Over the weekend, Jimmy Carter — former President of the United States (though that’s sometimes hard to believe!) — had this to say:
I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history. The overt reversal of America’s basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including [those of] George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me.
My reaction to that was to simply dismiss it as the addled rambling of a sick and disturbed old man. I pity him, and as an American I find his presence shameful. And I wish he’d move to someplace where they’d appreciate his ceaseless “blame America first” ranting and his manifest Bush derangement syndrome. Like Palestine, for example. Or Venezuela.
But Christopher Hitchens has a different reaction. He says:
"Worst in history,” as the great statesman from Georgia has to know, has been the title for which he has himself been actively contending since 1976. I once had quite an argument with the late Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who maintained adamantly that it had been right for him to vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980 for no other reason. “Mr. Carter,” he said, “quite simply abdicated the whole responsibility of the presidency while in office. He left the nation at the mercy of its enemies at home and abroad. He was the worst president we ever had."
Mr. Hitchens verbally eviscerates the former President in this manner for his entire column, ending with this thought:
The quotation with which I began comes from an interview that he gave last week to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He also went on the British Broadcasting Corporation to make spiteful and cheap remarks on the retirement of Prime Minister Tony Blair, calling him “loyal, blind, apparently subservient.” Yes, that’s right, Mr. Carter. Just the way to make friends and assert “America’s basic values.” Show us your peanut envy. Heap insults on a guest in Washington: a thrice-elected prime minister who was the first and strongest ally of the United States on the most awful day in its recent history. A man who was prepared to risk his own career to be counted as a friend. A man who was warning against the Taliban, against Slobodan Milosevic, and against Saddam Hussein when George Bush was only the governor of Texas. Leaders like that deserve a little respect even when they are wrong—but don’t expect any generosity or courtesy from the purse-mouthed preacher man from Plains, who just purely knows he was right all along, and who, when that fails, can always point to the numberless godly victories that he won over the forces of evil.
And then there’s the memorable title Mr. Hitchens chose for the column: Peanut Envy.
Purse-mouthed. Ouch.
I wonder if Jimmy is even slightly embarrassed?
I note with disgust (but not surprise) that his fellow Democrats are utterly silent about his ravings…
