Carter Slams Bush For Economic Crisis
It’s official. Former President Jimmy Carter has finally lost it. The guy who literally destroyed our economy to the point that people were lining up at soup kitchens is slamming President Bush over the economy.
Former President Jimmy Carter said on Friday the “atrocious economic policies” of the Bush administration had caused the worst global financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Carter told reporters on a stopover in Brussels that “profligate spending,” massive borrowing and dramatic tax cuts since President George W. Bush took office in 2001 were behind the market turmoil and economic crisis.
“I think it’s because of the atrocious economic policies of the Bush administration,” said the 84-year-old Democrat, who served in the White House from 1977-1981 during a period of high inflation and energy crisis.
Like he was during his four years as President and every subsequent year since, Carter is just wrong. Tax cuts didn’t have a thing to with it nor did “profligate spending.” Instead it was cowardly democrats like him who caused this mess. Guys like Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who fought tooth and nail to keep any new regulations on Fannie and Freddie from passing.
I hate to belabor the point, because it seems like I’m always talking about Jimmy Carter. There is nobody on this planet less qualified to give advice about anything besides peanut farming than Jimmy Carter. He was absolutely the worst president in modern history. His economic policies were an absolute disaster as was his foreign policy.
This is the guy who stopped backing the Shah which led to the coup in Iran that we’re still dealing with today. He allowed the Iranians to hold U.S. citizens hostage for 444 days and humiliate us in front of the world.
It took Reagan 8 years to heal the damage caused by Carter’s brief tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
-Chris Jones
Jimmy Carter Is Being An A*shole — Again
It seems Jimmy Carter just can’t help himself anymore. Whether the former President is denouncing the sitting President, condemning Israel, yukking it up with brutal dictators, or offering unsolicited advice on any number of topics, you can always count on Jimmy for a good sound bite.
Such was the case at the DNC. Carter was originally scheduled to give a speech, but to their credit the Obama camp realized that now is not the time to start Jew bashing. So the former Peacenik-in-Chief only got to wave to the crowd this year.
Since he couldn’t speak to a huge crowd of liberals in person, he did the next best thing and spoke to MSNBC. Not surprisingly, Keith Olbermann was delighted to have the former President. Sensing a sympathetic ear, Carter spoke in glowing terms about Barack Obama, admitting that he ‘wept’ when Obama gave his famous speech about race some months back.
He also took shots at Republicans, lamenting the “subtle and sometimes overt racism” the GOP uses to gain power. He went on to insinuate that Ronald Reagan ran a racist campaign in 1980.
One could simply say that Jimmy Carter puts the ‘ass’ in classy.
But that’s not all, he also gave an interview to USA Today just before Obama’s acceptance speech and dropped a few more stink bombs:
Former president Jimmy Carter called Republican presidential candidate John McCain a “distinguished naval officer,” but he said the Arizona senator has been “milking every possible drop of advantage” from his time served as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
…he said he was bewildered by McCain’s performance at the Saddleback Presidential Forum hosted by pastor and author Rick Warren in Lake Forest, Calif., earlier this month.
Carter said that whether he was asked about religion, domestic or foreign affairs, every answer came back to McCain’s 5½ years as a POW.
“John McCain was able to weave in his experience in a Vietnam prison camp, no matter what the question was,” Carter said. “It’s much better than talking about how he’s changed his total character between being a senator, a kind of a maverick … and his acquiescence in the last few months with every kind of lobbyist pressure that the right-wing Republicans have presented.”
He also went after Joe Lieberman:
He decried Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman’s decision to “abandon” the Democrats by speaking at the Republican convention next week.
“I would hope that the Democrats could have enough senators elected in November so that we would not any longer need to include Joe Lieberman among the senators,” Carter said.
Putting aside all the ‘worst President’ labels the left throws at President Bush, the history books accurately reflect the fact that Jimmy Carter was in fact the worst President. His foreign policy and his domestic policy was an absolute disaster that Ronald Reagan spent eight years trying to clean up.
Here’s where things stood in 1980, Carter’s last year in office, and in subsequent periods:
Carter: Interest rate, 21%. Inflation, 13.5%. Unemployment, 7%. Misery Index, 20.5%. Let’s also not forget the hostage crisis in Iran along with the horribly botched rescue mission that crashed in the desert.
Reagan’s last year: Interest rate, 9%. Inflation, 4.1%. Unemployment, 5.5%. Misery Index, 9.6%.
Bush (2007): Interest rate, 8%. Inflation, 2.6%. Unemployment, 4.5%. Misery Index, 7.1%.
Jimmy Carter should stick to giving advice about peanut farming and building houses for the homeless, because he lacks any credibility in politics — unless he’s on MSNBC of course.
