Dutch, This is When We Really Miss You

Anyone who really knows me knows my true opinion of Jimmy Carter. At best, he's a naive idiot. At worst, he's a moral coward and treasonous charlatan. It only makes sense that he appears on-stage in prime time at the DNC.

Last night, I was treated to the fascinating spectacle of Carter lecturing George W. Bush on how to conduct foreign policy. James Earl Carter, the 39th President of the United States, the man who couldn't stand up to Iran, whose most effective foreign policy tool was boycotting the Olympics, whose only shining moment in foreign policy (the Camp David Peace Accord) ultimately has meant little to peace in the Middle East... he's lecturing someone else on foreign policy????

I'm going to avoid trying to find Jimmy Carter's substantive reasons for voting for John Kerry -- mostly because I couldn't find any, save for the fact that Kerry served in Vietnam. But here's the part of the speech that amused and appalled me the most:

"In the meantime, the Middle East peace process has come to a screeching halt for the first time since Israel became a nation. All former presidents, Democratic and Republican, have attempted to secure a comprehensive peace for Israel with hope and justice for the Palestinians. The achievements of Camp David a quarter century ago and the more recent progress made by President Bill Clinton are now in peril.

Instead, violence has gripped the Holy Land, with the region increasingly swept by anti-American passions. Elsewhere, North Korea’s nuclear menace—a threat far more real and immediate than any posed by Saddam Hussein—has been allowed to advance unheeded, with potentially ominous consequences for peace and stability in Northeast Asia. These are some of the prices of our government’s radical departure from the basic American principles and values espoused by John Kerry!"

The only sentance in those two paragraphs with any shred of truth is the second one.

The mideast peace process stops and starts at least three times a decade. Mostly this is because one side is attempting to secure peace, while the other side is attempting to secure the destruction of its enemy. We'll let you decide which side is which.

The achievements of Camp David are in peril? They have always been in peril, in that Isreal is still in peril. But the Camp David Accord ended the state of war between Isreal and Egypt, and Isreal returned land to Egypt. Last I checked, the Egyptians still have the Sinai Peninsula, and Isreal and Egypt are no longer at war. As for Clinton's "accomplishments"... what did they accomplish, exactly? They brought Arafat back to the Wast Bank and Gaza, let him start a new uprising, and had him turn down a peace deal better than anything else Isreal could have offered. When Clinton left office, the violence had started full-tilt.

As for anti-American passions in the Holy Land, I think the Isrealis still love us. As for the Palestinians, anyone remember the celebrations after 9/11? I don't think Bush had done anything worthy of blame at that point, Jimmy, unless the Palestinians were offended by Florida 2000.

I can barely dignify Carter's idiotic rip of Bush for not handling North Korea correctly. Carter effectively handcuffed Clinton in 1994, leading to the "Agreed Framework" that North Korea promptly violated. But Carter got to kiss Kim Jong Il, and provided U.S. intelligence with this brilliant assessment on the North Koreans: "I don’t see that they are an outlaw nation." Maybe if they committed an environmental violation, they might qualify as outlaws.

Finally, Carter may think John Kerry espouses American values. But this is the man who once called Kim Il Sung "vigorous" and "intelligent." The man who referred to Yugoslavian dictator Tito as "a man who believes in human rights." The same man who praised Romanian tyrant Nicolai Ceausescu, Syria's murderous Hafez Assad, Ethiopian killer Mengitsu and Nicaraguen strongman Daniel Ortega. If John Kerry's looking for a charcter reference, maybe he should go somewhere else.

In fact, the whole time Carter was on-screen, acting like the boob that he is, I was struck with the hope that someone would take the time to just play one, simple line from Dutch... "There you go again."

But Dutch was an optimist. He wouldn't be hanging out with this crew.