There’s an old saying that goes: “Let your life serve as a warning to others”. In Jimmy Carter’s case, that’s an understatement. In the “worst president in history” category, it’s a four way tie between Jimmy Carter, Bubba Clinton, B. Hussein Obama, and Joe Biden.
They were however, adept at smooth-talking minorities and poor into believing that age-old myth, the “Democratic party supports the “working class”.
Jimmy Carter, the Georgia peanut farmer who became the 39th president of the United States during a time of gas shortages, Cold War drama and the Iran hostage crisis, died Sunday.
He was 100.
Carter — the longest-living president in US history — passed away at his longtime home in the village of Plains, Ga. after spending more than a year in hospice care and eight months following the death of his beloved wife Rosalynn at the age of 96. They were married for 77 years.
Carter’s grandson, Jason, said the former commander-in-chief was “experiencing the world as best he can” but was not awake every day in an update weeks before his death.
The former Georgia peanut farmer never met a dictator he didn’t like. His approach to foreign dictators is stomach-turning.
……Carter (praised) the murderous North Korean tyrant Kim Il Sung with these words: “I find him to be vigorous, intelligent,…and in charge of the decisions about this country.” He added, “I don’t see that they [the North Koreans] are an outlaw nation.” He also hailed Marshal Joseph Tito as “a man who believes in human rights,” and said of the murderous Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, “Our goals are the same: to have a just system of economics and politics . . . We believe in enhancing human rights.” Championing the underdog also had Carter tell the Haitian dictator Raul Cédras that he was “ashamed of what my country has done to your country.”
Of Saddam Hussein, Carter said: “Even if his effort is successful [Colin Powell addressing the U.N. Security Council] and lies and trickery by Saddam Hussein are exposed, this will not indicate any real or proximate threat by Iraq to the United States or to our allies.”
Evidently, 12 years of Hussein’s nose-thumbing and duplicity wasn’t convincing.
Thanks to hapless foreign policy decisions which resulted in the abandonment of the Shah, mishandling of the Iranian hostage crisis, and botched rescue attempt, this myopic simpleton was responsible for thousands of deaths, and left the door wide open for a succession of Iranian Ayatollahs and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
He was an abject failure as a president and even more so as a globe-trotting, self-appointed, anti-American ass kisser. Afghanistan ended up being the major operating base for Taliban and Al Qaeda, which could have been thwarted had we stuck around and influenced the aftermath instead of walking away after we helped the Mujahidin kick out the Soviets.
His antics with the former Soviets weren’t much better. During Leonid Brezhnev’s tenure, the Soviet Union expanded militarily and engaged in several coups funded by the Kremlin. Carter’s reputation as a foreign policy wimp encouraged the Russians to install Communist regimes in Vietnam, Angola, Somalia, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Grenada, Nicaragua, and South Yemen.
He also endorsed Hamas:
More of Carter’s foreign policy malaise:
Carter would later boast that, as president, he set about “convincing the Soviets of our ability and resolve to respond.” But as political analyst Ben Johnson puts it, “Unfortunately, his response was naïvete and unilateral surrender.” Carter failed to consult either the Pentagon or the Kremlin before removing U.S. missiles from South Korea within hours of his inauguration, a move that Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev interpreted as weakness rather than conciliation. In 1979, Brezhnev refused to remove Soviet submarines and aircraft from Cuba.
Also during his presidency, Carter offered to remove all U.S. troops from South Korea.
Carter’s “positive inducements” and warnings about America’s “inordinate fear of Communism” led the Soviets and Cubans to believe the Third World was fair game. Though Carter would later praise himself for “establishing diplomatic relations” with Cuba in 1977, that policy consisted of standing by as Castro kept Cuban soldiers fighting in Angola and sent 16,000 more to Ethiopia.
Carter cut off aid to El Salvador, which was fighting a Communist insurgency, but gave more than $90 million in aid to the Marxist Nicaraguan Sandinistas. He soon halted diplomatic recognition of U.S. allies in Taiwan and recognized Beijing in their place. Though he declared that “human rights is the soul of our foreign policy,” he showered accolades upon Tito, Ceausescu, Ortega, and Kim il-Sung (the last, after his presidency).
Meanwhile, Carter’s brother Billy tried to open trade relations with Libya in 1978 after depositing a generous $220,000 “loan” from Mu’ammar Qadhafi. Billy Carter registered as an agent of a foreign government two years later.
All the while, the American military was under equipped, underfunded, and underpaid.
His domestic agenda wasn’t much better:
Carter ran annual deficits more than twelve times larger than those of his predecessor, Richard Nixon, increasing the federal debt by 42 percent — more than any previous president who had not fought a world war. Had Carter’s full agenda been implemented (he proposed a national health insurance plan in 1979), that figure would have been higher yet.
Average gas prices more than doubled during Carter’s presidency, reaching $1.25 a gallon by election day 1980. Carter’s price controls led to gas lines, shortages, and rationing of fuel. Prices continued to rise until Reagan abolished price controls by executive order. Rather than stand up to OPEC during the 1979 gas crisis, Carter cracked down on the U.S. auto industry and blamed the American people for their “crisis of confidence” in his leadership.
By 1980, interest rates in the U.S. stood at 21 percent, inflation at 13.5 percent, unemployment at 7 percent, and the “misery index” (a term coined by Carter during the 1976 presidential campaign) at 20.5 percent.
“The American people are just going to have to get used to a lower standard of living.” Jimmy Carter, trying to sell Globalism before it was widely known as Globalism.
As if Carter’s bumbling as President weren’t enough, it pales in comparison to his post-Oval Office behavior.
Carter began meddling in his successors’ affairs in 1984 by again suggesting that Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin interfere in a U.S. presidential election, this time on behalf of Democrat Walter Mondale. During his meeting with Dobrynin, Carter complained: “[T]here would not be a single agreement on arms control, especially on nuclear arms, as long as Reagan remained in power.” Carter and other Democrats – most notably Ted Kennedy – maintained relations with the Soviets out of concern that Reagan, and not the Soviet leadership, was dangerously extreme.
……Before Operation Desert Storm was launched in January 1991, Carter wrote a letter to the United Nations‘ Security Council members, asking them to oppose the impending war. Five days before military operations were to commence, Carter again wrote to Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt: “I urge you to call publicly for a delay in the use of force while Arab leaders seek a peaceful solution to the crisis.”
He spent his post-presidency traveling the world, schmoozing with despots and trashing America and Western democracies in general.
He refused to let go of the office he was kicked out of in 1980. His free-lance anti-American diplomacy was an embarrassment and a disgrace. His arrogance and stupidity didn’t just affect himself. He gave aid and comfort to America’s enemies and there is a segment of like-minded sycophants who endorse his grotesque behavior. On that note Obama picked up where Carter left off.
So did Biden.
Too bad he didn’t stick to building “crack houses for humanity”.
Another now good Demonrat . . .