Posted on 12/22/2006 6:32:23 PM PST by Nasty McPhilthy
WASHINGTON - That is the question many prominent Democrats are asking themselves following the publication of the former president’s new book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.” In it, Carter blames Israel for impeding peace and pro-Israel advocates in this country for unduly influencing American foreign policy.
Rightly afraid that they will lose Jewish voters — a strong base of support since the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt — Democratic leaders have criticized Carter’s assertions. But dealing with Carter will require more than news releases.
In an advertisement published in the country’s leading newspapers, the Anti-Defamation League printed statements from incoming House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Speaker of the House-elect Nancy Pelosi, and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.
Conyers called the book “offensive and wrong,” Pelosi said that, “it is wrong to suggest that the Jewish people would support a government in Israel or anywhere else that institutionalizes ethnically based oppression” and Dean said that “on this issue President Carter speaks for himself, the opinions in his book are his own, they are not the views or position of the Democratic Party.” Yet Dean also couched his criticism by making it clear that “I have tremendous respect for former President Carter.”
This equivocation — that Dean could still have “tremendous respect” for a former president who has used his position, repeatedly, to smear the Jewish state — is what will prove troublesome for Democrats in the months and years to come. Will the Democrats give Carter a prime speaking opportunity at their upcoming presidential convention, as is traditional for former presidents? Recall the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston, when Carter spent the evening, very publicly, sitting next to Michael Moore.
He may be 82 years old, but Carter is not the sort of man who will go away quietly. Ever since leaving office, he has shown a disregard for protocol in carrying out his own independent foreign policy, often at odds with the actual, elected leader of the country.
In 1994, he defied fellow Democratic President Bill Clinton when he visited then-North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung. The president of South Korea deemed the meeting “ill-timed” and said that it gave cover to the North Koreans and encouraged them to continue their “stalling tactics” on nuclear proliferation. One Clinton administration official said that Carter’s foiling State Department efforts in the region was “near traitorous.”
Carter has made the familiar assertion that critics of Israel cannot get a fair hearing in the United States. “Because of powerful political, economic and religious forces in the U.S.,” he writes, “Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned, voices from Jerusalem dominate our media and most American citizens are unaware of circumstances in the occupied territories.” Yet that lie was quickly and embarrassingly exposed when prominent Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz offered Carter the opportunity to debate and Carter refused.
Since the end of his ignominious presidency, Carter has made a career of coddling the world’s despots, from Robert Mugabe to the dreadful North Korean father and son to Fidel Castro and Yassir Arafat.
Oddly, this was the same president who announced that under his watch, American foreign policy would place a higher priority on human rights. Democrats who support the state of Israel might want to start questioning their leaders about how they will deal with the problem of Jimmy Carter.
Any Jew who votes for a Democrat is, in effect, a Holocaust Denier.
Nominate Jiimy for President! Shoot, Jimmy is the only one honest about Liberal policy, it is very anti-Semetic. Sit back and do nothing about terrorists states and let them all get nukes so one day the Islamofascists can wipe Israel off the map like the say they are gonna to.
The way to tell exactly how the Dems feel about Carter and his "book" is to watch the lip service the MSM pays to it. And so far it's been pretty extensive and positive.
Probably most of them don't really think they have a Carter problem. And I would suspect that the few that are mentioned in this story are giving little more than lip service.
Arkham asylum would solve their Jimmy Carter problem.
What Problem? He is their senior spokesman!
There is but one way to permanently eliminate the Democrat's 'Jimmy Carter Problem' and that is to hope for an early 2007 state funeral for the 39th (p)resident.
The so-called Camp David 'peace' agreement has not brought peace to Israel, what it DID accomplish was to pour billions upon billions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds into Egypt as compensation for them NOT continuing to wage war against Israel along with their Arab neighbors.
Carter is a pathetic little puke who has never been able to get over the fact that he was a miserable failure as President, 44 states agreed with that assessment and showed his self-righteous ass to the door in November 1980, and he watched a far better man than he could ever hope to be (Ronald Wilson Reagan) turn America around, win the damn Cold War, trigger the longest economic boom in American history, and he did it all with a smile, style and class.
What really put Carter over the edge was watching millions upon millions of Americans grieving the passing of our 40th President, knowing that when the time comes for him to leave this mortal coil, that there will be no such outpouring of grief, that his 'accomplishments' will barely fill one double-spaced page of typewriter paper.
Jimmy Carter visited his doctor for an annual physical, and was shocked to hear the doctor tell him that he *might* have less than a year to live, Carter said "well Doc, no offense but I think I'd like a second opinion."
And the Doctor said: "OK, you were a lousy President too!"
It's going to be a lot easier for Republicans to exploit Democrats' Jimmy Carter problem than it will be for Democrats to solve it. Every time a Republican politician opens his mouth between now and 2008 there should be some reference to it. If that doesn't happen, we're hopeless, imo.
Jews don't deny the Holocaust and have always voted Democrat. They'll rationalize Carter away.
samtheman
Any Jew who votes for a Democrat is, in effect, a Holocaust Denier.
Your words
I voted straight GOP with one exception. Harris County Treasurer who ran on a ticket to abolish the unnecessary costly office. He was a Democrat.
I guess you just stereotyped me as a Holocaust denier.
Who should I vote for next time ? And that was a sarcastic question.
Liberals use to sound like anti-Semetic Buchanan on this issue, but now they use the term 'neocon' in place of 'the Jews', and their bigotry sounds so much more politically correct.
LOL!
87% did this election.
You know what I mean. I'm not talking about county level democrats. I'm talking about the national party, and their love affair with those who are planning the NEXT holocaust.
5.56mm
If they hate Israel, then they're A OK in Carter's eyes (from Khomeini on through the years).
And Sam, to be very honest I did not watch it, my ex wife did as the Nazi's came and took her neices and nephews and as they held the children by the legs they smashed the childrens heads.
Please do not stereotype me as "any jew who votes for a democrat"
I think you were over zealous in posting, no more no less, yet I did vote GOP with one exception. County Treasurer. And He lost.
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