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Jimmy Carter got what he deserved
The Ottawa Citizen ^ | Friday, October 18, 2002 | John Robson

Posted on 10/22/2002 6:20:32 AM PDT by FlaFreedom

Jimmy Carter got what he deserved

John Robson The Ottawa Citizen

Friday, October 18, 2002

On reflection I've decided it was appropriate to give Jimmy Carter the Nobel Peace Prize. But I don't mean that in a good way. Both epitomize the tendency Teddy Roosevelt so deplored in diplomacy of combining "the unready hand with the unbridled tongue." That weak, conceited approach brings war, not peace.

To praise Mr. Carter for bringing peace to the Middle East is absurd given the current situation. Moreover, as David Frum noted very nicely in the National Post, even the Camp David accord between Egypt and Israel was the result not of foresight or decency but arrogant stupidity. Mr. Carter kicked off his presidency by abusing the Soviets over human rights while simultaneously disregarding diplomatic protocol in his eagerness to hug them with one hand while poking them in the eye with the other. To his astonishment, they reacted by humiliating him so badly it became a political problem, then suckered him into endorsing the maximalist Soviet position on the Middle East. It was panic at the magnitude of Mr. Carter's blunder, not awe at his love of peace, that brought Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem and, within four years, assassination. (For more detail see Adam Ulam's Dangerous Relations.)

Throughout his presidency, Carter was so arrogant he not only demanded that everyone do what he said all the time, he never bothered preparing for the possibility they might resent it and react badly. I particularly applaud Frum for stressing that "in Carter's character, patriotism has always taken a very distant back seat to vanity and malice." He is sanctimonious, always lamentable as a personal quality but lethal in a major foreign policy maker. Such people do not bring peace but war to an imperfect world.

Indeed, a news story on Mr. Carter's prize praised as a "stunning bit of crisis resolution" his trip to North Korea in June 1994 in which he "got a rare audience with the reclusive President Kim Il-sung and won Mr. Kim's agreement to freeze a nuclear development program that had his nation at sword's points with the West." I think "stunned" would have been a more suitable adjective. What sane person would think half a century of evil malice from Pyongyang would be dispelled by a quick dose of their saintly presence? And Wednesday we learned that this member of the axis of evil was lying then, is close to having nuclear weapons now and has the rockets to fire them at Japan. Ooops.

Speaking of vanity and malice, I liked the chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee calling Mr. Carter's prize "a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as the United States." That's a curiously belligerent thing for the peace prize folks to want to administer, but also revealingly ineffectual. George W. Bush isn't planning to kick Saddam Hussein in the shin.

Carter is. Despite the tradition that former presidents don't undercut the diplomacy of sitting ones, he told CNN if he were a senator (not a mere congressman, of course) he would have voted not to authorize war against Iraq. He does want to "force" Saddam Hussein "to comply completely with inspections of an unlimited nature and to make sure that we destroy all his weapons of mass destruction and his ability to produce nuclear weapons in the future. But I think it should all be done through the United Nations and not unilaterally by the United States." So he orders Saddam Hussein to do what he wants.

Or else what, I want to ask? What if he won't, and the UN won't make him? But that's a real-world question, and Mr. Carter always preferred to imagine a world worthy of himself than to accommodate to the actual one he was obliged to endure. News reports tend to concur; the Globe and Mail ascribed to "sheer bad luck geopolitically" both "the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which froze his attempts at nuclear disarmament" and the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. In fact both were the predictable consequence of Mr. Carter's belligerent weakness and the arrogance behind it. His UN ambassador said Americans, once they got over their own shabby prejudices, would find the Ayatollah Khomeini "something of a saint"; did any war-mongering, cigar-chewing Republican ever show such frivolous disregard for the well-being of millions of non-Americans?

Giving him the Nobel Peace Prize is obviously an endorsement of his approach. But while I do not mind people wishing we lived in a world where generosity resolved international problems, I strongly object to their pretending we do. The result is to demand that others reform according to our standards while rejecting any preparations for their far more probable hostile reaction. That way lies madness and war, not enlightenment and peace.

Thus Teddy Roosevelt called those who combine the unready hand with the unbridled tongue "prize jackasses." Exactly.

John Robson is Senior Editorial Writer and Columnist.

