Liberal cheap-shot artists beware: Don’t insult President Trump and expect to get away with it, or a benign, tolerant response. When corrupt Democrats like Hillary Clinton or superannuated elitists like Joe Biden spout half-truths and falsehoods about President Trump, they can expect memorable zingers and nicknames that stick, like “Crooked Hillary” or “Sleepy Joe.”
The most recent example, and one where the President’s pithy description of a detractor hit home, is Jimmy Carter. Having long overstayed his welcome in the public eye, ex-(failed) president Carter now 94, said in a recent on-stage appearance, “There is no doubt that Russians did interfere in the election.”
Carter continued, “And I think the interference, although not yet quantified, if fully investigated would show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election, and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf.”
Yeah, right. While the foregoing is entirely consistent with democrat delusional thinking, Jimmy Carter should know better. Ex-presidents are expected to stay above politics. That way they can be a resource to their successors to offer insight and advice in doing the toughest job in the world. By characterizing President Trump as illegitimate, Jimmy has relegated himself to old folks’ home of advisors.
Instead of laughing off Carter’s scurrilous and unwarranted comments, President Trump characterized Jimmy Carter’s presidency as just “terrible.” Said Trump, “He’s a nice man. He was a terrible president…I felt badly for him, because you look over the years…he’s like a forgotten president.”
Carter has spent the many years of his post-presidency in an effort to overcome a legacy of ranking in the bottom half of serving U.S. presidents. He joined the ranks of one-term, rejected presidents after losing to someone who was an inspirational leader.
In contrast to Carter, who was more like a manager promoted far past his competence, Ronald Reagan restored optimism and confidence in an electorate that had grown weary with Carter not three years into his presidency.
Jimmy was indeed a “nice man.” He returned the Panama Canal, a vital U.S. strategic asset—which the U.S. built — to a banana republic government. He allowed the disgraced Shah of Iran, who was fleeing prosecution, to seek sanctuary in the U.S.
When Iranian fanatics took over the American embassy and held our people hostage for over 400 days, Carter was like a deer in the headlights. And Jimmy was especially nice to dictators like Fidel Castro, Kim Il Jung, and Hugo Chávez.
Carter’s signature speech, and one which typifies what a terrible president he was, is his “Crisis of Confidence” address to the American people on July 15, 1979. In the midst of an energy crisis, high inflation as well as unprecedented unemployment, rather than acknowledging his own failure of leadership, Carter railed against the “erosion of our confidence in the future” as “threatening to destroy the social and political fabric of America.” He then outlined a complicated energy plan that was, typically, more process than substance.
His speech reads like a quasi-religious, socialist screed: People must be losing confidence, Carter opined, because “too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns.”
The sad speech goes on with the observation that for the first time in our country’s history “a majority of our people believe that the next five years will be worse than the past five years.” He got that part right, actually. Those next five years saw the American people act on that belief. They rejected Jimmy Carter’s weak philosophy and elected a president who restored confidence the Carter presidency eroded.
In the long years after Carter’s short presidency, instead of accepting his rejection and aging gracefully, Carter behaved as if he were still president. His meddlesome behavior in Haiti, Venezuela, and North Korea, annoyed and enraged his successors, who wished Jimmy would stick to building homes for poor people.
On the other hand, Carter likely felt vindicated after he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Norwegian liberals have a history of awarding political prizes to U.S. critics, left-wingers and activists.
A more recent example was the undeserved recognition of President Barack Obama, who looked honestly bewildered at receiving the award and having done nothing to deserve it.
So, Jimmy Carter, like many of his democrat cohorts, suffers from the dementia that accompanies rejection. That rejection is their antidote to reality and their inoculation against hypocrisy. Watching an actual former president drink the “Russian collusion Kool-Aid” shows just how far anti-Trump nuttiness has spread.
