Farewell to the Man from Plains
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
Former president Jimmy Carter passed away today. He was 100 years old, the oldest former president and the first to attain their centenary. His wife Rosalyn Carter passed away in November 2023.
He will be remembered most for his immense contributions to society post-presidency, from his diplomatic efforts to the founding of The Carter Center and its support of voting rights and democracy, his efforts through the Center to eradicate disease, and his work for Habitat for Humanity.
He will also be remembered as a national hero for his role in preventing a nuclear accident in 1952. The episode was not widely publicized until 2021:
Carter, a young U.S. Navy lieutenant in 1952, was in in nearby Schenectady, New York, training to work aboard America’s first nuclear submarine at the time of the accident at a reactor in Chalk River, Ontario, just 180 km from Ottawa, the Canadian capital.
According to a Canadian government website, mechanical problems and operator error “led to overheating fuel rods and significant damage” to the core of the reactor, prompting officials to turn to the United States for help in dismantling the device.
A total of 26 Americans, including several volunteers, rushed to Chalk River to help with the hazardous job. Carter led a team of men who, after formulating a plan, descended into the highly radioactive site for 90 seconds apiece to perform specialized tasks.
Carter’s job, according to the CBC recounting, was simply to turn a single screw. But even that limited exposure carried serious risks; Carter was told that he might never be able to have children again, though in fact his daughter Amy was born years later.
Carter was generous and humble, faithful and steadfast, true to his family, faith, and country to the end.
May he rest in power.
__________
Photo: Carter with future spouse Rosalynn Smith and his mother at his graduation from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, June 5, 1946, via Wikipedia.
“I have one life and one chance to make it count for something… My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.” — Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter was a great man and a great president, regardless of the mountains of scorn heaped on him by the frothy right. His Egypt-Israel accord is still intact today. Had he successfully rescued the Iranian hostages, he would have likely won re-election, Ronald Reagan might never have become president and the world might be a very different place. You never get credit for what might have been. His humanitarian efforts are almost without peer – both in eliminating guinea worm infestation in Africa and the in thousands of homes he helped build through Habitat for Humanity. His love for Rosalyn was also a model of devotion and tenderness. If there is a heaven, Jimmy Carter is entering its gates today…
Remember that the GOP didn’t want those hostages rescued.
That’s an important point that a lot of reporters are already getting wrong. They blame Carter for being forthright about not knowing when the hostages would come home for his election loss, which was more complicated than that.
They ignore how actively Republicans fought to delay their return for electoral advantage. It’s not as if Reagan needed to invent that wheel. Nixon had already done it in 1968, also before he was elected.
re the hostages being released the day of the Reagan inauguration:
let us watch very closely what the Netanyahu gov’t does immediately after the Trump inauguration.
It wasn’t “Republicans” who “fought” to delay release of the hostages, it was Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan who sent emissaries to Iran explaining that if they held the hostages beyond the election, he’d return their frozen assets as soon as he took office.
Which is exactly what Reagan did.
William Casey, who was Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager, met with Iranians in Madrid and asked them not to release the hostages as long as Jimmy Carter was president. Casey promised Iran armaments, which Israel would deliver to them. Casey and others promised the Iranians that things would be much better for them once Reagan was elected.
Reagan did the same as Nixon had done before the 1968 election – it’s a traditional Republican betrayal of our national interests.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/expert-analyzes-new-account-of-gop-deal-that-used-iran-hostage-crisis-for-gain
Those rescue helicopters pulled from storage in the bowels of an aircraft carrier, didn’t have the needed sand shields to protect the rotor assembly.
I recollect when then-candidate Carter announced his intention to grant a pardon to Vietnam-era draft evaders. He made the announcement in a speech to the toughest crowd he could find, the American Legion convention in Seattle. He knew he would get booed, but, he told an aide, “I want to meet it head-on.” It is difficult to conceive of any Republican politician displaying that kind of character.
I am so glad he died before Trump takes office. Now he can be given the funeral and respect he deserves by a president who truly admired him.
