supposedly by Democrat pollster/consultant Pat Caddell) program turned out to be a load of hooey, bunkum, trash, poppycock and baloney, not to mention hogwash. In short order it was clear to have been cooked up. First and foremost, the man wouldn’t recognize the center if it was as tall as Kareem Abdul Jabbar. He was further left than Snow White. No electron was safe around such a free radical as he, nor for that matter was the rest of the country. He presided over an era unique in our national history for economic failure and military impotence.
Not even the most elemental of his assigned tasks did he accomplish; namely, that of normalizing White House life. He brought along a cast of characters that made Erskine Caldwell’s creations seem patrician by comparison. To really identify a comparable set of flakes in fiction one would have to reach for the works of Dr. Seuss. There was a banker named Bert Lance who directed the Office of Management and Budget until his corrupt tenure as Chairman of the Calhoun Bank in Georgia came to light and he betook his portly figure back into the backwoods.
An adviser named Hamilton Jordan sported a sort of John-Ritter-with-a-leer charm that he took to be irresistible. All too frequently tales of the resistance surfaced to regale newspaper readers. He responded to one such rebuff by pouring his drink down the woman’s dress. There was also a beer-swilling brother named Billy who was desperately trying to cash in on his fraternal status. Two novel ways: he contracted with a beer company to manufacture a brand named Billy and he registered as a lobbyist for Libya and Moammar Qaddafi.
This collection of boobs, kooks and crooks took us down a garden path that led into a swamp. The prime lending rate rose higher than 15%, making it virtually impossible to acquire a home. Unemployment hovered near ten percent, leaving one tenth of our citizens skulking in alleyways, looking either for trouble or despair. No solution was offered by the President and his resident geniuses beyond the recommendation to come to terms with America’s newly abbreviated capacities.
The military capacity of this country shrank to a nullity. When sixty-six Americans were held hostage at our embassy in Teheran for 444 days by mobs affiliated with the Islamic revolt in Iran, we stood by helpless and humiliated. When a rescue was finally attempted by landing eight helicopters in a nearby desert, a few of the helicopters became incapacitated by the landing and the project was hastily aborted. All of this came after the Carter administration had essentially stood by while the Muslim rebels deposed the Shah, last in a 2,500-year line of Persian monarchs.
This is the Jimmy Carter who today writes books and gives interviews in derogation of the policies of President Bush in prosecuting the war against Islamic terror. His recent remarks to Der Spiegel do not reflect new trends in his thought; he told the American Prospect in the month after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq that it was done by Bush for his own aggrandizement.
The man is a fool at best and a menace at worst. He does have strong book learning and, were he finally to close his mouth, we might respect him in that regard. Instead he has undertaken to provide regularly for the benefit of our society an object lesson on the potential distortion of good education by bad judgment. I opened by suggesting that we laugh. But perhaps I erred; it only hurts when I laugh at this spectacular buffoon who incredibly is our former commander-in-chief.
Mr. Homnick, a regular contributor to Human Events, is a well-known commentator and humorist. He also writes for The American Spectator.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo!)
Anna Diggs Ginsburg Lennin Marx Taylor
In 1982, my ex and I were living in Saudi Arabia. We worked for ARAMCO (Arabian American Oil Company) and we made more money than God.
So, we bought a SECOND house in San Francisco. The lending rate was 18%. We thought we got a "deal" when the owner carried the loan for 15%, with a 5-year balloon at the end.
I remember thinking, "Wouldn't it be nice to have millions to put into T-notes right now? Thirty-year T-notes at 18% on my millions." That WOULD have been nice. Them that has, gets.
Ah, the legacy of Jimmy Carter. I wonder if Billy Brother is still soaking up the beer. Carter's mother was the only source of amusement in that family.
Jimmy's son, Jack Carter, is running as a dem for Senator from Nevada. Jack says it's okay for Israel to defend itself. Jimmy says No. Otherwise, they're two peas in a pod. God help us if Jack goes to DC.
Carter has brain damage.
ping for later
One of the great moments in American history took place in Air Force One the night before the 1980 election when Carter was travelling back from the west coast. He met with Caddell and was told that the updated polling showed he would lose in a landslide. Carter refused to accept reality and babbled on and on. Finally Pat told him to accept reality, he would lose in a landslide the next day and prepare for it. Carter sulked the rest of the night.
It is truly a shame this moment was not captured on film.
Jimmuh Cartuh, one of the 5 or so worst presidents in history and easily the worst ex-president in history (but I believe blowjob Bill will give him a run for his money there).
Once again, Georgia apologizes for the buffoonery...
Three fools who have been President, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton. All three have done more damage to the American Constitution and Bill of Rights than any and all President's before them. And it seems to be getting worse as time passes on.
Like the once flourishing but now dying tomatoes in the ground of harvest, America seems to be dying on the vine.
The liberal mindset in a nutshell.
Tain't your fault. I apologize for Franklin Pierce and Warren Rudman. Not that it does any good.
Repeating this statement, just because I like hearing it.
Bttt
Don't forget that a RINO named John Anderson (IIRC) split the Republican vote to get Jimmah elected just as Ross Perot did twice to get Clinton elected. I predict that in 2008 the dims will try to get another Republican to split the vote. Its fine to criticize the party, but when the election rolls around, UNIFIY!
The author is working way too hard at being clever.
[He was further left than Snow White. No electron was safe around such a free radical as he, nor for that matter was the rest of the country. He presided over an era unique in our national history for economic failure and military impotence.]
He is also an apostate who labels himself, as Clinton did, a Christian; but he is a fool and a liar and, because of his activities in the U.N., as a leftist, a murderer of many people by being an accessory of fascist governments.
Awww, yer just jealous you didn't think of it.
";^)
Carter was part of the Nixon legacy. If Nixon had been smart enough to realize he could win in '72 without silly break-ins, there would have been no Jimmy Carter Disaster.
I don't see it as Reagans mistake at all. I see it as Carter's mistake for not nuking them when they took the hostages.
We should have lobbed one in the desert just outside of Tehran, and said "The next one is going to be much closer unless the hostages are on airplanes to the USA in one hour."
I served in the US Navy while Carter was president. We did our best with what we had, and I am sure that if anything had come up, we would have aquitted ourselves well. But money was tight. We were in the North Atlantic, and we didn't have enough foul weather jackets to go around. We had to share them. Someone came down off the flight deck and surrendered their jacket to someone going up. And they weren't real cold weather jackets. We would stuff cleaning rags inside our clothes to make them warmer. Kind of funny now, when you think about it.
But, what a pathetic POS Carter was, and is. Democrats have done their level best to destroy the presidency. It used to be a custom for ex-presidents to never criticize the current office holder. You would think that would be an easy thing to live up to, given that they have walked in their shoes and should understand.
But then, the Democrats like Carter and Clinton never DID walk in the shoes of a president like Reagan or the Bushes. Carter and Clinton simply never did the job.
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