What is it about former President Jimmy Carter? He continually finds faults with the United States and those countries that uphold western civilization and the rule of law.Presumably those countries include America and Israel and Mr. Saxe thinks former presidents are not allowed to talk about things like Abu Ghraib and conditions in the Palestinian refugee camps. According to his detractors, Carters' sins are numerous:
He has sanctified the elections on the rise of Hamas to rule the Palestinians. On the other hand, he has said that the elections in the United States do not meet up to his standards.Or is it that years of neocon intoning that democracy will save the Middle East looks dumb when Middle Easterners elect someone neocons don't like? And gosh, everyone knows touch screen voting in America is jolly well accurate, just ask the undervoters in Sarasota, Florida. What's to criticize?
Fortunately, Mr. Saxe understands "why this former President disdains the democracies and inadvertently legitimizes tyrannical societies. And why he is so critical of his own country." Okay, let's hear it:
It is because he lost the presidential election in 1980 to Ronald Reagan. For an incumbent President to lose an election straight away to a single challenger, with no third party taking votes away and scrambling the election like Ross Perot did to President Bush the Elder in 1992 or Ralph Nader’s candidacy affecting Vice-President Gore’s bid for the Presidency in 2000 is very rare.Hmm, so what about John Anderson, the moderate 1980 Republican turned independent candidate? Close to 6 million people voted for him over Carter or Reagan. Indeed, Anderson took a not insignificant 6.6% of the popular vote. Sure, Reagan won by a landslide. But to claim Carter is a sore loser, and then rewrite history to make his loss look worse than it was? C'mon folks, let's try to stick to the facts.
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