Posted on 09/07/2004 2:05:44 PM PDT by VMI70
The text of a letter former President Carter sent to Zell Miller over the weekend ...
You seem to have forgotten that loyal Democrats elected you as mayor and as state senator. Loyal Democrats, including members of my family and me, elected you as lieutenant governor and as governor. It was a loyal Democrat, Lester Maddox, who assigned you to high positions in the state government when you were out of office. It was a loyal Democrat, Roy Barnes, who appointed you as U.S. Senator when you were out of office. By your historically unprecedented disloyalty, you have betrayed our trust. Great Georgia Democrats who served in the past, including Walter George, Richard Russell, Herman Talmadge, and Sam Nunn disagreed strongly with the policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and me, but they remained loyal to the party in which they gained their public office. Other Democrats, because of philosophical differences or the race issue, like Bo Callaway and Strom Thurmond, at least had the decency to become Republicans.
Everyone knows that you were chosen to speak at the Republican Convention because of your being a “Democrat,” and it’s quite possible that your rabid and mean-spirited speech damaged our party and paid the Republicans some transient dividends.
Perhaps more troublesome of all is seeing you adopt an established and very effective Republican campaign technique of destroying the character of opponents by wild and false allegations. The Bush campaign’s personal attacks on the character of John McCain in South Carolina in 2000 was a vivid example. The claim that war hero Max Cleland was a disloyal American and an ally of Osama bin Laden should have given you pause, but you have joined in this ploy by your bizarre claims that another war hero, John Kerry, would not defend the security of our nation except with spitballs. (This is the same man whom you described previously as “one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders -- and a good friend.")
I, myself, never claimed to have been a war hero, but I served in the navy from 1942 to 1953, and, as president, greatly strengthened our military forces and protected our nation and its interests in every way. I don’t believe this warrants your referring to me as a pacificist.
Zell, I have known you for forty-two years and have, in the past, respected you as a trustworthy political leader and a personal friend. But now, there are many of us loyal Democrats who feel uncomfortable in seeing that you have chosen the rich over the poor, unilateral preemptive war over a strong nation united with others for peace, lies and obfuscation over the truth, and the political technique of personal character assassination as a way to win elections or to garner a few moments of applause. These are not the characteristics of great Democrats whose legacy you and I have inherited.
I contacted President Carter's office for comment and his press spokesperson Deanna Congileo told me that the letter was a private communication and that President Carter would not be issuing further comment.
-- Josh Marshall http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
"The Jimmy Carter who sent a warm letter of regards to the Ayatollah Khomenei, praising him as a man of God?"
***
Did he really say that? Holy CRAP! (double meaning intended) If so, he's definitely from the Jim Jones sect of Christianity.
He's also the guy who cancelled the B-1 bomber and tried to replace it (and B-52's) with C-5 Galaxies parachuting ICBM's out the cargo hatch and igniting them.
Touting his own accomplishments.....sheesh, need we be reminded of those dreadful years.
Yo Jimmeh, Zell LOVES his country and puts that genuine LOVE above your rotten, corrupt Demoncrat politics and THANK GOD FOR IT! We need more MEN; not girl men like YOU, Jimmeh.
BTW, has your brother stopped pissing on airport walls yet?
Poor old Jimmy Carter. He is a pathetic and hateful old man full of anger because the American people turned against him when he was trying to lead us into HE--. You can't rewrite history enough to make a winner out of this man. I darn near left the US forever because of the disease he was spreading. Glad to see that it is fully developed in him today.
hmmm...no mention AT ALL of the Georgia VOTER!!! Always the "Democratic Party" that's done so much for Zell....as though he'd done nothing for Georgia.
I'd like to see a side-by-side with LBJ's record on that point. LBJ holds a special place of contempt in my estimation. I'm open to being set into a reappraisal of the two for the dishonors of Worst.
(What exactly is a "pacificist"?)
.................
Don't ask me. I've spent odd moments for the last 24 years wondering what "nookiar poriferation" is.
"Our entire nation was held hostage under Jimmy Carter."
In 1980, he was probably the only guy who was upset when the USA hockey team beat the Russians.
And we're still stuck with Ted Koppel thanks to Carter!
Typical Democrat bluster. Funny, I thought the voters of Georgia elected Zell Miller as governor (superb governor). As for Barnes appointing Zell, Zell was the only Democrat in Georgia who could have won the seat in a special election. If it wasn't for Zell the Democrats would not have controlled the Senate after Jeffords defection. They should thank him for that. Sen. Miller was elected by Georgians as Senator. Sen. Cleland was kicked out because he voted with Teddy Kennedy-much too liberal for Georgia. The Democrats fail to understand this...which is why Georgia is no longer a Democratic stronghold.
Yes, of course you're right. :)
Given the choice between a "loyal democrat" and a loyal AMERICAN, I'll take the loyal American EVERY TIME, Mr. "President."
As a member of the US Air Force from 1975 to 1979, I know for a fact that you're full of it.
