Jimmy Carter, The Most Respected Man In America? Naaaah!....

The Iconoclast ^ | December 15, 2002 | Murray Soupcoff (The Iconoclast)

[Apolitical]

ICONOCLAST DAILY NOTEBOOK....

Jimmy Carter, The Most Respected Man In America? Naaaah!....



December 15, 2002: Well, here's another howler from CNN that should be another incentive for Americans to switch to Fox News as their cable news source. According to the Media Research Center, CNN featured an interview with the renowned Georgia peacemaker, peanut farmer and political nutcase, Jimmy Carter, after Jimmy accepted his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. During the interview, CNN's Jonathan Mann fawningly told the diplomat of choice of the world's most repressive tyrants and dictators: "Mr. President, you are arguably the most respected American on the planet today."

Oh, yeah? By whom? After all, that's akin to telling Martha Stewart, "Martha, you are arguably the most honest businesswomen and health-stock investor in America." Or "Al Gore, you are arguably the most charismatic politician in all 50 plus states of this great nation of ours." Or "Tom Cruise, you are arguably the tallest man Nicole Kidman has ever slept with." Or "Trent Lott, you are arguably the most respected politician in black America." Or "Adam Sandler, you are arguably the most hilarious chronicler of fart jokes America has ever seen."

Probably the best take on this exercise in typical CNN hyperbole is a sardonic look at this "incident" by our own contributor editor, Marni Soupcoff. So with great pride, we recommend -- especially to all you Jimmy Carter haters out there -- Marni Soupcoff's latest American Enterprise Magazine Online column, THE MOST RESPECTED AMERICAN? Killer rabbits say no!

To whet your appetite here's an excerpt:

The interview with the former President took place shortly after the humble peanut farmer -- who asks nothing more from life than good health, peace, and the world's fawning attention -- accepted his Nobel Peace Prize. In it, CNN's Jonathan Mann told Carter: "Mr. President, you are arguably the most respected American on the planet today."

I'll let that just sink in for a moment before going on, but let's just say that arguably has got to be the operative word in that sentence.

O.K., have you thought about it? Played around with the idea a little? James Earl Carter the most respected American on the planet? Surely Mr. Mann must have made some kind of mistake. Perhaps he was thinking of James Earl Jones, whose voice is indeed the stuff of power and can elicit reverence and veneration even when it's only advertising a phone book. Or perhaps Mann was confusing the former President with basketball great Vince Carter whose performance in the NBA All Star Game slam dunk competition did inspire awe all across North America, if not the planet.

But he couldn't possibly have been serious in suggesting that Jimmy Carter is the most respected American on the planet. The same Jimmy Carter whose most aggressive move as President came in 1979 when he was attacked by a killer rabbit and raised a paddle in self-defense?....

My, my. Nasty stuff indeed.

[Apolitical]

Like Rodney Dangerfield, Jimmy Carter just can't get no respect!

[laconic]

I believe the same thing was said about one Walter Cronkite who proceeded to lend his self-styled "enormous credibility" to Bill Clinton during the impeachment proceedings.

[sofaman]

Please....spare me. The man is a caricature..

[Libloather]

This was posted yesterday...

[Blue Collar Christian]

You know how to cure a pacifist? You keep punching him in the nose until he hits you back! Too many people today enjoy the freedom that they are not willing to pay for. He
is their representative.

[jim_trent]

Everyone who mentions the peanut farmer should also mention the "misery index". It hit record high levels during his administration. It was the sum of three numbers, each a measure of bad things. Doesn't anybody here remember that?

[Vigilanteman]

Carter's greatest contribution to world peace was, and always will be, electing Reagan in two landslides.

[bballbob]

Carter meant well, and for all the liberals, that's what counts. Results don't matter, intentions define approval and success.

[Columbine]

How Funny!

I guess I can respect him for being a carpenter and doing good works with it.

And I can respect him for lusting in his heart instead of in the oval office.

That's about it. I sure don't respect him for his big dumb mouth!

[AnAmericanMother]

Poor lamb, you just don't know him. I knew him before he was governor of Georgia. He was an ineffectual idiot then, and he's an ineffectual idiot now. A well-meaning idiot (possibly) but nevertheless an idiot.

While I respect your family's service and suffering, I don't see what that has to do with our peanut farmer. If you think he has done a single thing to promote world peace, think again.

