Warner Todd Huston
Jimmy Carter: liar extraordinaire
By Warner Todd Huston
Every once in a while one must risk breaching decorum and call a spade a spade. In this case sentient people cannot avoid affirming the stark truth that former President Jimmy Carter is one of the world's greatest liars.
This melodious storyteller's latest misconstruction of the truth comes from the Deseret News of Salt Lake City, Utah where Carter regaled reporter Jessica Harrison with his blinkered view of reality.
His most extreme lie was his assessment of his own administration: "We had almost complete harmony with every nation on Earth. We not only preserved peace for our country, we never went to war. We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a missile."
Not firing a missile or dropping a bomb is not the sole criteria for "harmony." At the very least we had the Iranian hostage crisis on Carter's watch, a crisis that revealed a dearth of that "harmony" Carter was rambling about. But even that aside we had two U.S. soldiers killed by North Korea in 1976 an action that caused President Ford to send additional U.S. forces to the Korean theater not to mention the continued belligerence of the United Soviet Socialist Republic, the implacable communist foe that faced us down for 50 years by that point. The U.S.S.R. was still working against U.S. interests unabated and was hardly indulging any sense of "harmony" with "every nation on Earth" during Carter's term. East Germany and West Germany were still spilt, Cuba still worked against the U.S., South and Central America still had governments that opposed America... in short all that "harmony" Carter dreamed about existing was a mirage residing only in his head.
Jimmy Carter did not foster "harmony" as much as he simply ignored and abdicated to others any attention to the foreign policy situations we faced during his few short years in office. That he basically ignored substantive foreign policy is one of the reasons he became the only elected president in decades to be denied a second term.
Carter's next guffaw inducing claim in the Deseret News interview was his lament about all that evil money in politics.
But while there is a lot of money flowing into politics — so strictly speaking it is true — what leftists don't do is explain why all that money is flowing like never before into election campaigns. Leftists simply state that there is too much money in politics and then leave it at that leading listeners to the vague feeling that the money itself is the great evil. But the money is not the evil. The government is.
You see, the only reason more and more money keeps flowing into politics is because government keeps taking more and more power unto itself. Money follows power. It's not the other way around. The more power government steals from individuals by taking away our liberties and freedoms with layers upon layers of regulations and laws, the more money will be directed to the politicians that can dole out favorable government action to those with enough money to buy that favor. Take away government power and control and the money in politics will miraculously melt away.
Carter knows this to be a fact. But he simply refuses to acknowledge the truth in public. After all, to formally recognize the truth would reveal an out of control government power grab and grabbing power is his most desired goal. Carter simply refuses to tell the truth about all this.
Now I cannot say Jimmy Carter is a stupid man, so that excuse to explain his behavior is untenable. I can't say he's misinformed or ignorant, either. After all, he was there during the times he is discussing. He knows full well that he is misrepresenting the truth. So that leaves us with liar being the only explanation.
The fact is Jimmy Carter is the worst ex-president since Teddy Roosevelt gallivanted across the American media landscape attacking Wilson and Taft. But at least Teddy didn't give succor to America's enemies like Carter does.
© Warner Todd Huston
October 26, 2010
Every once in a while one must risk breaching decorum and call a spade a spade. In this case sentient people cannot avoid affirming the stark truth that former President Jimmy Carter is one of the world's greatest liars.
This melodious storyteller's latest misconstruction of the truth comes from the Deseret News of Salt Lake City, Utah where Carter regaled reporter Jessica Harrison with his blinkered view of reality.
His most extreme lie was his assessment of his own administration: "We had almost complete harmony with every nation on Earth. We not only preserved peace for our country, we never went to war. We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a missile."
Not firing a missile or dropping a bomb is not the sole criteria for "harmony." At the very least we had the Iranian hostage crisis on Carter's watch, a crisis that revealed a dearth of that "harmony" Carter was rambling about. But even that aside we had two U.S. soldiers killed by North Korea in 1976 an action that caused President Ford to send additional U.S. forces to the Korean theater not to mention the continued belligerence of the United Soviet Socialist Republic, the implacable communist foe that faced us down for 50 years by that point. The U.S.S.R. was still working against U.S. interests unabated and was hardly indulging any sense of "harmony" with "every nation on Earth" during Carter's term. East Germany and West Germany were still spilt, Cuba still worked against the U.S., South and Central America still had governments that opposed America... in short all that "harmony" Carter dreamed about existing was a mirage residing only in his head.
Jimmy Carter did not foster "harmony" as much as he simply ignored and abdicated to others any attention to the foreign policy situations we faced during his few short years in office. That he basically ignored substantive foreign policy is one of the reasons he became the only elected president in decades to be denied a second term.
Carter's next guffaw inducing claim in the Deseret News interview was his lament about all that evil money in politics.
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The political environment has become polarized in individual states and among voters, Carter says, caused primarily "by the massive and unprecedented infusion of millions of dollars into the campaign coffers of candidates, which are used mostly just for negative advertising to destroy the reputation or character of your opponents."
But while there is a lot of money flowing into politics — so strictly speaking it is true — what leftists don't do is explain why all that money is flowing like never before into election campaigns. Leftists simply state that there is too much money in politics and then leave it at that leading listeners to the vague feeling that the money itself is the great evil. But the money is not the evil. The government is.
You see, the only reason more and more money keeps flowing into politics is because government keeps taking more and more power unto itself. Money follows power. It's not the other way around. The more power government steals from individuals by taking away our liberties and freedoms with layers upon layers of regulations and laws, the more money will be directed to the politicians that can dole out favorable government action to those with enough money to buy that favor. Take away government power and control and the money in politics will miraculously melt away.
Carter knows this to be a fact. But he simply refuses to acknowledge the truth in public. After all, to formally recognize the truth would reveal an out of control government power grab and grabbing power is his most desired goal. Carter simply refuses to tell the truth about all this.
Now I cannot say Jimmy Carter is a stupid man, so that excuse to explain his behavior is untenable. I can't say he's misinformed or ignorant, either. After all, he was there during the times he is discussing. He knows full well that he is misrepresenting the truth. So that leaves us with liar being the only explanation.
The fact is Jimmy Carter is the worst ex-president since Teddy Roosevelt gallivanted across the American media landscape attacking Wilson and Taft. But at least Teddy didn't give succor to America's enemies like Carter does.
© Warner Todd Huston
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