House Minority Leader Blasts Bush; GOP Fires Back

I think the worst President we have suffered was Carter. Gas lines, malaise, the Iranian desert debacle-- but no one called him incompetant, tho many knew he was. Again, I will remind that he was the first President in modern history, who faced mutiny by his own party up to the Convention.

That's a basic difference in 'us' n 'them'. You don't call your President incompetant, especially during war. You can work against him, surely, but it does comfort Bin Laden and terrorists to hear this type of rhetoric.

His leadership and hard decisions have made success very difficult for terrorists. He's not without fault--but he has led strongly and swiftly, and, while his speechmaking is ghastly, he is certainly not incompetant.

Sofia wrote:

I think the worst President we have suffered was Carter. Gas lines, malaise, the Iranian desert debacle-- but no one called him incompetant, tho many knew he was. Again, I will remind that he was the first President in modern history, who faced mutiny by his own party up to the Convention.

That's a basic difference in 'us' n 'them'. You don't call your President incompetant, especially during war. You can work against him, surely, but it does comfort Bin Laden and terrorists to hear this type of rhetoric.

His leadership and hard decisions have made success very difficult for terrorists. He's not without fault--but he has led strongly and swiftly, and, while his speechmaking is ghastly, he is certainly not incompetant.

Your partisan loyalties are transparent and vacuous.

That's a basic difference in 'us' n 'them'. You don't call your President incompetant, especially during war. You can work against him, surely, but it does comfort Bin Laden and terrorists to hear this type of rhetoric.

kickycan wrote:

Sofia wrote:

I think the worst President we have suffered was Carter. Gas lines, malaise, the Iranian desert debacle-- but no one called him incompetant, tho many knew he was. Again, I will remind that he was the first President in modern history, who faced mutiny by his own party up to the Convention.

That's a basic difference in 'us' n 'them'. You don't call your President incompetant, especially during war. You can work against him, surely, but it does comfort Bin Laden and terrorists to hear this type of rhetoric.

His leadership and hard decisions have made success very difficult for terrorists. He's not without fault--but he has led strongly and swiftly, and, while his speechmaking is ghastly, he is certainly not incompetant.

Your partisan loyalties are transparent and vacuous.

ah yes... that pot calling the kettle black colloquialism...

Sofia wrote:

That's a basic difference in 'us' n 'them'. You don't call your President incompetant, especially during war. You can work against him, surely, but it does comfort Bin Laden and terrorists to hear this type of rhetoric.

Right. It gives aid and comfort to the enemy. The Islamofascists may seem as fruity as a nut cake, but they aren't all stupid. Many of them saw what happened in Mogadishu, when we pulled out after the bad guys killed some of our soldiers and dragged one through the streets. It gives them an impression of the US military and administration, that all you have to do to defeat us is kill a few soldiers and exhibit their dead bodies in some gruesome way. That demoralizes our leaders and our troops, and we slink away, frightened. And statements like Pelosi's don't necessarily stay within this country, either. To our enemies, it sounds like the very leadership of the country is becoming fragmented and indecisive. Although nothing could be further from the truth, it could embolden the enemy to kill more of our troops to further demoralize us. And for that reason, Nancy Pelosi should STFU after apologizing.

And no, she's not shrill because of her gender. She's shrill because of her disregard for proper decorum and the well-being of American troops in the field of battle.

The terroists one a long time ago.

We, in the US, just love our stuff so much.

We think we rule the world and we do not.

Our Army is not equiped or staffed properly, the war/invasion was sold to us on a philosphy of lies.

The US haa violated international treaties.

Some silly kids follwed the orders of retired special ops guys, I guess they all thought they were Rambos.

Our values are in the toliet in the eyes of the world.

Our government has proved the French to be correct.

By Bobby Eberle
Talon News
May 21, 2004

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) delivered an attack aimed at President Bush both in a Capitol Hill news conference and in an interview given to her hometown newspaper Thursday afternoon.

Pelosi's remarks stood in sharp contrast with those of the president who made a trip to Capitol Hill yesterday to deliver a message meant to rally Republican lawmakers.