Important point. Trump would have slapped together something miserable, and made himself the star of the show or not attended at all. Now, Carter gets the proper state funeral he deserves.
The WH has already issued a statement from the Bidens remembering Carter. It ends with that Biden will be ordering a state funeral to honor Carter: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/12/29/statement-by-president-joe-biden-and-first-lady-jill-biden-on-the-passing-of-former-president-jimmy-carter/.
Totally agree. President Carter was a true humanitarian. He deserves a respectful goodbye.
Until he got snookered into the Iran raid, Carter was going to be the only president who never got anybody killed.
You know who’s second on that list?
Biden.
i dread whatever foul tirade he puts out already….
And the flag will be flying at half-mast in the background of the inauguration.
Jimmy gets the last laugh.
That just made me smile.
Half-staff for land lubbers.
Perfect.
My first reaction to the news of his death:
Jimmy Carter (RIP): “F*ck it. I’m outta here”.
With intelligence, grace, dignity, and humility, Jimmy Carter showed us how it can be done.
Bill Lukash, whose tenure as a White House physician spanned from Johnson through Carter, said he thought Carter was the most intelligent of them all. Bill told a charming story of a moment at the Louvre when President Carter hung back to stand very near the guide and, so quietly that Bill doubted anyone but the three of them could hear, noted an informational error about a painting. In Bill’s telling, President Carter wasn’t showing off, he was helping.
God give us more helpers if you please.
Jimmy Carter was a good and honorable man. Unfortunately he gave rein to his National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski to support, build, and impower the Taliban in order to “give Russia their own Vietnam”. Leading to countless deaths, the loss of a western leaning society, 9/11, and the failed Afghan War.
Carter also campaigned with his religion on his sleeve which led to the political awakening of Christians,. This led Reagan to cut a deal with the Association Of Religious Broadcasters for their mutual support, leading to the empowerment of the Religious Right in US politics.
[Moderator’s note: FYI, your username and email address are NOT on a moderation list, and yet they trigger auto-moderation every time you comment. I can’t find a reason for this, very sorry. Thanks for your patience. /~Rayne]
unfortunate but true, Presidential Finding of 3 July 1979.
taking the full measure, though, Carter’s was an admirable and deeply moral public life.
“Salt peanuts! Salt peanuts!”
I can remember as a boy the extended family driving up to Plains from Bainbridge for Jimmy Carter’s inauguration party. We were peanut farmers too. In Southwest Georgia everybody’s great uncles had been axe handle wielding klansmen way back when, so it’s a very intense kind of place, I think, where a certain kind of temperament responds with moral seriousness, because you find yourself in a world where there is a lot of overcoming to do. Anyway, in South Georgia, there are Baptists and Methodists. My Grandma and Great Aunts thought Jimmy Carter was really a Methodist at heart, anyway, but most of the men down there grew to loathe him. Jimmy Carter was really something!
I voted for McCarthy in 76 and Anderson in 80. Deeply regret both votes.
Anderson later admitted that he ran to split the Democratic vote.
I made the same mistake in 76. I was afraid of his religious zeal. I fortunately corrected my mistake in 1980. To no avail.
Jimmy Carter was a ray of sunshine when I voted for him in 1976. I saw him do good things such as the Panama Canal Treaty at the beginning of his term but grew saddened as negative events, bad luck, and mean-spirited opposition doomed his presidency. I knew things were bad when he seemed to give up and turn over foreign policy to his proto-Neocon advisors and issued the Carter Doctrine which seems to still help justify subsequent involvement in Middle East forever wars. Once the powers-that-be sensed blood in the water, they had no qualms in humiliating the man until he finally was gone. I’ll not forget the headline when he stumbled on the stairs of Air Force One: “First He Falls from Grace, and Now This”. Also, after the failed raid to rescue the Iran Hostages, Time Magazine published a gruesome photo of the charred body of an American helicopter pilot lying on the ground. This drove home the message that Establishment media was fed up with him and would break taboos to see him on his way.
RIP Jimmy. Your good works as former president will more than redeem you in the eyes of History.
