Whatever happened to unspoken rules?
I’m talking about those related to ex-Presidents. Every President since Washington (except maybe Teddy Roosevelt) served his time in office, then rode off into the sunset. I don’t remember Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower et.al trying to influence public policy or even commenting on public policy after their time in office. Gerald Ford wouldn’t even allow reporters to print his views on current issues until after he left. There’s always been an implied rule about the conduct of ex-Presidents. In other words, we’ve come to expect them to act with some semblance of honor.
I guess not anymore.
Jimmy Carter makes me sick. He’s appointed himself peacemaker in the middle east. Anyone remember what happened last time he tried to meddle in the region? Hostage crisis, anyone? He’s taken it upon himself to visit Hamas (a terrorist organization) and “talk” to them, with the stated intent of being an intermediary between Hamas and the United States. I’m sorry, Mr. Carter, did anyone ask you to do that? Moreover, did anyone want you to? On the contrary, the governments of the United States and Israel both explicitly asked Mr. Carter to NOT visit Hamas, to NOT give a terrorist group who’s stated purpose is destroying Israel legitimacy. But of course Mr. Carter, the worst president of the last 50 years (probably more) knows best.
To add insult to injury, Mr. Carter saw fit to visit the grave of Yasser Arafat, the dead leader of the PLO and a terrorist in his own right, and lay a wreath of roses.
Jimmy Carter is a disgrace.
From Ed Koch on RealClearPolitics:
When he ran for reelection, he asked me to campaign for him in 1980 - I was by then Mayor of New York City — and I said that I would vote for him, but not campaign for him because he was then engaging in hostile acts towards Israel. I was popular with the Jewish community and when I would not campaign for him unless he changed his position, he called me to his hotel in New York when attending a fundraiser and said, “You have done me more damage than any man in America.” I felt proud then, and even more today, since we now know what a miserable president he was then and the miserable human being he is now as he prepares to meet with Hamas.
Ronald Reagan “continued to publicly speak in favor of a line-item veto, a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget, and the repeal of the 22nd Amendment, which prohibits a president from serving more than two terms” (”Ronald Reagan” Wikipedia). I can’t find much on the other guys, but Harry Truman didn’t actually have a middle name, so how trustworthy could he really be? And I suspect that George Sr. influenced his son’s policies–I don’t necessarily believe George Jr. went to Iraq to “finish his daddy’s war” per se, but it’s hard to believe that George Sr. never gave his son advice, a little nudge, whatnot….
I do agree, however. It’s rude for past presidents to undermine their successors by speaking like common folk. In fact, why stop at past presidents? Why not extend this honourable action to _current_ presidents as well? Why should the president comment on public policy–the word “public” implies that that sort of thing should be decided by the government, the people.
And now for something completely different….
Hamas is a rather interesting little group. Yes, it is a terrorist organization. Unlike other groups like al-Qaeda, however, Hamas doesn’t have designs on America. It seems content to carve out a chunk of the Middle East in the hopes that the world will one day call it “Palestine”. But Hamas isn’t all bad. As Scott Adams observed, now that the group is in power as a democratically elected government, it has had to curb its more radical elements (albeit perhaps somewhat ineffectively) in order to try to play ball with Israel. Like it or not, a Palestinian state will happen–hopefully within our lifetime. Whether or not Israel officially recognizes Palestine, the fact that it hasn’t actually gone and reclaimed the part of the its land we’re close to calling Palestine is an implicit acknowledgement of legitimacy. Of course Hamas shouldn’t be allowed to destroy Israel–that would be a tad overdoing it. But to paint the group with one, thick, irredeemable terrorist brush is unwise, for it is just as an extremist viewpoint as Hamas extremists have of Israel. I don’t know what Carter is doing there (and I don’t really care), but the way to peace will be through negotiation and compromise with the more moderate aspects of the Hamas leadership.
Sometimes when I think of the situation in the Middle East, I get this scent of “Rwanda”. Then I shake my head. So far.
Ben Babcock said this on April 17th, 2008 at 3:50 am