"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red."
- Macbeth
He started out all right. Jimmy Carter always does. Whether as president or
ex-. Remember when he was the country's bright, shining hope after Richard
Nixon's reign of darkness and then the vague non-administration of Gerald
Ford, the Great Pardoner?
But before long Americans were looking back to the nondescript Mr. Ford as
if he'd been George Washington. Nothing made the bumbling, likeable Gerald
Ford look better than having been succeeded by a walking, ever-talking
disaster.
The Carter administration was that bad: stagflation, gas lines, appeasement,
never-ending sanctimony . . . . You name a colossal mistake and Jimmy Carter
probably made it a policy.
As a former president, Mr. Carter started off well, too, wielding hammer and
nails with Habitat for Humanity. Good for him. When he was building houses,
the worst he risked was a bruised thumb. But then he decided he was God's
gift to American foreign policy, and began making trouble for every chief
executive and commander-in-chief who came after him.
Was there any part of the globe, from the Caribbean to the Middle East, from
Haiti to North Korea to the Balkans, where Jimmy Carter didn't cozy up to
dictators? Wherever he goes, tyrants smile. The long, dispiriting trail of
former President Carter's overseas travels has been marked by one diplomatic
disaster after another.
As for Jimmy Carter's role as a monitor of free-and-fair elections, the low
point must have come when he gave his blessings to Robert Mugabe's takeover
in Zimbabwe. Naturally, utter disaster followed. It hasn't ceased there
since.
And now Mr. Carter is at it again, preparing to pay court to just about the
bloodiest terrorist leader in the Middle East, which is no mean distinction
in those violent parts. He's about to lend his ex-presidential presence to
terrorist chieftain Khaled Meshaal, who as head of Hamas hides out in
Damascus under Syrian aegis. (Let others die for the cause in Gaza; its
leader is quite comfortable, thank you.)
The only proper greeting for someone like Mr. Meshaal would be, "You're
under arrest." Instead, we can expect to see Jimmy Carter pay his usual
homage to those who champion violence. Continued... |