WHY BILL O’REILLY IS WRONG ABOUT JAMES EARL CARTER, JR.

Bill O’Reilly continues to insist that, as a former President, James Earl Carter, Jr. must be respected and, furthermore, not attacked by anyone for his personal views.

My response to that is simple: pfui!

When James Earl Carter, Jr. was sworn in as President, he swore on the Bible that he would “preserve, protect and defend” this country. He has since done, entirely too often, the exact opposite. But the height of his disloyalty to the nation which once honored him with the Presidency was to defame publicly, while our nation is at war, the current President of the United States, George W. Bush, while Mr. Carter was in a foreign country. That is despicable conduct and deserves any kind of opprobrium that can be heaped upon former President Carter.

Now from the widely respected Power Line blog comes a copy of an e-mail from Professor Kenneth Stein of Emory University and the Carter Center. To quote from Power Line:

“Professor Stein's expertise lies in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Our reader writes that when he was an undergraduate student at Emory in the mid-1990's, Professor Stein was one of the most revered, respected professors on campus, and that Professor Stein had a long-standing association with the Carter Center in his capacity as an expert in Middle East politics and history. Professor Stein was in fact the first director of the Carter Center (1983-1986.)”

And what does Professor Stein have to say in his e-mail?

“This note is to inform you that yesterday, I sent letters to President Jimmy Carter, Emory University President Jim Wagner, and Dr. John Hardman, Executive Director of the Carter Center resigning my position, effectively immediately, as Middle East Fellow of the Carter Center of Emory University. This ends my 23 year association with an institution that in some small way I helped shape and develop. My joint academic position in Emory College in the History and Political Science Departments, and, as Director of the Emory Institute for the Study of Modern Israel remains unchanged.”

Professor Stein goes on to discuss James Earl Carter, Jr.’s current book:

"President Carter's book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments. Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook. Having little access to Arabic and Hebrew sources, I believe, clearly handicapped his understanding and analyses of how history has unfolded over the last decade. Falsehoods, if repeated often enough become meta-truths, and they then can become the erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and for policy-making. The history and interpretation of
the Arab-Israeli conflict is already drowning in half-truths, suppositions, and self-serving myths; more are not necessary. In due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins."

It is clear that former President Carter is either delusional or dishonest at best; anti-Semitic at worst. Given his close friendship and support of the murdering thug Yasser Arafat, I have drawn my own conclusions and leave it to you to draw yours.

It may just be that it is past time for the former President to withdraw entirely from public life. He is harming the nation he swore to “preserve, protect and defend” and making an ass of himself in the process.