"I believe that the president's leadership and the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment, and experience," Pelosi told reporters gathered to hear her remarks.

"This president should have known ... when you decide to go to war you have to know what the consequences of your action are and how you can accomplish the mission," Pelosi said.

The House Democratic leader added, "There was plenty of intelligence to say there would be chaos in Iraq following the fall of Baghdad."

"The results of his action are what undermine his leadership, not my statements," she said. "The emperor has no clothes. When are people going to face the reality?"

In a separate interview granted to the San Francisco Chronicle, Rep. Pelosi went even further, saying, "Bush is an incompetent leader. In fact, he's not a leader. He's a person who has no judgment, no experience and no knowledge of the subjects that he has to decide upon."

"Not to get personal about it, but the president's capacity to lead has never been there," Pelosi said.

"In order to lead, you have to have judgment. In order to have judgment, you have to have knowledge and experience. He has none," she added.

Carter's place in history still being written
Michael R. GIaimo
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Just when we thought Jimmy Carter would simply fade away into the political shadows of the night, the former president pulled off the unthinkable in Pyongyang, North Korea. He brought peaceful resolution within the realm of possibility -- averting a probable military solution under the auspices of quiet skepticism in America.
Although the conflict in North Korea is far from over, Carter has put the two adversaries at the threshold of stability and may force Americans to re-examine his place within presidential history. He has done what no one else has been able to do. He brought the North Koreans to the bargaining table.

Past interpretations label Carter as an executive failure, mired in domestic toils like inflation, energy scarcity, the boycott of the 1980 Olympic games in Moscow and the Iranian hostage crisis. But a closer examination reveals a much different image than the one put "on trial" during the 1980 election.

Maybe Carter's accomplishments in dealing with President Kim Il Yung will solidify his role as a diplomat and statesmen, the likes of whom our country may never see again.

At the time of his ouster in 1980, Carter left office with the reputation of an idealistic small-town politician, and somewhat of an intellectual light- weight. Carter may have been a peanut farmer, but he was a peanut farmer with a degree from the Naval Academy.

In Tip O'Neill's autobiography "Man of the House," O'Neill wrote an anecdote about Carter during the energy crisis of the late 1970's. In 1979, Carter had just eloquently addressed the American people with regard to the most recent energy crisis. "Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this nation," Carter said. "It can also be the standard around which we rally. On the battlefield of energy we can win for our nation a new confidence and we can seize control again for our common destiny."

Following the speech, O'Neill, the late former speaker of the House, approached the president and complimented him on his speech, which seemed to rally the American people. Always the skilled politician, O'Neill then proceeded to give Carter a list of Congressmen who were integral in passing his energy initiative. Carter naively replied that no lobbying was necessary. The American people knew what was right and they would pressure their representatives into voting for an energy bill. This was a perfect example of the polemics that plagued the Carter administration.

A former governor of Georgia, Carter had a difficult time making the transition from Georgia state politics to the pariah of the Washington power struggle. Carter could no longer trust in the system to work itself out, and its officials to be under his thumb.

Carter's failures are well-documented, but his policy advances were almost anonymous.

The Camp David Accords in 1978 may possibly rank as one of the greatest mediation achievements in history. The accords would lead to a peace treaty in 1979, formally ending the 31-year war between Israel and Egypt. After Carter's defeat, it would take the United States another 10 years to pick up where the Carter Administration left off.

Following Nixon's lead, Carter fortified positive relations with China in 1979. The U.S. formally recognized Peking as the legitimate government in China, and Deputy Premier Teng Hsiao-ping became the first Chinese Communist leader to visit the U.S.

Carter also took the lead in condemning the Soviet atrocities in Afghanistan. Carter built a global coalition in protesting the 1979 invasion. In 1980, the U.S. suspended all high-technology and grain sales to the Soviet Union.

Reagan would reinstate grain sales in 1981.