… negative events, bad luck, and bad spirited opposition …
You left out VP George Bush flying to Paris as Reagan’s representative to cut a deal with Iran to hold the hostages until Ronald was inaugurated… the “October Surprise”.
Carter was manifestly not Nixon, or his placeholder, Gerald Ford. It’s hard to overstate how much public relief there was when Carter won, eight years after Bobby Kennedy’s murder, but it was not shared by the establishment.
The press disabled Carter the way it has enabled Donald Trump. I think it was part of the establishment’s reaction to what one of its senior courtier’s, Harvard’s Samuel P. Huntington, called an “excess of democracy,” which helped eject Richard Nixon from govt. It gave us Ronald Reagan, instead. The middle and working classes have yet to stop paying for that.
He wasn’t from the level of society that was supposed to produce presidents. (Neither was Reagan, but they ignored it in his case.)
It’s been a constant in American politics since Nixon; the press hammers down Dems and props up Repubs.
Unless they are named Kennedy.
You mean unless they’re an anti-vax Kennedy.
Oh how history repeats itself.
“The press disabled Carter the way it has enabled Donald Trump.”
and is now and has disabled Biden.
Yes, Earl. This: the middle and working classes have yet to stop paying for that!
On the mark!
My first vote was for Jimmy Carter. Only my vote for Barack Obama made me that proud.
Mine too. I was in college and subscribed to the Atlanta Constitution. I remember going to the balcony of my dorm to get the paper and seeing the headline that he won. SO happy and proud.
I believe Jimmy Carter made it all the way up the Nine Spheres of Heaven.
Yes, Rest in Power Peacefully.
And to those who threw all the sticks&stones; words did not hurt him enough to cripple his carpentry.
At the century mark, a true Giver, not a Taker.
Yes. When I think of politicians who might be actual saints, he is the only one that comes to mind.
His election in 76 is the first one I have a memory of — one of our school projects was to watch the election results with a blank map in hand and use map colors to fill in the results as they were announce, and add up the electoral college results. That was all cool enough (and the election results were close enough) that my interest in politics were a direct result of that election.
A s a president I have always felt like he was worse than we hoped, and better than we deserved.
All buffers aside
Whereas after the next inauguration
We get what we deserve
and hope it’s not worse
Post-Vietnam, post-Nixon, post-Bobby Kennedy, the realization that the sixties weren’t the seventies, baby, and with OPEC upending the global establishment’s apple cart, no progressive president could have been as much as we’d hoped for. But he did pardon thousands of draft evaders in one executive order, plugging a major hole in Gerald Ford’s earlier amnesty.
RIP
One of the greatest presidents ever.
I was on active duty in the USAF during his administration and always appreciated that there were fewer military killed in hostile action during his presidency than in any other presidency.
Jimmy Carter was an honorable man who also tried his hand at politics. He wasn’t a great politician, but he was a great POTUS and a statesman. He also foresaw the challenge of climate change and tried to push the US in the right direction. As time passes, Carter looks larger and more righteous, and his successor Reagan looks smaller and more compromised. Reagan could certainly give a better speech but could not understand the complexities of the office. Carter made much better decisions and had a moral compass that few before or since would even comprehend. He did indeed make a difference and will be missed. RIP, President Carter.
I was an American HS student living in Tehran when the Shah fell; my parents were state department wonks who never saw a posting they didn’t want to take. Iran was in complete, utter chaos. I made it home, somehow, and later, voted for the very first time. I voted for Carter. I’m going to miss the humanity.
new name to conform to current length policy
As a lifelong Georgian my adulthood and political life was shadowed by Jimmy Carter. As Governor he killed a high dam on the Flint River, said to be the first Governor to ever reject a Corps of Engineers dam project. Not long ago it was learned that the Corps wrote a Resolution for a local GA House member objecting to the dam veto that passed the House. The State Senate, from which Carter had risen to become Governor, where his first cousin was a member, rejected the House resolution in floor vote, just over fifty years ago. The dam was never built. Carter’s rejection of several water projects in western states probably resulted from his close readings of Corps cost-benefit analyses, his official reason for rejecting the Sprewell Bluff dam on the Flint River.