© Copyright 2002 The Ottawa Citizen


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: jimmycarter; nobel; nobelpeaceprize
Look what our friends north of the border think of the Nobel Peace Prize. Guess they are not all in agreement with their Prime Minister
1 posted on 10/22/2002 6:20:32 AM PDT by FlaFreedom
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To: FlaFreedom
George W. Bush isn't planning to kick Saddam Hussein in the shin.

Bwahahaha. But this guy does understand what an arrogant boob Carter is. Good job, Mr. Robson. fsf

2 posted on 10/22/2002 6:28:53 AM PDT by Free State Four
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To: FlaFreedom
But that's a real-world question, and Mr. Carter always preferred to imagine a world worthy of himself than to accommodate to the actual one he was obliged to endure.

This one sentence exposes the problem with Liberal Appeasement types in remarkably few words. PERFECTLY STATED.


3 posted on 10/22/2002 6:33:26 AM PDT by RobFromGa
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To: Free State Four
But while I do not mind people wishing we lived in a world where generosity resolved international problems, I strongly object to their pretending we do.

The other keeper quote from this excellent piece.

If Carter cared one bit about America and the institution of the Presidency, he would have told the Nobel committee to shove the award (ala Rudy to Saudi prince). By accepting the blood money, Carter has revealed everything about his true character. Billy was the better sibling.

4 posted on 10/22/2002 6:38:23 AM PDT by RobFromGa
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To: RobFromGa
Billy was the better sibling.

It's the truth. fsf

5 posted on 10/22/2002 6:44:52 AM PDT by Free State Four
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To: FlaFreedom; Clovis_Skeptic; gracie1; Miss Marple
Excellent!
6 posted on 10/22/2002 6:48:59 AM PDT by ladyinred
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To: FlaFreedom
Oh...I thought the article would be on Jimmeh bein chained to stone block cell deep in some dank dirty dungeon under Fido Castro's palace
7 posted on 10/22/2002 6:59:20 AM PDT by joesnuffy
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To: FlaFreedom
It’s probably too much to hope that he’ll now just go away and curl up and die somewhere.
8 posted on 10/22/2002 7:00:01 AM PDT by GatĂșn(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)
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To: FlaFreedom
Jimmy Carter- the Master of Malaise, put Mideast Terrorism on the map. I suspect Reagan would have given these freaks
72 hours or bomb the begeezes out of them. Hostage taking needs to have been considered an Act of War in Iran.
9 posted on 10/22/2002 7:24:59 AM PDT by Helms
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To: FlaFreedom
I CAN'T VOTE.

PLEASE, HELP TAKE BACK THE SENATE.
IT'S FOR THE PUPPIES!

TakeBackCongress.org

A resource for conservatives who want a Republican majority in the Senate

10 posted on 10/22/2002 7:36:13 AM PDT by ffrancone
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To: FlaFreedom
Well, I guess not enough of our friends read Robson. Why do we seem to get the finger so frequently when we drive up in the Toronto area from the US? That might change when Ontario Health finally cracks up completely. Or maybe it already has...
11 posted on 10/22/2002 7:52:39 AM PDT by eleni121
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To: FlaFreedom
Gore Vidal said this (paraphrasing) about Jimmy Carter:

"I think the man takes his initials too seriously"

Carter did (does), I think, have some kind of messiah complex

This is probably the only thing Gore Vidal ever said that I agree with

12 posted on 10/22/2002 9:09:41 AM PDT by KeyBored
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To: coteblanche
Ping! Somebody in Ottawa doesn't care for Jimmy. And here's a link to David Frum's article.
13 posted on 10/22/2002 9:32:36 AM PDT by Argh
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Comment #14 Removed by Moderator

To: FlaFreedom

15 posted on 10/22/2002 10:13:38 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
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To: Dick Bachert
Please send me a copy of the CD before it rockets up the charts < sarcasm off >
16 posted on 10/22/2002 10:42:47 AM PDT by FlaFreedom
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To: FlaFreedom
It's on the way.

Billboard has the CD at #3 with a bullet.

Ooops! Can't say "bullet" around Carter.

Let's call it a low-velocity projectile.

17 posted on 10/22/2002 11:00:05 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
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To: Helms
remember that the hostages were released very shortly after President Reagan was elected.

The world doesn't respect rat presidents because the world knows rats are weak. Republican Presidents however, scare the crap out of the rest of the world because the world knows that the pubbies will nuke anyone if that is what's required.

In world politics it's better to be feared than to be loved.

God Save America (Please)

18 posted on 10/22/2002 1:37:46 PM PDT by John O
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