I really don’t understand how anyone can think like Jimmy Carter seems to. I understand that he resided over the most dovish liberal administration in modern history, and I know that he came from a time when those on the left were cut deeply from their perceptions of the Vietnam war, but I still really don’t “get” our former peacenik president.
Carter, who will get off easy by simply being labeled “misguided” on this blog, plans to meet with Hamas terrorist leaders during his Middle East trip. I can only imagine that it will be the same kind of lovefest that happened when Wallace met Ahmadinejad.
A meeting between a former president and known terrorists (who aren’t Heads of state) is much, much more serious from a propaganda perspective than a softball media interview. Carter allows what little credibility he has left (which is worth much more overseas than here at home) to be used as a shield by those who purposefully murder innocent women and children. It’s as simple as that.
Former President Carter said he feels “quite at ease” about meeting Hamas militants over the objections of Washington because the Palestinian group is essential to a future peace with Israel. [...]
Several State Department officials, including the secretary, Condoleezza Rice, criticized Carter’s plans to talk in Syria this week with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in the first public contact in two years between a prominent American figure and the group. Carter said he had not heard the objections directly, although a State Department spokesman said earlier that a senior official from the department had called the former president.
“President Carter is a private citizen. We respect his views,” Stephen Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser, said Sunday on ABC.
“The position of the government is that Hamas is a terrorist organization and we don’t negotiate with terrorists. We think that’s a very important principle to maintain,” Hadley said. “The State Department made clear we think it’s not useful for people to be running to Hamas at this point and having meetings.”
(via Hot Air) And in a move that shows just how serious the Israelis view this, they have refused to cooperate with the Secret Service as the misguided one moves through Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.
Israel’s secret service has declined to assist U.S. agents guarding former U.S. President Jimmy Carter during a visit in which Israeli leaders have shunned him, U.S. sources close to the matter said on Monday.
Carter angered the Israeli government with plans to meet Hamas’s top leader, Khaled Meshaal, in Syria, and for describing Israeli policy in the occupied Palestinian territories as “a system of apartheid” in a 2006 book.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who brokered Israel’s first peace treaty with an Arab neighbor, Egypt, signed in 1979, met Israel’s largely ceremonial president, Shimon Peres, on Sunday but was shunned by the political leadership, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Israel has also rejected Carter’s request to meet jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouthi, who is seen as a possible successor to President Mahmoud Abbas, a spokesman for Carter said.
That’s a pretty serious response at the state level. And while I can’t help but be concerned for Carter’s safety, if this move plays into his future thinking and propaganda trip planning, then I’m glad the Israelis did it. The Israelis have offered one solution by leaving him to those who would exploit him, another would be for our government to deny him entry back into the United States at the end of his trip. Since no one wants to whisper the dangerous term treason, I think leaving Carter knocking at the door would send just as strong a message.
But that’s just fantasy. In all seriousness, Jimmy Carter doesn’t know the damage he does to us with every new public statement. Here’s hoping that after this trip he decides to take a nice long retirement from public life. Go farm those peanuts, Jimmy!
Yourish has more than one linkworthy post today.
Atlas Shrugs has some reaction from the Messiah. No surprises here, folks.
The Jawa Report examines some of Jimmy Carter’s other well-known movie roles.
Carter has a “Bosnia Moment” at NRO.
Update: Perhaps it isn’t just fantasy after all. Michelle Malkin has some info on censuring old Jimmy.