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Carter had an engineering degree. He wasn’t a political hack or a business guru; he made many decisions based on science and economics.
Looking at damage many dams have caused as well as the failings of other Corps of Engineers’ projects, Georgia likely dodged an expensive bullet thanks to Carter.
Respect for a genuinely good human being.
On the flight back from Brooklyn last night I watched “Jimmy Carter: Rock and Roll President”. Lots of good music-related footage from his campaign and presidency. I didn’t recall/realize that music played a big part in his political persona. He was close friends with Greg Allman and Willie Nelson, knew/revered Dylan, hug out with Johnny Cash (June Carter Cash claimed they were distant cousins), Jimmy Buffet, Charlie Daniels (!) and many others from country to jazz to classical.
Fleeting displays of bi-partisanship came as a stark reminder of how impossible it would be today for someone like John Wayne (“a member of the loyal opposition”) to speak at an Inaugural Gala and wish Carter success. Events made Carter a one-term president, but Mitch McConnell was not yet in a position to vow to make it so.
Another Candle in the Wind
So goodbye, Jimmy C.
You never had a chance to win
a second term when Iran took
all those hostages
and held them far too long.
Oh, you lived your life
always trying hard to win
win the right way, with honor
and with dignity.
I would have voted for you
but I was just a kid.
Your first term ended long before
your presidency ever did.
Reading an interview with two biographers of Jimmy Carter (https://washingtonmonthly.com/2024/12/29/the-surprising-greatness-of-jimmy-carter/), I came across a mention of the Global 2000 report prepared for him at the end of his presidency (https://www.cartercenter.org/resources/pdfs/pdf-archive/global2000reporttothepresident–enteringthe21stcentury-01011991.pdf). Jonathan Alter, one of the biographers says, “What’s amazing about it is that the reduction in CO2 that they recommend be the policy of the Carter administration is precisely what was in the Paris Climate Accords of 2015.” He also says, “Carter had started studying the issue in 1971. I found in his files from when he was governor underlinings in the journal Nature about carbon pollution and global warming.”
I’ve said for decades now Reagan killed us, if only for stopping the progress Carter had made on energy and climate.
Grateful you linked to a piece on Kai Bird’s fascinating bio of Carter’s political career, “The Outlier.” I have so enjoyed reading this book after hearing Bird at a lit fest – where he answered questions about his other recent bio on Oppenheimer (source for the film) and mentioned his next subject: Roy Cohn. Should be interesting.
In the year 1971, the report The Limits to Growth was in the making. It was published in 1972 by the Club of Rome, founded in 1968.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth:
.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome
So Jimmy Carter was among the few politicians who took those warnings seriously. His Global 2000 report, mentioned by gmokegmoke in the comment above, was instantly translated into German and became a bestseller, see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_2000_(Studie) (in German; the English Wikipedia entry doesn’t mention this success on the other side of the Atlantic).
The then-young generation of Germans was really sad that Carter lost his reelection bid to Reagan.
The year 1971 can be explained. In the summer of 1971 the findings of a study, commissioned by the Club of Rome, were first presented, published as “The Limits to Growth” in 1972. Most likely this led to Carter’s concern with environmental issues.
@Rayne: I had hinted at this in a former comment that included some links to related Wikipedia articles (and a bit of information on Carter’s “Global 2000” report). Obviously that got into moderation although I thought links to Wikipedia were seen as reliable and thus permitted — aren’t they?
My father was a huge fan of that book. He had purchased a retail business in 1969 that had a small book section with a narrow focus. The business was very successful, and he and my mother opened a much enlarged store giving him an opportunity to vastly expand the book area. He bought dozens of copies of Limits to Growth and gave them away. Some time later on an airline flight I sat next to one of the authors of the book. For the rest of his life, my father used to describe the sun as “the ideal nuclear energy source, safely located 91 million miles away, with energy distribution worldwide.” Those were the days, before the 6th extinction was inevitable.