In fact, the Carter administration made human rights the cornerstone of its dominion. Carter not only denounced the trials of Soviet dissidents, but also spoke out for the rights of Eastern Europeans. The Carter administration was also a progenitor of condemnation of the racism in South Africa, as well as a critic of the violent regimes of Fidel Castro in Cuba and Idi Amin in Uganda.

The Carter Administration signed the SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union in 1979, only to have the treaty later defeated by Senate conservatives.

Carter's domestic resume is not as impressive, but is still substantial. The president signed important environmental legislation in 1977 and 1980, and the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act in 1978. One can only wonder what type of shift in the U.S. economy could have been effected had the Carter initiatives been given more of a chance.

Despite being shunned by the body politic in this country, Carter has continually worked for world peace since his defeat. Carter did not go after post-presidential perquisites, by way of a books and speaking engagements, like other presidential carnage (not to name any names). Unlike his predecessors and those that followed, Carter left with his integrity intact. He did not leave bitter, ready to sequester himself in the private world of the political dead. He created the Carter Presidential Center in Atlanta and has worked tirelessly for health efforts in Africa and for peace in South America. He became the senior statesman Richard Nixon wanted to be.

So why is it amazing to everyone that only Carter could break the ice with the North Koreans? Much has been made of President Kim Il Sung's political savvy, especially in dealing with Joseph Stalin. Carter must have been up to the task. The North Koreans have agreed to freeze all of their nuclear exploits while negotiating with the U.S., something even Carter's Democratic brethren thought impossible.

Maybe it's time we rethink Jimmy Carter's contribution to the American political tradition?



Michael R. Giaimo is a senior double-majoring in journalism and political science.

I fully believe that Carter is the best.

The Worst Ex-President

By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | May 6, 2004

Frontpage Interview's guest today is Steven Hayward, the F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. He is the author of the new book The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry.

FP: Welcome to Frontpage Interview, Mr. Hayward. It is a pleasure to have you with us.

Hayward: Always fun to be on the Frontpage!

FP: Why, after all this time, should we be taking another look at Jimmy Carter?

Hayward: FP: Are we witnessing the decline of the Democratic Party?

Hayward: Yes I think so. The Democratic Party has been in long-term decline since it lost its nerve in the mid-1960s and began caving in by degrees to its far left wing. People today forget, for example, that its most prominent liberals in the early 1970s like Hubert Humphrey, Edmund Muskie, and even Tip O'Neill, all expressed strong opposition to abortion on demand, yet today no Democrat dares voice any deviation from the radical feminist line. Carter was initially thought in 1976 to be a bulwark against this leftist slide--he had, after all, opposed McGovern in 1972--but he proved to be a vessel that ratified rather than resisted the Democrats' slide further to the left.

FP: What made you decide to write about Carter?

Hayward: I got sick and tired of hearing people describe Carter as "our finest ex-President." The same statecraft that generated his ruinous presidency has informed his post-presidential politics. If he had just stuck with building homes with Habitat for Humanity, he might deserve the accolade as our best ex-president. But he doesn't.

FP: Why don't we start with Carter's general record. Give us a brief laundry list of his failures.

Hayward: He was a disaster on the economy, blaming high inflation, for example, on the character of the American people. But by far his worst failing was in foreign policy. His human rights policy led to human rights disasters in Iran and Nicaragua, and emboldened the Soviet Union to extend its reach further into the third world. The fruits of the Iran disaster are still very much with us today. The fall of Iran set in motion the advance of radical Islam and the rise of terrorism that culminated in September 11. If we had stuck by the Shah or his successors, the history of the last 25 years in the Middle East would have been very different (and the Iranian people would have been better off, too). For starters, the Soviet Union would have hesitated greatly over invading Afghanistan in 1979.

FP: Yes, Carter facilitated the coming to power of Marxists in Nicaragua and Islamist despots in Iran, Both of the new tyrannies by far surpassed the brutality of their predecessors. Meanwhile, by letting the Soviets know he wouldn't lift a finger if they invaded Afghanistan, Carter spawned a war that ultimately saw one million dead Afghans, five million displaced, and a situation of evil that nurtured the Islamic hatred and militancy that ultimately turned on the West and gave us 9/11. How is it that a man who fertilized the soil in which so much evil grew remains completely unchastened?

