After opining that the country had not improved substantially over the past three decades, former President Jimmy Carter let loose with this whopper about the state of the nation while he was in office: "We had almost complete harmony with every nation on Earth."
If the on-going Cold War, the Iranian hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the resulting US boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, not to mention several other contentious foreign policy issues the country faced at the time, can be called instances of harmonious international relations, then, I suppose, we should pine for the halcyon days that were the Carter Administration.
But they weren't and we shouldn't.
One hesitates to say much more than that. The old man is obviously failing and it becomes increasingly unseemly to pile on.
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Dear Sage.....while it is tempting to agree that it may be increasingly unseemly to be critical of the former President, I must, in fact, beg to differ. If President Carter were an "ordinary" citizen, there is no question that saying nothing would be the better, wiser, and more respectful course of action. But, he isn't. His words, self-aggrandizing and even absurd at times, issue from one who has a far greater degree of influence than an ordinary citizen. He speaks from a platform he has only because of the office he once held. He has an obligation to speak w/ great prudence and humility. He has neither. It would appear that his "handlers," assuming he has some, have very little control over him or had given him poor advice about the venues he appears in. It would be excusable if he were almost anyone else. Instead, it's shameful and disgraceful, not to mention an embarassment.
ReplyDeleteYou're probably right. Because he was president, he must guard what he says. Because he either won't or can't, he's fair game.
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