Carter vs. Bush

Quote of the day:
"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth—more than ruin—more even than death. ... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man."
--Bertrand Russell

Even though I didn’t have the radio on this morning, I could still hear the disgusted sputtering of Rush Limbaugh and his dittoheads. As in: “If he can’t support our president and our troops, he should keep quiet.” Or: “He’s one to talk... he’s the one who (fill in the blank).” Or: “If he were president after 9/11, the terrorists would have attacked again. This has not happened under Bush because he has been strong.”

Former President Carter really started something over the weekend when he said in an interview “I think, as far as the adverse impact on our nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history.”

He did back off this statement this morning when he told the Today show’s Meredith Viera that he meant to compare the Bush administration just to that of Richard Nixon. See a transcript of the Viera interview at http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_theswamp/2007/05/carter_today_di.html.

It’s interesting that neither of Carter’s statements is especially outlandish. I’m not an expert on foreign policy or the history of international relations. But in all the yakking about the audacity of Carter’s statements, I haven’t heard anyone suggest, in a specific way, that any other president had a worse foreign policy.

Very early in his presidency, Bush simply walked away from several long-standing agreements and ongoing negotiations. These included Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, the Kyoto agreement and nuclear weapons treaties.

I can understand a new administration having problems with a particular process or agreement, and I can understand the corresponding effort to make changes in the process or agreement over time. But I think it is tragic to simply abandon or summarily reject the painstaking work of hundreds of skilled diplomats over many years.

I would bet that there are many, many reasonable, non-ideological citizens who agree with what Carter said. Or at least are willing to hear his opinion debated in a rational way.