He managed not only to get the Shah of Iran deposed and a murdering Islamicist dictator installed in his place, he made promises of support and protection to most of the Shah's cabinet and military officers and then broke that promise. The Ayatollah executed them all. Then he did nothing to protect our embassy personnel and they were all kidnapped & held hostage for an unconscionable period. He made only one poorly organized, inept, botched effort to rescue them that wasted American military lives & materiel. And that's just ONE example.

On the domestic front, his weak and muddling economic policy resulted in simultaneous inflation and recession (two for one!) and gasoline shortages worse than WWII rationing. I personally "babysat" our car in gas lines for hours, waiting to get enough fuel in the tank (five gallon limit) for my husband (then my fiance) to get to the train station to get to work. Some president!

He did not suddenly and miraculously change when he got out of office. He talks a good game, but his supposed "human rights work" mostly consists of meddling and self-aggrandizement, working directly against the interests of America both in foreign policy and in using foreign aid and influence to campaign against policies to which he was opposed. He has been cynically used by almost everyone involved in the Middle East, and he's too naive to realize it.

When that loon on the Nobel committee stated outright that the award of the prize to Carter was intended to "send a message" to Bush, Carter should have declined the prize because it was being used for an invidious purpose. But he loves money and notoriety too well to do any such principled thing.

You shouldn't support him or assume he's a "good guy" just because he happens to support some of the causes YOU support . . . at the moment. If it pays him to change his tune, he will do so, and then where will you be?

He is an embarassment.

[Texbob]

Jimmy Carter was not even respected as a Peanut Farmer, who got chased by swamp rabbits. The liberals keep trying to rewrite history, but, there are too many people who know different and we know their hero White Trash Scumbag Clinton was proven liar and crook.

[Lobster 6]

The joke is on us. "We" elected this fool. The disaster of his Presidency lives on - he can't stop flapping his lips! You can't make this up - Jimmy Carter, the gift that keeps on giving. How can anyone take him seriously?

[AnAmericanMother]

Bad manners? For saying that I respect your family's service? Where does that come from?

I'm not going to trade service records with you, but suffice to say my family has served in WWI and WWII, wounded & decorated, as well as in every war back to the French & Indian. I respect anybody whose relatives have fought for their country. My dad spent some time serving with the 79th Cameron Highlanders, and he had the greatest respect for their fighting qualities and character as men.

That being said, I believe you are mistaken in your assessment of Jimmy Carter. I have nothing against peanut farmers (large contributors to our state's economy) but they ought to farm peanuts, not meddle in affairs of state for which they are unqualified.

Other than a short stint in the Navy and as a state senator (a job that almost anyone can do, believe me), Carter's only qualification when he got to the Gold Dome in Georgia was having worked in his daddy's peanut and cotton business. Making a crop in South Georgia does take a certain amount of skill, but it's not a job that qualifies one for being governor, let alone president. He had the same micro-managing, meddling, self-righteous sort of qualities ad governor that he later demonstrated as president (he used to wander around the Capitol building turning the thermostats down. It drove the GBA (maintenance) people crazy, because his ad hoc adjustments threw the balancing equipment out of whack. More or less like his foreign policy foolishness.)

[AnAmericanMother]

You're too thin-skinned to hang around here if "poor lamb" bothers you.

Never mentioned Churchill, by the way, don't know what you're talking about.

Seems to me you have an axe to grind with respect to the Middle East, and I'm not going to disagree with you on your pet peeve.

What I'm telling you is that Carter isn't what you think he is. You have never met the man, and you have never had to deal with him personally. I have, while he was governor and later while he was doing his "Habitat for Humanity" thing. He's an unreliable, micro-managing, self-righteous incompetent who doesn't have what it takes to lead.

You have built up for yourself an image of Jimmy Carter that has nothing to do with the reality, apparently based entirely upon his agreement with you on a single issue. But you can't put much stock in what he says or does, because it's all built upon sand. We learned that the hard way here in Georgia.

[Blue Collar Christian]

I appreciate but don't share your point of view, especially when it comes to any treaty with the impotent, yet in the way UN. What I see as the "concensus of the civilized world" is complete implemintation of socialism. YUK! It discusts me especially coming from dictators. Like most liberals, his heart is in the right place, it's where his head is that stinks.