McCain: “Carter Was a Lousy President”
It looks like the ‘Straight Talk Express’ is back on track and going strong. Jon Ralston had a sit down interview with McCain yesterday and the Senator did indeed deliver some stratight talk.
McCain on Carter:
Carter was a lousy president….This is the same guy who kissed Brezhnev….
I love it when people tell the truth about Jimmy Carter. It blows my mind when Democrats say that President Bush is the worst President in history. That’s laughable when you compare Bush’s record with Carter’s. Jimmy Carter was complete disastor both in foreign policy and domestic policy.
Here’s where things stood in 1980, Carter’s last year in office, and in subsequent periods:
Carter: Interest rate, 21%. Inflation, 13.5%. Unemployment, 7%. The so-called “Misery Index,” which Carter used to great effect in his 1976 campaign to win election, 20.5%.
I think that pretty much qualifies as “lousy”
Transcript of full Interview HERE
Jimmy Carter Shows How Much He Hates The Jews–Again
For the second time in recent weeks, honorary Palestinian militant and former President, Jimmy Carter, opined about Mid-East peace and offered his own foreign policy.
While in the Welsh border town of Hay to attend the Guardian literary festival, Carter told the Guardian that Britain and other European governments should break from the US over the international embargo on Gaza.
He described the EU’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as “supine” and its failure to criticise the Israeli blockade of Gaza as “embarrassing”.
He also called on the EU to reassess its position on Hamas if the terrorist group agrees to a cease-fire.
Carter never misses an opportunity to criticize Israel and carry water for Hamas. I really think the old man has lost it. Hamas is one of the most vicious terrorist groups on earth, and a former President of the United States hugs these people and constantly shills for them.
Never mind the constant rocket attacks on Israeli civilians or the 4-ton truck bomb that detonated at the border with Gaza instead of Israel thanks to an alert Israeli soldier.
For Carter it’s all about peace and negotiation and hugs, but Carter doesn’t live in the real world. That’s why he allowed Iran to make a mockery of America while he was President.
When President Bush spoke of appeasement while in Israel recently, he was speaking about Jimmy Carter. Carter has shown himself to be the world’s biggest appeaser time and time again.
-Chris Jones
Israel’s UN Ambassador Calls Jimmy Carter A “Bigot”
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday called former President Jimmy Carter “a bigot” for meeting with the leader of the militant Hamas movement in Syria.
Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, “went to the region with soiled hands and came back with bloody hands after shaking the hand of Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas,” Ambassador Dan Gillerman told a luncheon briefing for reporters.
The Ambassador should be applauded for speaking the truth about the former President. Carter proved once an for all that he is no friend of Israel. This most recent misadventure is merely the latest attempt by Carter to further his anti-Israel crusade.
Gillerman wasn’t through with Carter yet:
The ambassador called last weekend’s encounter “a very sad episode in American history.”
He said it was “a shame” to see Carter, who had done “good things” as a former president, “turn into what I believe to be a bigot.”
Carter has had a fetish for dictators and terrorists for years, but he finally went too far this time.
-Chris Jones
Palestinians: Carter-Hamas Visit Achieved Nothing
Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Malki said today that Jimmy Carter’s much publicized meeting with Hamas achieved nothing.
“President Carter came to the region thinking he could achieve something. Unfortunately president Carter left without anything concrete,” he told a conference in the Spanish capital.
“The only thing he achieved was permission on the part of Khaled Meshaal of Hamas to deliver a letter from a detained Israeli soldier to his family. Nothing else,” he said.
“Hamas offered nothing to president Carter. They reiterated the same positions. There was no change on the part of Hamas,” Malki added.
Actually Al-Malki is wrong to say that Carter’s trip achieved nothing. One achievement was giving legitimacy on the world stage to one of the most notorious terrorist organizations on earth.
Carter gave legitimacy to a group which thinks sending young men into Israel wearing vests packed with explosives and nails in to blow themselves up is the fastest way to heaven. A group that raises their children to believe that killing Jews is their duty as Palestinians and God will reward them for it.
Hamas is a group of cold-blooded killers pure and simple. For Jimmy Carter to have met with the group’s leadership in Syria (right in the belly of the beast) was a disgrace.
He continues to be shockingly naive in his belief that “talking” with dictators and terrorists is the solution for everything, and as usual he was proven wrong.
Israel Refuses To Provide Security During Carter Visit
Israel made its feelings known about former President Jimmy Carter’s upcoming meeting with the exiled leader of Hamas, by refusing to assist the Secret Service with protecting the ex-President. It’s standard procedure for the Secret Service to cooperate with their Israeli counterpart, known as the Shin Bet.
The U.S. and Israeli security services typically share the duties of guarding visiting dignitaries, but not this time. In an unprecedented move, the Shin Bet declined to even meet with the Secret Service detail guarding Carter.
Even worse, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also refused to meet with the ex-President. Carter was forced to meet with the ceremonial President of Israel, Shimon Perez.
