Posted on 12/15/2002 9:48:47 AM PST by Apolitical
I guess I can respect him for being a carpenter and doing good works with it.
And I can respect him for lusting in his heart instead of in the oval office.
That's about it. I sure don't respect him for his big dumb mouth!
While I respect your family's service and suffering, I don't see what that has to do with our peanut farmer. If you think he has done a single thing to promote world peace, think again.
He managed not only to get the Shah of Iran deposed and a murdering Islamicist dictator installed in his place, he made promises of support and protection to most of the Shah's cabinet and military officers and then broke that promise. The Ayatollah executed them all. Then he did nothing to protect our embassy personnel and they were all kidnapped & held hostage for an unconscionable period. He made only one poorly organized, inept, botched effort to rescue them that wasted American military lives & materiel. And that's just ONE example.
On the domestic front, his weak and muddling economic policy resulted in simultaneous inflation and recession (two for one!) and gasoline shortages worse than WWII rationing. I personally "babysat" our car in gas lines for hours, waiting to get enough fuel in the tank (five gallon limit) for my husband (then my fiance) to get to the train station to get to work. Some president!
He did not suddenly and miraculously change when he got out of office. He talks a good game, but his supposed "human rights work" mostly consists of meddling and self-aggrandizement, working directly against the interests of America both in foreign policy and in using foreign aid and influence to campaign against policies to which he was opposed. He has been cynically used by almost everyone involved in the Middle East, and he's too naive to realize it.
When that loon on the Nobel committee stated outright that the award of the prize to Carter was intended to "send a message" to Bush, Carter should have declined the prize because it was being used for an invidious purpose. But he loves money and notoriety too well to do any such principled thing.
You shouldn't support him or assume he's a "good guy" just because he happens to support some of the causes YOU support . . . at the moment. If it pays him to change his tune, he will do so, and then where will you be?
He is an embarassment.
I'm not going to trade service records with you, but suffice to say my family has served in WWI and WWII, wounded & decorated, as well as in every war back to the French & Indian. I respect anybody whose relatives have fought for their country. My dad spent some time serving with the 79th Cameron Highlanders, and he had the greatest respect for their fighting qualities and character as men.
That being said, I believe you are mistaken in your assessment of Jimmy Carter. I have nothing against peanut farmers (large contributors to our state's economy) but they ought to farm peanuts, not meddle in affairs of state for which they are unqualified.
Other than a short stint in the Navy and as a state senator (a job that almost anyone can do, believe me), Carter's only qualification when he got to the Gold Dome in Georgia was having worked in his daddy's peanut and cotton business. Making a crop in South Georgia does take a certain amount of skill, but it's not a job that qualifies one for being governor, let alone president. He had the same micro-managing, meddling, self-righteous sort of qualities ad governor that he later demonstrated as president (he used to wander around the Capitol building turning the thermostats down. It drove the GBA (maintenance) people crazy, because his ad hoc adjustments threw the balancing equipment out of whack. More or less like his foreign policy foolishness.)
Never mentioned Churchill, by the way, don't know what you're talking about.
Seems to me you have an axe to grind with respect to the Middle East, and I'm not going to disagree with you on your pet peeve.
What I'm telling you is that Carter isn't what you think he is. You have never met the man, and you have never had to deal with him personally. I have, while he was governor and later while he was doing his "Habitat for Humanity" thing. He's an unreliable, micro-managing, self-righteous incompetent who doesn't have what it takes to lead.
You have built up for yourself an image of Jimmy Carter that has nothing to do with the reality, apparently based entirely upon his agreement with you on a single issue. But you can't put much stock in what he says or does, because it's all built upon sand. We learned that the hard way here in Georgia.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.