And then again: Hitchens on Carter

The latest absurdities to emerge from Jimmy Carter's big, smug mouth. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine:

'Worst in history,' as the great statesman from Georgia has to know, has been the title for which he has himself been actively contending since 1976. I once had quite an argument with the late Sen. Eugene McCarthy, who maintained adamantly that it had been right for him to vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980 for no other reason. 'Mr. Carter,' he said, 'quite simply abdicated the whole responsibility of the presidency while in office. He left the nation at the mercy of its enemies at home and abroad. He was the worst president we ever had.'

That Gene McCarthy? He did say and do some surprising things after 1968.

Who's Afraid of Jimmy Carter?

From our home-town boy, writing in The Nation
John Nichols | Who's Afraid of Jimmy Carter? George Bush:

The truth is that [Jimmy] Carter is relevant, perhaps more so now than ever. Even as Bush's fortunes decline, the need of dissenting voices is great. And Carter's dissents go to the very heart of the darkness that this administration has brought down upon the United States. For a body politic sorely in need of the tonic of truth, Jimmy Carter's comments are not just relevant, they are an essential to the renewal of a country and a planet badly battered by the madness of a 21st-century King George.

I have some differences with Carter's rhetoric on the Middle East, but am inclined to agree with the following:

He told the conservative Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper Saturday that, "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history."

Carter Criticizes Bush and Blair on War in Iraq

From The New York Times:

“I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history,” Mr. Carter, 82, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, said in a telephone interview with The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from the Carter Center in Atlanta.

“The overt reversal of America’s basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including those of George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me,” Mr. Carter told the newspaper.