As if Carter’s ridiculous trip to meet with the leader of Hamas in Syria wasn’t enough, the ex-President asked to meet with notorious Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouthi who is serving five life sentences for murder. Not surprisingly, the Israeli authorities refused to allow any such visit.
For some reason Jimmy Carter has a real fetish for meeting with the world’s worst dictators and terrorist organizations. I don’t know why the peanut farmer turned horrible President can’t just enjoy his twilight years here at home seen but not heard.
Carter was one the worst Presidents in American history with a particularly horrible legacy in the area of foreign policy, so he’s the last guy that should be running around meeting with our enemies.
-Chris Jones
Jimmy Carter To Meet With Hamas Leader In Syria
Former President Jimmy Carter is once again cozying up to an enemy of the U.S. and Israel and once again proving just how bad his judgment is.
Carter is reportedly preparing an unprecedented meeting with the leader of Hamas who’s responsible for ordering the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers recently that sparked the war with Lebanon.
The Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat reported Tuesday that Carter was planning a trip to Syria for mid-April, during which he would meet with Khaled Meshal, the exiled head of the Palestinian terror group.
Meshal, who lives in Syria to avoid being arrested by the Israeli government, leads Hamas from his seat in Damascus, where he is a guest of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Carter is a long-time Palestinian sympathizer who mistakenly believes Israel is the “bad guy” in the mid-east. He loves to meet with America’s enemies and criticize President Bush in the foreign press.
A former President meeting with the leader of one of the worst terrorist organizations is a slap in the face to our allies and contrary to the foreign policy set by President Bush.
I’m sure Jimmy Carter would meet Osama Bin Laden in a cave on the Afghan border if given the opportunity.
-Chris Jones
Jimmy Carter: Idiot From Plains
I think Robert Novak is suffering from temporary insanity this week as he promotes the new film about Jimmy Carter called Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains. Novak makes the ridiculous assertion that Carter’s views on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are the correct ones.
Like Carter he advocates the withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank, ceding even more of the Jewish state to a bunch of terrorists. It’s not enough that Jews are not allowed to pray at the Temple Mount which is the holiest site in Judaism, because the Muslims might get offended. No, if they just give up a little more land then the Muslims will be happy!
That is complete and utter nonsense. Jimmy Carter was the worst President in American history, especially on foreign policy matters. He only knows one kind of diplomacy and it’s called appeasement. Just give the suicide bombers everything they want and maybe they’ll stop the murder!
Both Fatah and Hamas are brutal terrorist organizations that would love nothing more than to see every single Jew die a fiery death. Every single important Jewish and Christian site in Israel either has a Mosque on it or will have one very soon.
Can you imagine if Jews or Christians went to Saudi Arabia and built a big ass church or synagogue in Mecca? Muslims all over the world would simultaneously explode in one giant fiery suicide bombing. The media consistently reports everything that happens in Israel from a sympathetic Palestinian point-of-view.
The story is always that mean old Israel is cutting down innocent Palestinians in the streets again. Oh! how they suffer under the brutal “occupation.”
Israel is not nearly as brutal as they should be. Savage Palestinian thugs constantly murder Jews and intimidate Christians on a daily basis, and Jimmy Carter wants Israel to give the killers just a little more.
The Israeli/Palestinian conflict will never be resolved peacefully, because the Palestinians are a bunch of Jew-hating murdering terrorists that are lucky to even be guests in the Jewish state.
Of course you can’t expect Jimmy Carter to understand anything about fighting terrorism since he sat on his hands while Americans were held hostage by thugs in Iran.
Hopefully, Robert Novak will come back from whatever mental vacation he’s on and actually contribute something worth reading in the future.
-Chris Jones
Carter calls VP Cheney a “disaster” and a “militant” on BBC
Jimmy Carter on Wednesday denounced Vice President Dick Cheney as a “disaster” for the country and a “militant” who has had an excessive influence in setting foreign policy.
Cheney has been on the wrong side of the debate on many issues, including an internal White House discussion over Syria in which the vice president is thought to be pushing a tough approach, Carter said.
“He’s a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military and he has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world,” Carter told the BBC in an interview to air later on Wednesday.
I said it earlier this week and I’ll say it again. I think I’d prefer to hear opinions from someone besides the worst President in U.S. history. Carter spends so damn much time cozying up to dictators around the world he’s even stealing their rhetoric.
-Chris Jones
Jimmy Carter Says Something Stupid…Again
Former President and frequent U.S. critic Jimmy Carter doesn’t like it when people use the prickly word “genocide” when referring to the situation in Darfur. He calls it factually inaccurate and unhelpful to use such language. Call me crazy, but I think I prefer to hear foreign policy advice from someone besides the worst President in U.S. history.