Our pilots were concerned that they weren't getting enough flight time to be effective. When I went to Germany, we had to qualify on the M-16, even though AF folks don't usually carry one around. They would only issue a grand total of 120 rounds or so, because "they couldn't afford" to let us fire any more than that.
And even in 1975, we still got harrassed in airports for being "baby killers", thanks mostly to John F. Kerry. Even out of uniform, because the military hair cuts of the day stuck out like a sore thumb and everybody knew you were military.
Commie Karter placing party over country and the Constitution.
Karter: Move to Cuba you freedom-hating POS. We don't want you/
[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 12/11/03 ]Carter: Miller's Senate appointment was 'mistake'
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- Former President Jimmy Carter says the appointment of Georgia's Zell Miller to the Senate was a mistake because his fellow ex-governor "betrayed all the basic principles that I thought he and I and others shared."
The comments, which Carter made Wednesday on the radio program FOX News Live with Alan Colmes, are the latest in a string of attacks prominent Democrats have made lately concerning the maverick senator who has endorsed President Bush's re-election and penned a new book arguing his party is out of touch with the South.
When Colmes asked Carter about Miller, the former president first said, "I would rather not even comment about Zell Miller on the radio," then proceeded to call the appointment "one of the worst mistakes" then-Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes made in his four years in office.
The KR shouldn't be forgotten. Brings back ALL KINDS of memories of a really bad time.
Jimmy Carter Attacked by Killer Rabbit (April 20, 1979)
President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a rabbit during a fishing trip in Plains, Georgia. The rabbit, which may have been fleeing a predator, swam toward his boat, "hissing menacingly, its teeth flashing and nostrils flared." President Carter was forced to swat at the vicious beast with a canoe paddle, which apparently scared it off.
Upon his return to the White House, Carter told his staff about the furry amphibian's assault. Most of them refused to believe him, insisting that rabbits can't swim (although since most mammals can swim, there's no reason to believe that rabbits cannot), and that even if they could, they certainly wouldn't attack humans, and certainly not presidents. Fortunately, a White House photographer had been on the scene, and had recorded the bizarre attack. The photograph showed Carter with his paddle raised, warding off a small creature which might, or might not, have been a rabbit. One staffer was quoted as saying, "You couldn't tell what it was." Undaunted by their skepticism, Carter had the image enlarged, and there it was--a killer bunny rabbit, apparently bent on assassinating the president.
The story might have ended there, except that White House Press Secretary Jody Powell mentioned the incident to Associated Press reporter Brooks Jackson in August. The Washington Post ran it as front page news. The original photograph was not available (until the Reagan administration leaked it in 1981), but the paper filled the gap with a cartoon modeled on the poster for the movie Jaws, starring the rabbit and entitled Paws. Powell made a belated attempt to impress the public with the seriousness of the attack, calling the creature a "swamp rabbit," but since Carter had to appease his rabbit-loving constituents by insisting that he had not actually smacked his buck-toothed opponent with his paddle, but only splashed water at it to drive it away, it seemed unlikely that he had been in danger. The entire episode became a symbol of Carter's floundering presidency. According to Powell, "[I]t shows the extent to which an insignificant incident can snowball and end up in newspapers and news shows across the country.” Carter biographer Douglas Brinkley says, “It just played up the Carter flake factor.... I mean, he had to deal with Russia and the Ayatollah and here he was supposedly fighting off a rabbit.”
I, myself, never claimed to have been a war hero, but I served in the navy from 1942 to 1953, and, as president, greatly strengthened our military forces and protected our nation and its interests in every way. I don’t believe this warrants your referring to me as a pacificist. That's it. Jimmah's smoking crack.
Stay safe !
Someone pinch me. It seems the revisionists are no longer waiting a generation to start their spin.
"During the 1976 campaign, Carter criticized Defense spending levels of the Ford administration and promised cuts in the range of $5 billion to $7 billion." [Source: biography of Harold Brown, Carter's SecDef]
And Further: In terms of real growth [of the defense budget], there were slight negative percentages in 1978 and 1979, and increases in 1980 and 1981. It should be noted that part of the increase for FY 1981 resulted from supplemental appropriations obtained by the Reagan administration, but nevertheless the Carter administration by this time had departed substantially from its early emphasis on curtailing the DoD budget.
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One final comment: it is not Democrats or Republicans who place people in elected office, it is American, and in this case more specifically Georgian, voters. The issue of party loyalty is part of the problem with American politics. Politicians are beholden to the parties, the party bosses, the moneymen, and the interest groups who support the whole charade. Does Mr. Carter suggest that nary a Republican ever voted for Mr. Miller, nor deserved his attention or efforts? I certainly hope not. But he seems to insist that Party Loyalty come before personal conviction: a steep and winding road to hell if ever one existed.
Elective office should be about people, and ideas, and values. Let them eviscerate Zell, he was leaving anyway, but while they do .. let us evaluate how we look upon those who speak their minds instead of speaking with their wallets.
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