(You may play the tune of Ode to Joy as you read this). Jimmy Carter: You are a boring man who has not stopped looking for a role ever since you left office in disgrace. You have become a proverbial example of a failed president, with your name always associated with that of Herbert Hoover. Can you tell me one time what your silly Carter Center does when all your money (or most) is collected from the polygamous princes and kings of the Gulf, and you dare speak to me about human rights? You are not wanted anywhere you go, especially here in the US. Obama could not even schedule you at the Democratic Convention because you bring shame and disgrace to every event you attend. You now show up in Lebanon and the news of your silly visit is buried deep inside the newspapers and tabloid. But you did find time to go to Rafiq Hariri's grave site with Sa`d Hariri, and you bowed your head in respect. Was that like the homage you paid as president to dictators like King Fahd and Shah of Iran and many others? And you dare invoke human rights? Did you go to Lebanon to visit those villages that were bombed by Israel in its invasion in 1978 when you were a president and you had the most muted response to Israeli invasion? But you say that your biggest insipiration is another dictator, Anwar Sadat, and that he is your closest friend. If that is your biggest inspiration, I now understand you better. Oh, and also: your cowardly belated discovery of the justice of the Palestinian cause is a support that the Palestinian cause can do without. Please leave the Middle East alone, and go on--by all means--and keep producing those boring books that you write. I read recently an account by one of your secretaries about your time in office: how you were the most arrogant man, and how you never listened to any advice except your own head, and how you could not handle any criticism of any kind. I read that and I understood you (and despised you) a bit more.
Friday, December 12, 2008
My Ode to Jimmy Carter
(You may play the tune of Ode to Joy as you read this). Jimmy Carter: You are a boring man who has not stopped looking for a role ever since you left office in disgrace. You have become a proverbial example of a failed president, with your name always associated with that of Herbert Hoover. Can you tell me one time what your silly Carter Center does when all your money (or most) is collected from the polygamous princes and kings of the Gulf, and you dare speak to me about human rights? You are not wanted anywhere you go, especially here in the US. Obama could not even schedule you at the Democratic Convention because you bring shame and disgrace to every event you attend. You now show up in Lebanon and the news of your silly visit is buried deep inside the newspapers and tabloid. But you did find time to go to Rafiq Hariri's grave site with Sa`d Hariri, and you bowed your head in respect. Was that like the homage you paid as president to dictators like King Fahd and Shah of Iran and many others? And you dare invoke human rights? Did you go to Lebanon to visit those villages that were bombed by Israel in its invasion in 1978 when you were a president and you had the most muted response to Israeli invasion? But you say that your biggest insipiration is another dictator, Anwar Sadat, and that he is your closest friend. If that is your biggest inspiration, I now understand you better. Oh, and also: your cowardly belated discovery of the justice of the Palestinian cause is a support that the Palestinian cause can do without. Please leave the Middle East alone, and go on--by all means--and keep producing those boring books that you write. I read recently an account by one of your secretaries about your time in office: how you were the most arrogant man, and how you never listened to any advice except your own head, and how you could not handle any criticism of any kind. I read that and I understood you (and despised you) a bit more.