During Carter’s presidency, a Dept. of Energy office here in downtown Oakland was seriously investigating alternative energy sources. My little graphics firm got hired to help produce a big report about using biomass (coconut husks etc.) to generate power in Micronesia. We drew maps of islands, and were to make the document look good. Ensued an early mishap of the word-processing era: we were nearly finished when my editor friend called in despair: the Wang—or whatever cutting-edge machine they had—auto-corrected every instance of the frequently-occurring word “atoll” and rendered it as “A to 11.” Unable to fix it by searching for “to” “A” or “11” she had to find each one to get them corrected.
James Earl Carter, Jr. was one of the most admirable Americans of my lifetime. He was a man who tried to do what is right and who was, truly, an honest president and one who put public service ahead of personal gain. That is not as common as one would hope.
And Carter showed how to use fame and political experience to help people. Many people.
He had his flaws, as we all do. But he was a man of peace, a man of faith, a man of courage, and a man who believed in humanity. And this country was lucky to have him as President and to have had him in our national life for so many years.
May he rest in peace beside his beloved Rosalynn.
I was too young to know how President Carter managed the country when he as President. I just know about his post=presidential good works.
Terry Gross dedicated her entire Fresh Air show tonight to President Carter, by re-airing previous interviews with President Carter. In listening to President Carter answer Terry’s questions, President Carter came off as a thoughtful, kind, sincere man who deeply cared that what he was doing, was the right thing for millions of Americans.
It’s nice to see President Carter revered here at Emptywheel.
I suspect President Biden will be just as revered in the rear-view mirror as time passes.
May former President Carter RIP.
I want to end with a positive so I’m gonna’ start off with my negatives; (if it’s too soon come back in a month to read it, or skip to the 2nd half) by saying that I think Carter’s post-office geopolitical meddling was bad, damaging, extremely dangerous, detrimental to the US, and in deadly. I DO NOT think it was evil intent. I DO think it was egotistic, dumb, narcissistic, and built upon the projection too many have that all cultures want what we want; peace, prosperity, justice, equality and fairness. Naive as all get out. It’s just not true. Which sucks.
Jimmy Carter was a good and decent human being. He was well intentioned. His acknowledgement of climate change and putting solar panels on the White House did a lot to bring the issue to the public’s consciousness. His personal efforts to avoid a nuclear catastrophe were nothing short of heroic risk taking for the greater good. His presiding over the Israel/Egypt peace accords was commendable (though I don’t think he gets credit for the marriage by officiating at the ceremony; the real heroes were Begin and even more so Anwar Sadat who died at the hand of the Muslim Brotherhood for it). His arming the Mujahids in Afghanistan was (in fact) brilliant and it’s what really led to the fall of the USSR granting freedom to untold millions of people. The abandonment of Afghanistan by the Republicans afterwards and the unwillingness to engage in nation-building (pottery barn theory) led to many of today’s global geopolitical problems. His political skills did not rise to the ability of uniting the Nation to common cause. Too much malaise and too little fireside chat.
All that said:
Carter’s habitat for humanity is to me the MOST inspiring of any post-Presidential legacy. I found it personally inspiring and is one of the few things I’ve ever thought donating to is a 100% win. I will miss the human being; but not the meddling.
RIP President Carter, and may the wind be at your back. Send any extra gusts our way; we’re going to need it.
“that I think Carter’s post-office geopolitical meddling was bad, damaging, extremely dangerous, detrimental to the US, and in deadly.”
Be specific with your criticism. You’re very specific otherwise.
One minute I’m too long winded, the next…
I didn’t post specifics because I don’t want to get into a fight over this. This is not a place for geopolitics as far as I’ve seen; and the Left and the Right have extremely different views. I usually find myself in the middle, damned by both sides.
Sometimes people I detest have a point. The best way to make it for me right now is to say Scott Jennings (with whom I disagree 99% of the time) is right about Carter’s foreign policy meddling and his treatment of Israel and Jews post-Presidency. I hate saying that. But if someone says the sun is out and you just came in from tanning at noon you’ll know that they’re right even if they’re despicable.
https://x.com/ScottJenningsKY/status/1874062472384307315
?cursor=cwEAAPDLHBn2KMiFs8GEromCNJSE25Xi8oOCNPiG0M2AxYSCNNCA24Xvs4mCNMLE0dGclImCNNqD2-WsroSCNNqF24XXgYaCNIyC283crYaCNKaF0s2B1omCNL6D29nU3oOCNJrF2o3j8YiCNPzE0tH-noSCNKKB1MnHr4KCNPqA082WlIOCNPqF2rnav4SCNL6E273QuoeCNLiH08mZroKCNIaA2_nRsYeCNL6A0pm-k4iCNOSE18W3jYeCNKSF293BsoeCNMCB2-249IaCNNDG1_mTnIeCNK6H27m2r4FIAPAz28nRs4SCNIaD0_2Go4KCNOKA1t3r54aCNLaB2-HK34GCNIyE263Ep4mCNJzHs-XO3IGCNPyE2_WypIeCNIKA2MG_ogDwQP7G2smP-IOCNNzD2JHQ1YSCNJSH26nM9YaCNPDE3pmViImCNJaC2-3aoYSCNJCA2_WTuImCNKrB0_Goi4iCNMKH283KooiCNCUCEhUEAAA#r
There’s more if you want to search the net but I really really don’t want to get into a fight about this here. I’ve posted what he said for brevity.
[Moderator’s note: link “broken” with blank spaces to prevent accidental clickthrough. On the face of this everything from ? on is tracking. Please strip tracking when sharing links. Nobody really wants Xitter tracking them back here. /~Rayne]
That’s one hell of a bastardized url. I don’t not recommend anyone click on it. It’s ten lines long, but everything after the question mark at the end of the first line should not be there.
What you call “geopolitics” is frequent and fair game here.
Scott Jennings is an ass. Apart from his bad timing and poor taste, he engaged in routine Republican projection, when he alleged that it was the post-presidency Jimmy Carter — and not, say, Nixon, CheneyBush, Trump or Elmo — who had “a “huge ego,” “meddling” in U.S foreign policy and “dabbling in antisemitism”.” Israel’s war on Gazans amply illustrates that Carter was right. But clearly, we will never agree on that.
If Scott Jennings were truly interested in issues related to meddling, he would be honest and forthcoming about all of Trump’s pernicious meddling. But, nah, he doesn’t care about meddling. His motives are very suspect and crude.
It’s a mistake to fall into the traps he sets. It’s become his modus operandi. Not long ago he tried to whip up another influence campaign. And he sucks in his coworkers. It’s not news. It’s infotainment, like Fox. It’s a disservice to the public and to journalism.
Jimmy Carter, mostly through his eponymous foundation, was a Nobel Laureate and exceptionally well-informed private citizen working for world peace. There are several major American foundations – mostly named after dead robber barons and automotive pioneers – that are similarly involved in international relations. Carter’s, however, came from a different, non-corporatist, pro-democracy perspective.
Your vague screed suggests your view might be aimed at his prescient views about Israel and Palestine. But I’ll let you follow Rayne’s advice and “be specific with your criticism.”
That was not a “screed” by any sense of the imagination.
Yes. Carter’s post-Presidency with regards to Israel and the Jews is something that disgusts me. Do I think it was malevolent? No. I do find it was highly destructive. Do I think he was told it was destructive? I know he was. Did he continue anyway? Yes he did. His ego was IN THE WAY. He knew better. He was fine with his double standards for Jews vs Jihadis.
From TOI:
“Carter, who cancelled a planned visit to Gaza on this trip, said Saturday he “deplored” criminal acts by members of Hamas, but said he was looking to support moderate members of the group, which he said wasn’t a terrorist organization.