Everything that Jimmy Carter said while he was President and since is both factually inaccurate and very much unhelpful. He needs to come home from the Sudan and stick a peanut in it already!
-Chris Jones
Jimmy Carter’s brief tenure as president was the worst in the 20th century
Carter’s rather smug attempt to rank President Bush as the worst president ever wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t so wrong. The irony, of course, is that the peanut farmer from Plains, Ga., shares that distinction with a number of other presidential mismanagers of our nation’s economy.
Carter apparently has gotten so used to being called the “greatest living former president” that he’s forgotten to consult the record. And what the record shows is he inherited a bad economy and made it worse — much worse — before a man named Ronald Reagan came in and changed course.
Here’s where things stood in 1980, Carter’s last year in office, and in subsequent periods:
Carter: Interest rate, 21%. Inflation, 13.5%. Unemployment, 7%. The so-called “Misery Index,” which Carter used to great effect in his 1976 campaign to win election, 20.5%.
Reagan’s last year: Interest rate, 9%. Inflation, 4.1%. Unemployment, 5.5%. Misery Index, 9.6%.
Bush today: Interest rate, 8%. Inflation, 2.6%. Unemployment, 4.5%. Misery Index, 7.1%.
It’s not even close. The only question is: Why did things get so bad under Carter? And that’s a long story. The fundamental reason, however, is he made mistake after mistake, blinded by the leftist rhetoric his party adopted after the infamous ’72 Democratic Convention, when the so-called New Left seized control.
In office, Carter adopted the Keynesian economics of the time, buying into the theory that there was a reverse “trade-off” between inflation and unemployment — an idea that proved spectacularly wrong. The U.S. became mired in “stagflation,” with both inflation and unemployment rising sharply.
As things grew worse, Carter sharply boosted government spending. When that didn’t work, he blamed the American people. “I think it’s inevitable that there will be a lower standard of living than what everybody had always anticipated,” he told advisers in 1979. “The only trend is downward. But it’s impossible to get people to face up to this.”
Those remarks were followed by his now-famous “malaise” speech in which he unveiled six proposals — including import quotas, windfall profits taxes and increased spending on alternative fuels — to combat higher oil prices charged by OPEC. Nothing about tax cuts. Nothing about finding more energy. In short, he told Americans to consume less, but pay more.
“We have learned that ‘more’ is not necessarily ‘better,’ and that even our great nation has its recognized limits,” Carter said, borrowing heavily from the “limits to growth” movement that swept liberal intellectual circles in the ’70s.
With public anger growing and his own polls lagging, Carter started wearing sweaters and encouraging us to turn down the thermostat. But his big spending didn’t work. The resulting budget deficit, 12 times bigger than the one President Nixon left, gave him a serious public relations problem.
On this score, Carter might have escaped his own malaise if he had cut taxes to get the economy going again. But even with marginal income tax rates at a hefty 70%, he accepted the common wisdom that a tax cut would boost inflation and lower government revenue. He was dead wrong.
As noted in “The Commanding Heights,” a leading economic history of the last century, “Carter’s attempts to follow Keynes’ formula and spend his way out of trouble were going nowhere.”
Eventually (but grudgingly), Carter did agree to slash the tax rate on capital gains to 28% from 40%. But that didn’t kick in until 1979. By then it was too late to help him politically.
Two other moves have garnered Carter praise: setting deregulation in motion and naming Paul Volcker as Fed chairman in 1979. Carter did begin deregulation, for which he deserves credit. And to be sure, Volcker clamped down on the growth in money supply, bringing on a deep recession but also killing the inflationary spiral.
Inflation, however, was already easing when Carter entered office. It was only after he named a political supporter, the late G. William Miller, as Fed chairman that prices really took off. Miller, who served only a year, is now viewed as the worst Fed chief ever.
Volcker? He wasn’t Carter’s choice. He was nominated only after a contingent of Wall Street power brokers, alarmed at the economy’s decline, went to the White House and demanded the appointment of the well-respected president of the New York Fed.
In his last years in office, Carter spoke of an “erosion of our confidence in the future.” But his failure to support the Shah of Iran led to a takeover of that oil-rich republic by fundamentalist Muslims, and a second Mideast oil shock hammered the economy and pushed inflation to new highs.
Desperate, Carter tried “voluntary” wage and price controls. They didn’t work. He tried credit controls. They didn’t work. He kept oil-price controls mostly in place, and created a vast new bureaucracy — the Energy Department — that has since wasted tens of billions of dollars without creating a single drop of new energy.
The result can be seen in key indicators of American well-being. Real median after-tax income fell nearly 3% during Carter’s last two years. For his entire term, productivity — the fuel for future growth in standards of living — rose a miserable 0.6% a year.
That’s why, when candidate Ronald Reagan said, “Ask yourself if you’re better off today than you were four years ago,” the answer came back a resounding “No.”
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