Read the rest. Carter's self-righteousness and self-importance, in the face of such consistency in incompetence, demonstrate to anyone bothering to watch what a complete fool he is and has always been. Hell, I'm glad he endorsed Barack Obama, as did Carter's "soulmate" Louis Farrakhan. The more anti-Semites that endorse "Obama Bin Laden", the better. One of these days, Jewish voters are going to recognize that they have much more in common with Conservatives who hold Judeo-Christian values than they do with the Marxist Israel-haters. I relish the day when this happens.Former President Jimmy Carter has an interesting way of saying more than he intends. He lusts in his heart. He turns to his 13-year-old daughter for foreign policy wisdom. He titles a book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid." What Mr. Carter means to say is that he is a flesh-and-blood human being, a caring father, a missionary for peace. What he actually communicates is that he is weirdly libidinal, scarily naive and obsessively hostile to Israel.
Now the 2002 Nobel laureate is in reprise mode. "In a democracy, I realize you don't need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels," he said over the weekend, responding to a question from an Israeli journalist who noted that Mr. Carter had been snubbed by most of Israel's top leadership and reprimanded by its president, Shimon Peres. "When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that's the dictator, because he speaks for all the people."
Mr. Carter is on a tour of the Middle East, the most newsworthy aspect of which is a scheduled meeting in Damascus with Khaled Mashal, the head of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. More on that below. For now, ponder what he could possibly have meant by this statement. On a charitable view, what Mr. Carter had in mind is that in a democracy it is the people who ultimately make the policy, whereas in a dictatorship it is only the dictator's opinion that counts. Or as W.H. Auden put it, "Only the man behind the rifle [has] free will."
That's not quite what Mr. Carter said, however. He said the dictator "speaks" for "all" the people, just as the people in a democracy speak for themselves. Taken at face value, this is a reflection of every dictator's conceit: that his will is also the general will, whether the people agree with him or not. This is what Fidel Castro meant when he praised Cuba's elections, in which only the Communist Party is on the ballot, as "the most democratic in the world." Perhaps Mr. Carter has harbored similar views about the relative merits of his opinion versus the people's since he was turned out of high office by 44 states.
Yet a dictator does not speak for the people. Properly speaking, a dictator speaks for none of the people. A dictator speaks only for himself, while "the people" are transformed, through force and fear, into an abstraction, an instrument, a rhetorical trope. On the contrary, it is only in a democracy where the government can morally and lawfully be said to speak for the people, since it was morally and lawfully chosen by the people to speak for them. Which means that Mr. Carter has matters precisely backwards: It is in democracies such as Israel where the views of the leadership matter most, and in dictatorships such as Syria where they matter least. ...
Remember, Carter is the man who brought the world: a meeting which produced so-called "detente" with Brezhnev (only to have the Soviet leader turn on him and invade Afghanistan two months later); spending and tax raises during a recession which caused the days of "malaise" and 21% interest rates; a "deal" with North Korea (for the Clintons) which the Koreans promptly violated; impotence during the Iranian Hostage Crisis; and who personally legitimized Hugo Chavez' stolen election. Never have so many failures been so flagrant with so little impact on a person's ego.
If there is a better example of the failure of appeasement and "soft power" since Neville Chamberlain, I would like to see it.
4 comments:
YOU:
Jewish voters are going to recognize that they have much more in common with Conservatives who hold Judeo-Christian values than they do with the Marxist Israel-haters. I relish when that day comes.
ME (NY JEW): It's is baffling except when you consider that most of the Jews who support the dem left are less observant and more atheistic; they're merely cultural Jews.
I calls'em the upper west side atheistic Jews.
They put more faith in Marx and freud - to totally discredited theorists of the 19 and 20 th centuries than they do the wisdom of the millenniums.
part of being hip in the lib circles most Jews live in is NOT taking God seriously and considering folks who do to be RUBES.
I told a friend of mine tonight - a conservative "rudy dem" who now supports hillary and obama (and who likes Jewish ritual and loves Israel and had his 1/2 Jewish children ritually circumcised)- that i had been Kosher for the last year, and he was stunned. He made a joke - as if I'd joined a cult.
this is how he is now because he's in the THRALL of the chic gliterati of the Left: hollywood. the MSM, Cannes during the fest, etc.
he is very VERY smart, but places more value on those who are attached to failed ideologies of the left, than to policies which work.
And this is so because the RIGHT ISN'T CHIC.
And this is so because the MSM determines what is chic, and they are Left. And they have most people convinced that cultural and political "progressivism" is cool - that only un-cool fiddy-duddies are traditionalists.... conservative.
As more and more folks like Mamet move right, this will change.
And the atheistic Jews will follow.
Ultimately, we Jews need a better reach out effort for those who have fallen away. When Jews become more Jewish and more Zionist then they will also become more traditional and conservative.
IMHO
Carter and his henchmen Andrew Young are also responsible for forcing the nascent Zimbabwean government to welcome in Robert Mugabe.
Check out James Kirchick's articles:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/013/746zsgtg.asp
http://www2.nysun.com/article/58232
Great post, Discerning Texan.
Carter + Teheran Embassy = Coward
Thatcher + Falklands = Leader
Post a Comment