“I don’t believe that he’s a terrorist. He’s strongly in favor of the peace process,””
That’s not some errant private thought. That was the Ex-POTUS’ message to the world. It was as insane to think as it was deadly to deliver to a worldwide audience who TRUSTED his judgement.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/carter-says-hamas-leader-committed-to-peace-netanyahu-not/
I don’t think screed means what you think it means. It’s a writing containing extended, angry criticism, which sounds a lot like, “Carter’s post-office geopolitical meddling was bad, damaging, extremely dangerous, detrimental to the US, and in deadly. [sic]” Malevolence isn’t relevant.
Your opinion could have been expressed in about 100 words, but we know where you stand. You didn’t need Scott Jennings and that metric crap ton of tracking to make your point.
1. Screed:
a long piece of writing, especially one that is boring or expresses an unreasonably strong opinion: a ranting screed against American imperialism.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/screed
A singular sentence or even two or three does not a screed make.
2.Scott Jennings IS indeed an ass who got this singular point right. The link is fine I have no idea why that jibberish is there. I saw it and assumed it would somehow be deleted upon posting. It wasn’t. I was wrong. Sorry.
3. Neither Nixon, Cheney/Bush, Trump or Elmo were the subject matter here. IMO they’re worse in most every way. But this isn’t about comparative leadership. There’s no need for the whataboutery. This is about a singular imperfect human being. Those idjits can wait for another conversation.
4. “Israel’s war on Gazans amply illustrates that Carter was right.”
You’re right. We won’t agree on that. We won’t agree because I disagree with mass murder. Khaled Mashal who Carter praised as a leader committed to peace is a founding member of Hamas whos charter call for the total annihilation of Israel. The same Khaled Mashal who justified mass murder of civilians via suicide bombings as a “normal development”. The same Khaled Mashal who believes that sending a 3 thousand Jihadi death squad into Israel where the goal wasn’t to capture territory, hold land, or even to hold a single building, but to slaughter every man woman and child they could possibly get their hands on.and then kidnap children, grandparents and adults so they’d have something, along with their own children, to HIDE BEHIND.
I’ll keep the rest of this screed short. I see you have opinions. I wonder how many decades you spent studying this conflict. Daily. With how many different sources of information do you regularly engage on this topic. Daily. Do you know who the characters (beside Bibi) are? Do you know what the treaties say? The Charters? Have you studied the Oslo accords? Do you know who Haj Amin al Husseini was? The Black Hand? Do you know what was done to the Jews by their neighbors in Hebron in 1929 PRIOR to ANY State of Israel?
Anybody who thinks what’s happening is Bibi’s “war on Gaza” while there are still hostages held in tunnels after over a year is engaging in blood libel or self deception.
This is the post that’ll likely get me banned from yet another site because I’m unwilling to sit silently while Jihadis try to murder my family; the SAME WAY I refuse to sit by quietly while white supremacists insist that racism is over and Derek Chauvin did nothing wrong. I can’t help myself. Justice is too important and so is the truth.
This post is why I kept my very original posting short and sweet.
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LOL. A lot of things might get you banned at any site. Among them, changing your name to a non-conforming one mid-thread. Using ten words instead of one. Using a generic attack on Carter, instead of identifying your specific disagreement with his views on Palestinian rights. Claiming exclusive knowledge of historical facts. And your admission that you can’t stop yourself.
I will forever think of him as MY President, despite the fact that I am an Atheist, Jimmy Carter will be forever in my heart and he will be forever in anyone else who reads about him.
Rest in power, Jimmy Carter.
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Here’s a telling piece about Willie Carter Spann, incarcerated nephew of President Carter.
https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/ROA-Times/issues/1997/rt9703/970316/03170115.htm
I visited Willie twice in Soledad Prison in 1977 to help him write a response in Good Housekeeping to an article his mother published there: “The Story of a Son Gone Wrong”. I found him a very intoxicating storyteller. We talked within the sight lines of guards with powerful shotguns situated in a crows nest high above the cellblock — which was restricted and required four guards to open doors into it. Those shotguns could halt an insurrection in an instant. That’s why the bathroom didn’t have a door, so the guard could watch over it …