Carter says he is embarrassed by Bush

[dazzleman]

Carter himself was a huge embarrassment as president.

He's one of the major reasons that I became a Republican.  And his current behavior continues to convince me that I made the right decision.  He's positively dreadful, an arrogant old scold who would stay out of public affairs if he had the presence of mind to be embarrassed by his own performance as president.

[opebo]

Carter was certainly a lot better than Bush. He was in over his head as President and was in office during an extremely difficult time for the nation, granted, but he didn't cause us irreprable harm the way that I feel Bush has.

^^^^^^^

Agree completely.  It wasn't his fault the military botched the Iranian hostage rescue.  Some of his policies on the environment and on the Israel crisis were groundbreaking.  It was really the hostage crisis and energy crisis that did him in.  Unfortunately, his presidency had the effect of making the Democrats to be weak on national defense and swinging this issue into the hands of Republicans.  Since he left the White House though, he has been a model American with Habitat for Humanity as well as his continuing crusade for world peace. 

I don't know why people make Carter out to be a senile old man who has completely lost his mind.  Maybe if they had some proof...

Nice to see that Carter still has some backers. Join the club along with myself and Beet.

And me.

And me!

He's not bad for a center-rightist religious.

[GOP = Terrorists]

Carter was a poor POTUS.

Bush is a horrible human being and the worst POTUS we have ever had by a significant margin.  He is essentially the combination of all the worst qualities of every POTUS we have had.

[Nym90]

Carter was certainly a lot better than Bush. He was in over his head as President and was in office during an extremely difficult time for the nation, granted, but he didn't cause us irreprable harm the way that I feel Bush has.

Clearly, you didn't live through the Carter years. 

And Carter's weak response to the Iran hostage crisis is one of the major events that let the genie of islamic terrorism out of the bottle.  Carter had no understanding of the broader implications of his inaction at the time, and obviously still doesn't.

Carter is a bitter old fool who is still angry about the election results 26 years ago.

I did live through slightly more than half of the Carter administration, though admittedly I was way too young to actually remember Carter being President. Still, I don't think that means I can't have an informed opinion of him, though obviously those who did live through that period would have a unique perspective that I couldn't possibly share.

I don't think the military botching the Iranian rescue mission was Carter's fault, really. What else could we or should we have done, invaded Iran? I don't think that would've been a good idea.

People also forget that ultimately Carter did get the hostages released, and continued to work hard to do so right up until his final hours as President, at which point he obviously had absolutely nothing to gain personally from continuing to put in so much effort to do so, given that he'd already lost the election. If he'd been selfish or lazy, he could've just let Reagan deal with it.

I think a lot of people who say Carter did nothing also forget about the Israeli-Egypt peace deal, which was a pretty big step at the time and has held since. And of course, a lot of the policies that Reagan continued were actually started by Carter (deregulation for example).

In addition, Carter was highly successful in the one area that ultimately had gotten him elected in the first place, that being his high moral character. Given the great distrust in government after Johnson and Nixon, Carter's success in this area shouldn't be dismissed lightly. Ford obviously helped in this area too, but his pardon of Nixon was at the time very unpopular and gave the sense that he was part of that Washington insider network which was not thought of highly.

The same criticisms of those who simply bash Bush without offering positive alternative courses of action can also just as well apply to those who criticize Carter's failures. What could or should we have done differently?

[dazzleman]

Carter was certainly a lot better than Bush. He was in over his head as President and was in office during an extremely difficult time for the nation, granted, but he didn't cause us irreprable harm the way that I feel Bush has.

Clearly, you didn't live through the Carter years. 

And Carter's weak response to the Iran hostage crisis is one of the major events that let the genie of islamic terrorism out of the bottle.  Carter had no understanding of the broader implications of his inaction at the time, and obviously still doesn't.

Carter is a bitter old fool who is still angry about the election results 26 years ago.

I did live through slightly more than half of the Carter administration, though admittedly I was way too young to actually remember Carter being President. Still, I don't think that means I can't have an informed opinion of him, though obviously those who did live through that period would have a unique perspective that I couldn't possibly share.

