Jimmy Carter: a candidate for the Nobel Prize in moral and political cowardice. So I was listening to a Washington Post interview with Carter on one XM station. He was asked about the book by Mershheimer and Walt. He said that he never read the article or the book. He was then asked to comment about the argument: the interviewer told him that the book claimed that the Israeli lobby has a great and sometimes nefarious influence over US foreign policy, and asked him to comment. Carter said that he can't comment on that and that he has no knowledge of the Israeli lobby. I kid you not.