Free Republic

<p>A QUARTER OF a century has passed since 44 states said "No, thanks" to Jimmy Carter's offer to serve a second term, yet he still evidently thinks his loss is explained not by foreign policy debacles, such as invading Iran with eight helicopters, and a misery index — inflation plus unemployment — of 22, almost triple today's index.</p>

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said on Monday the Bush administration had eroded America's global influence with its conduct in Iraq and by condoning the torture of terrorism suspects. "They have redefined torture to make it convenient for them," Carter said of the Bush administration in an interview with Reuters. "Things that are unanimously almost or globally assumed to be torture, they claim that this is not torture. I don't think there is any doubt that is what they are doing," said Carter, a Democrat who was president from 1977 to 1981. He has since been a...

Former President Jimmy Carter campaigns on behalf of his son, Jack Carter, at a public library in Henderson, Nev., Monday, Sept. 11, 2006. The former president came to town after his son, who is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, was hospitalized. (AP Photo/Laura Rauch)

LONDON Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter criticized the British government on Thursday for quickly adopting controversial policies of the Bush administration regarding the Iraq war and the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. "I've been really disappointed in the apparent subservience of the British government's policies related to many of the serious mistakes that have been originated in Washington," Carter said in an interview BBC-TV's news show "Nightline." In the past, Carter said, British governments had used a "strong voice" to help shape joint U.S.-British policies as part of the long-standing special relationship between two of the world's greatest democracies. But under Prime Minister...

New Haven, CT (AHN)-Millionaire businessman and Democratic Ned Lamont said Wednesday the U.S. is weaker because of the war in Iraq backed by rival Sen. Joe Lieberman, and he called for shifting forces to Afghanistan and elsewhere. During a speech at Yale Law School, Lamont said, "We have sacrificed our daughters and sons and our treasure in a war we didn't have to fight. We have ignored the real threats and security needs in the war we should be fighting, the one against the terrorists. ... Senator Lieberman believes that President Bush has it right in Iraq. I believe that...

New Haven, Conn. -- Democrat Ned Lamont said Wednesday the U.S. is weaker because of the war in Iraq backed by rival Sen. Joe Lieberman, and he called for shifting forces to Afghanistan and elsewhere. "We have sacrificed our daughters and sons and our treasure in a war we didn't have to fight," Lamont said. "We have ignored the real threats and security needs in the war we should be fighting, the one against the terrorists. ... Senator Lieberman believes that President Bush has it right in Iraq. I believe that he's dangerously wrong." The Democrat, who upset the three-term...

Jack Kelly: Meet the worst ex-presidentAn odious Iranian will see Jimmy Carter on his U.S. visitSunday, September 03, 2006 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The State Department has granted a visa to Mohammad Khatami, the former president of Iran, to visit the United States.           Mr. Khatami is coming this week chiefly to attend meetings at the United Nations. He also will speak at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; at a function sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Arlington, Va., and at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. And he will meet with former president...

A few weeks ago, Jimmy Carter gave an interview to the German newspaper, Der Spiegel, mostly on the recent Lebanon conflict. It was classic Jimmy Carter -- at once moralizing and morally confused, ill-informed and preachy -- illustrating why the American people voted him out of office after just one term and the politically partisan Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize. Take first the former president’s historical illiteracy. "Under all of its [the Bush administration's] predecessors there was a commitment to peace instead of preemptive war," Carter claimed. But is that really so? What about the Spanish-American War...

LONDON, Aug 27 (Xinhua) -- Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter said the Iraq invasion had subverted the fight against terrorism and instead strengthened al-Qaeda and the recruitment of terrorists, according to a British paper report on Sunday. In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Carter said that if he had still been president, he would never have considered invading Iraq in 2003. "However, I wouldn't have excluded going into Afghanistan, because I think we had to strike at Al-Qaeda and its leadership," he said. "But then, to a major degree, we abandoned the anti-terrorist effort and went almost...

For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week. Carter's term as president was dominated by the rupture in relations after the 1979 Iranian revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days until the day he left office. Iranians made the overture for the meeting, and the Carter Center in Atlanta is working on the possible timing, said Phil Wise,...

When I wrote about Jimmy Carter's antics recently, some suggested I should quit wasting my time discussing someone so irrelevant. Well, I'd be happy to comply, except that their assumption is incorrect. What this misguided and increasingly bitter man says, especially on foreign soil, does matter. Don't forget that the Democratic Party leadership embraces Carter, as witnessed by his prominent role in the party's national convention, where he called President Bush -- in no uncertain terms -- a liar. Remember that when you're tempted to think of Carter as just a benign senior statesman. I'll concede Carter has done some...