I don't think the military botching the Iranian rescue mission was Carter's fault, really. What else could we or should we have done, invaded Iran? I don't think that would've been a good idea.

People also forget that ultimately Carter did get the hostages released, and continued to work hard to do so right up until his final hours as President, at which point he obviously had absolutely nothing to gain personally from continuing to put in so much effort to do so, given that he'd already lost the election. If he'd been selfish or lazy, he could've just let Reagan deal with it.

I think a lot of people who say Carter did nothing also forget about the Israeli-Egypt peace deal, which was a pretty big step at the time and has held since. And of course, a lot of the policies that Reagan continued were actually started by Carter (deregulation for example).

In addition, Carter was highly successful in the one area that ultimately had gotten him elected in the first place, that being his high moral character. Given the great distrust in government after Johnson and Nixon, Carter's success in this area shouldn't be dismissed lightly. Ford obviously helped in this area too, but his pardon of Nixon was at the time very unpopular and gave the sense that he was part of that Washington insider network which was not thought of highly.

The same criticisms of those who simply bash Bush without offering positive alternative courses of action can also just as well apply to those who criticize Carter's failures. What could or should we have done differently?

Carter is a smug man who thinks he is of high moral character.  In fact, he thinks he is of higher moral character than just about anybody else.  But for a man of such high moral character, he pals around with an awful lot of very evil people.  He seems to have an easier time seeing the perspective of people like Kim Jong-Il and Hugo Chavez than our own president.  He always gives those people the benefit of the doubt.  He even shafted President Clinton on the North Korea nuke deal, to the point where Clinton would have nothing to do with him.  He has an overly high opinion of his own moral character.  Those of truly high moral character are not so arrogant, and don't spend so much of their time criticizing other people.  He fooled the American people into narrowly electing him once, but he was overwhelmingly rejected 4 years later.

As far as the Iranian thing goes, it's ridiculous to say that Carter did all he could have done.  For starters, he might not have undermined the Shah.  Carter followed the classic liberal approach of decrying human rights abuses in friendly nations, while ignoring them in hostile nations.  His double standard worked against our interests, and helped grease the skids for the Shah's downfall.  Once the hostages were seized, Carter seemed most concerned that he not provoke the Iranians in any way.  He threatened them with military action if they put the hostages on trial or killed them, but he set no penalty for continuing to hold them.  Worse, he allowed the Iranians to control his own activities, saying he wouldn't leave the White House to campaign until they were free.  Then, when he finally got around to a rescue mission after 6 months, he didn't send enough military equipment because he was afraid that if he sent enough, he'd offend the Iranians.

Yes, he got the hostages out.  He saved 53 lives, and cost us thousands in the years since.  As I said earlier, he had no concept, then or now, of the longer-term implications of the fact that he showed no backbone in dealing with the Iranian problem.  He had no inkling that a firmer stand then might have nipped a serious problem in the bud, rather than allow it to grow larger.  I don't hold Carter alone responsible for this problem, but he, more than anybody else, is the president who let the islamic terrorist genie out of the bottle.

I never said he did nothing.  The Egypt-Israel peace was a good thing.  It's just that the bad outweighed the good by a mile in the Carter administration.  As far as what he might have done differently, well, he might have, say, not cancelled the B-1 bomber unilaterally while in the midst of arms control negotiations with the Soviets.  That send a signal of weakness which he never overcame.  He might not have declared that we were over our 'inordinate' fear of communism as the largest arms buildup in the history of the world by the Soviets was reaching its peak.  He might have made it clear to the Iranians that they would suffer consequences if they continued to hold the hostages.  There are any number of things he might have done differently, but then he wouldn't have been the great Jimmy Carter.

There is no way to describe what the late Carter years were like.  If you think it's bad now, believe me, it was nothing compared to the mood of malaise, anger, and impending doom that permeated the country in 1979-80 under the 'leadership' of Jimmy Carter.

Had he been a man of any sort of humility, I surely would have forgiven him by now.  In his early post-presidential years, he pretty much kept out of public affairs, and his reputation recovered somewhat.  Then, he started with his bulls*$t.  President GHW Bush invited him to the White House for the first time in over 8 years, and he paid him back by double-crossing him and lobbying against Bush's call for a UN vote on removing Iraq from Kuwait.  This in itself was probably an illegal act, since no American is permitted to attempt to conduct a foreign policy on his own.  It was a disgraceful thing for a former president to do.  Since then, it's been all downhill for that man.  I hold him in the deepest, deepest contempt.  With his record as president, he has absolutely no business offering criticism of any of his successors.

[opebo]

Carter is a smug man who thinks he is of high moral character.  In fact, he thinks he is of higher moral character than just about anybody else.

Just like every other religious, dazzleman. 

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It is silly to compare Kim Jong-Il and Hugo Chavez, or to label them 'evil'.  It is reasonable to consider their point of view - under attack from a hostile Empire.  Why wouldn't one? 

Anyway, even if they were somewhat less than idea leaders, of course Carter is not going to be as concerned about them as about Bush, because they have no effect on the US, while Bush is causing enormous amounts of harm.

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No, religious are always arrogant, by defintion, dazzleman.  It is hilarious that you object to criticism of the government!  Typical fascist. 

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Nonsense, dazzleman, it was the installation of the Shah by Eisenhower which caused the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis.  Presumably the hostages were taken as insurance that the Empire not attack post-revolution.  Very reasonable if you aren't too stupid to look at the other fellow's point of view.

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Ridiculous.  Was Carter somehow able to investigate or prevent the constant torture and oppression carried out by the Shah's government?  I suspect not.  Just because most administrations encourage torture, and Carter's did not, doesn't mean they had the power to undermind the tyrant by taking away his ability to torture.

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No, the lives lost then and since were caused by the imperialistic policies of the empire since WWII, not by Carter's incredibly brief and only partial pause in them. 

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THat is utter nonsense.  This resistance to imperial subjugation has been created over decades, and Carter was the only one who didn't add significant fuel to the fire.

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Such bombers were ridiculously wasteful considering the Soviets were not a real threat, merely one made up by the right-wing in the US.   

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Of course any reasonable person, such as Carter, would not be afraid of communism, and any honest person would have admitted that the Iranians would not suffer any consequences for holding the hostages.  Lying to them about it wouldn't have done any good, as they knew very well what the situation was - a few nobodies were of no real importance to the empire, while the oil getting out was.

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Mostly this displeasure was on the part of dumb nationalists who were upset about the pause in the imperial project.  True, there were some domestic economic difficulties, but it has only gotten worse since then for the working class.

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Nonsense, dazzleman.  If Carter actually were the great failure you imagine, then his critique of present failures like Bush would help keep us from repeating history.  Of course in actuality he was a far superior president in many ways to our current one, and most particularly one of the very few that ever tried to reduce the abuse of the rest of the world by the US. Therefore he is ideally suited to critique the  'terrorist'-creating foriegn policy of the GOP.

[TX_1824]

That was the first election in which I was able to vote, and I voted for Carter. Not one of my proudest moments. Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Jimmy. What an abortion of a Presidency that was.

[opebo]

That was the first election in which I was able to vote, and I voted for Carter. Not one of my proudest moments. Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Jimmy. What an abortion of a Presidency that was.

No, it wasn't bad, and anyone surely you would agree far better than the current one.

[TX_1824]

That was the first election in which I was able to vote, and I voted for Carter. Not one of my proudest moments. Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Jimmy. What an abortion of a Presidency that was.

No, it wasn't bad, and anyone surely you would agree far better than the current one.

I'm no fan of the current President, but I harbor the same contempt as dazzleman does for Jimmy.

[Democratic Hawk]

Seems Democrats are more favorable towards Carter and more embarassed by Bush, while Republicans are more favorable towards Bush and more embarassed by Carter. Nowt new in this debate

As president's go, both rather mediocre at best

Dave