Hayward: Carter is clearly intelligent in the SAT-score sense of the word, but he seems utterly incapable of learning anything from experience. Even Neville Chamberlain, the arch-appeaser of England in the 1930s, eventually came around about the Nazis, but Carter and liberals like him can't be shaken from their sentimental view of the world, even by something as stark as 9/11.

FP: So what do you think it is in Carter's personality and ideology that engendered his disastrous record?

Hayward: FP: When you point out that Carter and other liberals like Kerry should have learned from history by now, a serious question comes to mind. Do you think these disastrous Democratic Party leaders such as Carter and Clinton are just plain stupid and naïve? Or is there actually an inner desire to harm and hurt their own country and society? Surely it can't be a complete coincidence in terms of how much damage they actually do. Is there a malicious agenda in the heart of these individuals toward America? Some kind of inner self-hate?

Hayward:FP: Tell us what you think of Carter winning the Nobel Prize.

Hayward: Carter panted after the Nobe Peace Prize for years, seeing it as a means of gaining official redemption for his humiliation at the hands of the voters in 1980. He lobbied quietly behind the scenes for years to get the prize, and finally met with success in 2002 when the left-wing Nobel Prize committee saw an opportunity to use Carter as a way of attacking President Bush and embarrassing the United States. The head of the Nobel Prize committee openly admitted that this was their motivation in selecting Carter. Any other ex-president would have refused to be a part of such an obvious anti-American intrigue, but not Jimmy. Here we should observe that Carter conceives himself much more as a citizen of the world than as a citizen of the United States, and I think it is highly revealing that Carter is most popular overseas in those nations that hate America the most, such as Syria, where they lined the streets cheering for Carter when he visited.

FP: Yes, we had Syrians cheering for Carter and now our Islamist enemies are rooting for Kerry. I'll be honest, I am horrified at the idea of Kerry winning the election and overseeing the War on Terror. This is a guy that appears to believe that people like Osama just need understanding and that those who hate us only do so because of what we do, and not because of who and what we actually are: free people.

Does Kerry have a chance in winning? How tragic will it be if he does?

Hayward: It is hard to predict this far ahead of the election, with the Iraq situation portrayed as volatile by our perverse news media. What this election will tell is whether the electorate remains as serious-minded about foreign affairs as it was during the Cold War, when a Democrat could not win the White House unless he seemed sufficiently robust on foreign policy.

People forget today that Carter ran to the right of Gerald Ford on foreign policy in 1976, attacking Kissinger and detente and even quoting approvingly Ronald Reagan in one TV spot he ran in the South. But then of course Carter lurched in the opposite direction once in office. I think a majority of voters today will see that Kerry is essentially frivolous or worse on foreign policy. If I am wrong about the soundness of a majority of voters, then Kerry will have a chance of winning.

FP: Let us suppose that you were invited to a political history conference in which the top scholars were asked to rate Carter as a President from a scale of 1-10 (10 being a superb president, 0 being an absolute disaster) and then to give a short verdict on his presidency and legacy, what would you say?

Hayward: He would get a zero. He has already been identified as such. Nathan Miller, author of The Star-Spangled Men: America's Ten Worst Presidents, ranks Carter number one among the worst. Miller wrote that "Electing Jimmy Carter president was as close as the American people have ever come to picking a name out of the phone book and giving him the job." I concur. Everyone old enough recalls the high inflation under Carter, and his foreign record was just as bad. Henry Kissinger summarized it this way: "The Carter administration has managed the extraordinary feat of having, at one and the same time, the worst relations with our allies, the worst relations with our adversaries, and the most serious upheavals in the developing world since the end of the Second World War."

FP: Thank you Mr. Hayward, our time is up. It was a privilege to speak with you.

Hayward: My pleasure Jamie.

Again, I say, bullshit.