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The country’s second worst president wrote a book telling us how wonderful he was. David Harsanyi brings some facts.
Jimmy Carter’s new book, “A Full Life: Reflections at 90” is a breezy and predictable reminiscence of the 39th president’s life, from his rural Georgia upbringing to his post-presidential charitable work. You should take it out of the library. I can’t admit to reading every word, but I did have a particular interest in the parts focusing on Carter’s perception of his own presidency. And, as you might have guessed, according to Jimmy Carter Jimmy Carter is one of the dynamic and indispensable leaders this country has ever known.
One chapter that might catch the attention of a curious reader is titled “Issues Mostly Resolved.” So what issues were solved during the Jimmy Carter years? Well, “Human Rights and Latin America,” “The Hostage Crisis, and the Final Year,” “Hungarian Crown,” “China,” and yes, “Middle East Peace.” Good to know that he put that one to bed. …
… Carter expediently skips one historic event that puts his handwritten notes into some perspective.
In 1977, during an interview with CBS, Sadat mentioned that if he were ever presented with a proper invitation from Jerusalem he would visit without any preconditions. This was, in the context of history, a courageous thing to do. At a time when no Arab country had diplomatic ties with Israel much less recognized its existence. Begin—who Carter’s paints as a warmonger—immediately presented Sadat with a formal invitation to address the Knesset through the American Embassy in Cairo. The Knesset—with only a handful of opposition votes—overwhelmingly approved the invitation. The Carter Administration had nothing to do with it.
Here is what The Washington Post had to say at the time:
“In Washington, the Carter administration, which until today had played no role in helping arrange what had been an almost unthinkable meeting, appeared to be dramatically revising upward its opinion of the event’s importance.”
The peace deal fell into Jimmy Carter’s lap. …
Always ungracious, Carter has started running down the worst president’s record. Pickerhead thinks that’s like taking coals to Newcastle. Free Beacon has the story.
President Obama was criticized last week by the president he is often compared to, Jimmy Carter.
Carter told an Aspen Institute audience that Obama’s accomplishments on foreign policy “have been minimal” and that the United States’ influence is “lower than it was six or seven years ago.”
After proclaiming John Kerry “one of the best secretaries of state we’ve ever had,” Carter dumped cold water on Obama’s record abroad.
“On the world stage, I think [Obama’s accomplishments] have been minimal,” Carter said. “I think he has done some good things domestically, like health reform and so forth. But on the world stage, just to be objective about it, I can’t think of many nations in the world where we have a better relationship now than when he took over.” …
Jonah Goldberg writes on race identity as practiced by the left.
… Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal announced this week that he’s running for president. In anticipation of his announcement, the Washington Post assigned two white writers to declare, in effect, that Jindal — the son of Indian immigrants — isn’t a real Indian. The Post promoted the story on Twitter with a quote from a college professor proclaiming, “There’s not much Indian left in Bobby Jindal.”
The liberal New Republic followed suit with an attack on Jindal, as well as on South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza (Haley is the daughter of immigrants, D’Souza an immigrant himself), as, essentially Uncle Tom Indians who had to shamefully scrub their Indian identities for their political careers.
In the Post’s unsubtle telling, Jindal’s sin is loving America too much. As a young child, he changed his name from Piyush to Bobby (after Bobby from The Brady Bunch). “My parents put a strong emphasis on education, hard work, an unshakable faith,” Jindal told the Post. “It doesn’t matter who you are or what your last name is. You can be anything in America.” As a teenager he became a Christian.
“He said recently that he wants to be known simply as an American,” the Post informed us, “not an Indian American.”
The horror. Twitter erupted with hashtags like “Jindian” and “BobbyJindalIsSoWhite,” in which liberals flung every variant of Uncle Tom jokes you could think of, and many I hope you couldn’t. …
Bret Stephens says Michael Oren has made the right enemies.
Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, has written the smartest and juiciest diplomatic memoir that I’ve read in years, and I’ve read my share. The book, called “Ally,” has the added virtues of being politically relevant and historically important. This has the Obama administration—which doesn’t come out looking too good in Mr. Oren’s account—in an epic snit.
The tantrum began two weeks ago, when Mr. Oren penned an op-ed in this newspaper undiplomatically titled “How Obama Abandoned Israel.” The article did not acquit Israel of making mistakes in its relations with the White House, but pointed out that most of those mistakes were bungles of execution. The administration’s slights toward Israel were usually premeditated.
Like, for instance, keeping Jerusalem in the dark about Washington’s back-channel negotiations with Tehran, which is why Israel appears to be spying on the nuclear talks in Switzerland. Or leaking news of secret Israeli military operations against Hezbollah in Syria.
Mr. Oren’s op-ed prompted Dan Shapiro, U.S. ambassador in Tel Aviv, to call Mr. Netanyahu and demand he publicly denounce the op-ed. The prime minister demurred on grounds that Mr. Oren, now a member of the Knesset, no longer works for him. The former ambassador, also one of Israel’s most celebrated historians, isn’t even a member of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party, which makes him hard to typecast as a right-wing apparatchik. …
… His (Oren’s) memoir is the best contribution yet to a growing literature—from Vali Nasr’s “Dispensable Nation” to Leon Panetta’s “Worthy Fights”—describing how foreign policy is made in the Age of Obama: lofty in its pronouncements and rich in its self-regard, but incompetent in its execution and dismal in its results. Good for Mr. Oren for providing such comprehensive evidence of the facts as he lived them.
We opened today kicking Carter and close with John Hinderaker pointing out the latest bit of hypocrisy from the NY Times.
This is from yesterday’s Twitchy, but, assuming that most of our readers don’t haunt Twitter, it bears repeating here. Following the Charlie Hebdo murders, the New York Times covered the terrorist attack, but declined to print any of Charlie Hebdo’s mocking images of Muhammad. The paper self-righteously declared a policy against showing religious images that may be deemed offensive:
‘ “Out of respect to our readers we have avoided those we felt were offensive,” New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet told The Huffington Post on Monday night….’
But that was then and this is now. Or, put another way, no one is afraid of being slaughtered by Catholics. So yesterday’s ArtsBeat section featured this portrait of Pope Benedict XVI made from 17,000 condoms: