White House press secretary lashes out at Jimmy Carter

June 15, 2006

[tag]White House[/tag] [tag]Press Secretary[/tag] [tag]Tony Snow[/tag] appeared on [tag]Don Imus[/tag]’ show today, and the two apparently enjoyed themselves by attacking former President [tag]Jimmy Carter[/tag]. One of Snow’s comments, in particular, stood out.

Whereas Bush “snuck off” to visit Iraq, Carter “used to sneak off and fish on the weekends.”

First, for a Bushie to criticize anyone for taking in some leisure activities on a weekend is rich. This president has taken more time off than any in American history. Most of the time, it’s to go clear brush.

Second, as Nico mentioned, “Apparently it’s now acceptable for a sitting White House Press Secretary to publicly level ad hominem attacks against a [tag]former[/tag] [tag]President[/tag] of the United States.” It’s a classy bunch.

And third, I must have missed the memo, but since when did the right get together and decide it was time to take down Jimmy Carter? Last month, Move America Forward launched a major ad campaign aimed at asking Congress to “censure” Carter. This month, Snow is going after him on the airwaves.

Has Carter somehow been deemed a threat to the [tag]GOP[/tag] machine? Why all the vitriol?

They are all small men who must make themselves feel bigger and stronger than they really are by picking on others, especially those who are not around to defend themselves.

  • Carter was on Larry King a while back, and had some candid comments about the Administration that were probably not appreciated. Snow’s comments could be a “response” to that.

  • Carter has so much class just serving his fellow Americans, that any attack against him will have to backfire. Keep it up you creeps, maybe you can go after Mother Theresa next. Then there is John Paul II who is another easy target.

  • Morris Berman’s recent book Dark Ages America offers an interesting take on the Carter presidency, characterizing it as an anomalous moment of introspection and respite from the generally self-destructive course of America’s post-WWII foreign policy. If there’s any truth to this, it’s unsurprising that the administration that has endorsed that self-destructive course with wild enthusiasm would lash out at Carter.

  • Could it be because the Iranians took Americans hostage on Jimmy Carter’s watch? If the republican’t administration is secretly gearing up for sabre rattling at Iran right before elections, this could part of the “Dems are weak on security” argument they always seem to pull out.

    What a weak bunch of A**holes for going after Jimmy Carter.

  • Anything Bush does is “good”. Anything Carter (or any other Democrat) does is “bad”.

    Bush goes fishing = Good
    Carter goes fishing = Bad

    David Luban summarizes the Bush Admin philosophy succinctly:

    But the Bush administration is not big on European philosophers. So perhaps we can develop the philosophy in purely Bushian terms. To highlight its logic, I will present it in mathematical form, the way that Spinoza presented his ethics:

    Axiom 1: We are good people.
    Axiom 2: Our enemies are bad people.
    Axiom 3: Anything that helps good people beat bad people is good.

    Corollary 1: Whatever we do to beat our enemies is good.
    Corollary 2: Whatever hinders us from doing what we do to beat our enemies is bad. Theorem 1: Anything that makes us look bad is false. (Proof: If it makes us look bad, it must be false, because, according to Corollary 1, what we do to beat our enemies is good, not
    bad.)
    Corollary 3: It can’t be true that the Guantanamo prisoners killed themselves because of how we treated them. (Proof: That would make us look bad. Whatever makes us look bad is false.)
    Surprising Corollary 4: Facts that make us look bad are false.
    (Proof: Follows directly from Theorem 1.) (Comment: If you thought that facts can’t be false, you haven’t understood that truth and falsity are moral terms: truth is what good people say, falsity is what bad people say. If bad people state facts, those facts are false.)
    Theorem 2: Laws that constrain us are bad. (Proof: Follows directly from Corollary 2.) But –
    Axiom 4: Good people support the rule of law, and that makes the rule of law good.
    Corollary 4: We support the rule of law. (Proof: By Axiom 1, we’re good people; and by Axiom 4, good people support the rule of law.)
    Surprising Theorem 3: Laws that constrain us don’t exist. (Proof: By Theorem 2, a law that constrains us would be bad. But by Axiom 4, the rule of law is good. Therefore there cannot be such a thing as a law that constrains us.)
    Axiom 5: Anything that anyone uses against us is a weapon of our enemies.
    Decisive Theorem: Any international forum or legal argument that might constrain us, or anything that might make us look bad, is a weapon of our enemies.
    Axiom 6: We’re strong and our enemies are weak.
    Corollary 5: Any international forum or legal argument that might constrain us, or anything that might make us look bad, is a weapon of the weak. To put it in other words, it is an act of asymmetric war against us.

    QED

  • Since Reagan illegally appeased Iran in order t win the election, they don’t have a lot credibility on dissing Carter. and the media drummed on the situation with Hostage Crisis Day ### day after day. Where’s the equivalent Osama bin Laden Still Free Day 1507 or something. Bush can’t carry Carter’s jock strap.

  • No, no, no!

    To Republican’ts, Jimmy Carter is the worst president in living memory. They have to brand him as such so that Boy George II doesn’t get that title.

    Notice how they constantly bring up Carter’s Vietnam draft dodger amnesty whenever they talk about illegal immigration amnesty. They have to conflate the two together because, after all, it was Reagan who gave the 1986 immigration amnesty.

    I think it is kind of lame on their part, but the Republican’ts are very desperate boys.

  • Lance,

    I have to take exception. To Republican’ts, Bill Clinton is the worst president in living memory. Then perhaps FDR would come in at #2. Republican’ts would put Carter a distant 4 behind LBJ at 3.

  • At least he didn’t say something like “Whereas Bush “snuck off” to visit Iraq, Clinton “used to sneak off to sexually harass some poor woman.” He was probably kicking himself on the way to the White House for not thinking of that one.

    Seriously, it’s a weak attempt to bolster Bush’s popularity by comparing him favorably to the last unpopular Democratic president.

  • I believe it is because of this: many people consider Carter to have been a failure as president, but NO ONE can deny that he has become one of America’s “elder statesmen”, with an unparalleled record of using his fame to help the poor, the elderly, the infirm (Habitat for Humanity), and that he has the gravitas necessary to perform vital services to the world in monitoring elections for fairness. He is widely admired around the world and gets universal respect (except from Republicans) when he addresses the issues of the day. He also happens to be a nuclear engineer and former captain of a nuclear submarine – experience with which Bush cannot even begin to compete.

    Bush is not only a failure as president, but he will leave office with so little credibility that no one would even want him to coach a Little League team. He couldn’t do anything but screw America as a president, protected no one but the rich, bankrupted the country leaving an almost insurmountable debt for our grandchildren and great grandchildren to pay, and people have long memories. History, I believe, will note a return to the “Dark Ages” during his administration that set America BACK over 200+years in terms of our freedoms, respectability, and international relationships.

    Bush does nothing but foster hatred, divisiveness, xenophobia, homophobia, and bigotry, traits upon which history will frown and dismiss as the misguided efforts of a wanna-be king to establish an Imperial America.

    There CANNOT BE an honest comparison of these two men as Jimmy Carter was, and remains, a statesman concerned with liberty and fairness in the world while Bush is an immoral war/fear-monger who seeks only self-aggrandizement, monuments to celebrate himself (the U.S. Embassy in Iraq), and eternal warfare so he can further his lust for power.

    There may not ever again be two American presidents so opposite from one another in character, intelligence, and concern for all citizens, not just the rich.

  • hmmm… five months before what is likely to be a series of close elections to control Congress., the Bush administration attacks our most prestigious critic of election fraud and advocate of fair elections.

    Go figure!!

  • Republicans can’t really attack Clinton because he looks so good in comparison to Bush. Furthermore, since Clinton is still quite popular he is fully capable of launching effective broadsides against the administration. Besides attacking Bill would probably help Hillary in the long run.

  • Let us not forget what GW was doing to “prevent” 9/11 after reading the daily intelligence report that Osama was preparing to attack the US:
    1. taking a very long summer vacation including cutting brush in the 100 degree August heat of Texas
    2. Doing a bunch of fundraising during that same vacation.

    Also don’t forget the screwing around Bush did before Katrina.

    Anyone with the gall to criticize Carter for a little R and R after the shit Bush has pulled during his 5 year “watch” just has his head up Bush’s ass.

    Time to get these revolving door clowns out of Washington. That is something they can never acuse Carter of doing.

  • I think they’re relying on the well-proven “intelligence” of the American consumer units, which is one finger wide and a micron deep. The Clinton blowjob has finally lost its shock effect, and nobody now remembers what Carter did or even when he served. LBJ’s great society and Vietnam War are all-but-forgotten ancient history, and JFK has ascended to the realm of national mythology. Yep, it’s open season on Carter. Might intersperse those comments with a Gore sigh. And the purple-heart band-aids. I think the consumer units can still remember those well enough to continue voting against their own interests.

  • “[I] have to take exception. To Republican’ts, Bill Clinton is the worst president in living memory. Then perhaps FDR would come in at #2. Republican’ts would put Carter a distant 4 behind LBJ at 3.” – Gridlock

    Sorry Grid, but I’ve heard Republican’t pundits saying that Carter is the worst president ever. And after all, he did not get reelected, which all three of your other examples did (FDR three times), so clearly Carter has to be the ‘worst’.

    What Bill Clinton is to the Republican’ts is the MOST HATED president, because with his trianglation strategy he stole all the Republican’t wedge issues and demonstrated that a Democrat can always govern better. Most notably of these is welfare reform but balancing the budget (even if it was fake because it included the Social Security Trust Fund) must have needled the Republican’ts too. Of course, Clinton was only able to do these things because he had the support of Republicans in Congress, but he got the Lion’s Share (which happens to be 100%, for your edification) of the credit with the American people.

    A rude bunch, the Republican’ts. While their ex-presidents ride around in golf carts, Jimmy Carter is working for world peace, but they still think he is somehow the ‘bad’ one. Of course, Bill Clinton is busy making $7mil a year in speaking fees 😉

  • Headline: “A whimpering Snowflake gets together with a pouting, limp-lunged bully.”

    Hey—with all the handicap-bashing Imus has done in the past, the snotty little coward deserves to get hit with a cheap shot of his own design every now and then….

  • This kind of remark by Snow is idiot drool. Why, just a few weeks ago, Bush literally said that the high point of his presidency was catching a fish in his private pond.

  • Why all the vitriol?

    Because they’re weird assholes, and this is their idea of fun.

  • Yeah that stupid President Carter, he should have created an international warzone so he could sneak over to it…

    BTW, all I can think of is the Simpsons’ quote, “Jimmy Carter?! He’s history’s greatest monster! …”

  • Let ’em rant.

    Keeps them occupied, and they have to spend money doing it.

    Anyone who has worked with Carter or followed his works with Habitat for Humanity or with the UN Election Observers knows what a statesman Carter is, and the deranged ding-dongs that want him ‘censured’ come off looking like, well, deranged ding-dongs.

    It neatly exposes the “Republicans are mean” streak that, in my opinion, is omni-present. “Polarization” of the electorate requires constant fodder – at the moment, it’s Carter’s turn. In a couple of months, when MAF’s pleas for funds finally go unanswered, they’ll pick a new target and run the cycle again. They must make a profit from it somehow.

    -GFO

  • I think this is happening because President Carter is not sitting back and smelling the roses. He has been critical of the BA and has tried to drum up UN support AGAINST positions proffered by the US.

  • Carter did two things Americans hate. First, he had an administration that believed the US to be a citizen of the world, and made policy that fit how America sees itself. He thought we should act like we talk.

    Second, Carter solved some problems by anticipating them (Panama Canal Treaty for example). He had a realistic grasp of the nation’s energy dysfunction, and tried (and failed) to take action three decades ago.

    Americans hate these things because America cannot face reality. He was roundly ridiculed for saying, “I will never lie to you.” But he never did. That was a political mistake.

  • Perhaps Carter is planning another run at the presidency. Or the right think that he is planning to run.

    It would be interesting, don’t you think? He’s certainly gained a lot of experience since he was last president.

  • I think Carter has retained the aura of being an honest man with the American public. That is the source of the fear.

  • Well, Carter was just trying to catch a world record perch. He never quite made it. Bush caught one a while ago, so he’s got time for other, less important stuff.

  • As for when this started, it was well over six months ago. A few days into January of this year my wife and I were having lunch with another couple. We mentioned how we had used my iPod to listen to Jimmy Carter read his latest book on our Christmas trip to Colorado. The other guy, a staunch O’Reilly fan, said “I certainly wouldn’t be listening to anything by Jimmy Carter — he’s a lunatic.”

    At first I thought he was joking. When I realized he was not, I was so speechless I couldn’t respond. That was the first time I’d personally heard anyone really say anything against Carter in years, but a few weeks later I finally watched “Outfoxed” and saw O’Reilly go after Carter repeatedly.

    So, O’Reilly has been doing it a couple of years. Maybe it’s just gathering traction.

    Idiots!

  • “Jimmy Carter — he’s a lunatic” …. O’Reilly has been doing it a couple of years. Maybe it’s just gathering traction.

    I wonder what it would take to do the same thing to Reagan… seems like there is a lot more material to work with.

  • I guess Tony got his voice back. He doesn’t look too chatty in this pic with an equally speechless Dan Bartlett. It was taken on their helicopter ride into the green zone. I do believe I see the look of fear in their faces.

    http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/

    Scroll down for a better picture.

  • Bill Arnett: excellent post, but one small niggling factoid needs fixing: the one thing on your list that Jimmy Carter wasn’t was captain of a nuclear submarine – he left the program and the Navy before that could happen, due to having to care for his family as eldest son following the death of his father.

    I think Jimmy Carter is tied with one other president of the 20th Century as a man of personally unimpeachable honor, that one being Harry Truman.

    They were both men of simple tastes, who treated those who worked for them with respect, and who really were “First Citizen” in a democratic republic. (I had the opportunity as a teenager to meet Mr. Truman through my great-uncle, a lifelong friend and political compatriot, and personally experience his down-to-earth personality. I also had the opportunity to meet Carter after his presidency on one of his Habitat projects, and got exactly the same feeling off of him – that what one saw was exactly what was there.)

    Of course the imperial wannabees and their professional ass-kissers wouldn’t want to be compared to decent, honorable men of integrity, since they have no decency, no honor, and wouldn’t know what integrity was if it bit them on their fat posteriors.

    The Bush Administration is proof that Gresham’s Law applies to politics as well as money.

  • “I wonder what it would take to do the same thing to Reagan”

    In the Lee Atwater tinged glasses of todays Republican mouthpiece, it’s easier to slag the living than the dead.

  • It is the attack of the immoral on those who are morally above them. This is what addicts to to others, to get others to join them in their addiction, so that the addicts won’t feel reproached by the example of a morally upright person.

    And this bunch is a real addiction paradise: addiction to power, addiction to money (who the hell NEEDS that much money), addiction to their egos, and so on ad nausea.

  • I’m going with NeilS’s theory — right now when they attack Clinton, too many people are thinking “geez, the Clinton years were pretty good”, so they have to attack Carter. Many of the knuckle draggers probably don’t realize much of what Carter has done in the last 25 years, they just remember “that weak president”.

    It fits a pattern though… question Kerry’s purple heart when you were ducking TANG, question Carter’s vacation when you spend 1/3 of your presidency mountain biking and ‘clearing brush’ on your ‘ranch’.

  • I totally agree. Carter wasn’t a failure as a president; he was honest about the failings of America. Americans hated that, viciously, and elected Mr. Bullshit in a landslide in 1980. We wanted to be told we are great, not told how to become great.

  • “We wanted to be told we are great, not told how to become great.” – goatchowder

    That is a great line. Of course, the corallery is once you worry more about being called great than being good, your in your decline.

  • I heard an interview this week with Mark Bowden (author of Black Hawk Down) who’s just written a new book about the Iran hostage crisis. One of the things he brought up was that he was surprised to reach the conclusion– after looking back at the records, did interviews, and reviewed all the behind-the-scenes stuff going on at the time– that Carter got a much worse rap for handling the hostage crisis than he deserved. So it may be that Carter’s reputation is due for some rehabilitation and the Republicans are trying to head it off at the pass… what, you don’t think that’s how Karl Rove’s mind works?

  • well i enjoy reading everyones answer to this post , but i have too say Bush is the worst president in this country , he AWOL during vitenam . he lies alot nothing that comes out of his mouth is the truth . his a terrorist to the world and well if the bastered ever died over i doubt anyone would notice ….

    but to attack Carter who has done alot for this country after he finished his term as president …. those two goose heads are just idiots who hasnt done anything but support a terrorist and to me those who support Bush are no different then the nazi regime …

    peace and love

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