Jewish World Review July 28, 2004 / 10 Menachem-Av, 5764
Robert W. Tracinski
34 months vs. 444 days: There Jimmy Carter goes again, blaming America for his failures
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
If one were forced to choose low point of Jimmy Carter's presidency, it
might be his July 15, 1979, "national malaise" speech. The country was
suffering under inflation, recession, and an "energy crisis" and we were
about to undergo the national humiliation of the Iran hostage crisis. But
what was Carter's diagnosis of America's problem?
It was not his policies that were to blame. The problem was the American
people, who had suffered an inexplicable "crisis of confidence": "We can see
this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in
the loss of a unity of purpose for our Nation. The erosion of our confidence
in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric
of America."
The problem, in his mind, was neither the discredited socialist programs of
the left or his weak and vacillating leadership. The problem was that we
weren't strong enough to make his policies work, so we had to be scolded for
allowing ourselves to succumb to a "national malaise." (Carter didn't
actually use that phrase, which was coined by one of his advisors, but the
speech came to be known by that title.)
Last night, before the Democratic National Convention, Jimmy Carter repeated
that historic feat of evasion.
He began the body of the speech by declaring the need for "honesty" in our
leaders. Ironically, the rest of the speech is a study in dishonesty, as
Carter expects us to ignore the pressing and urgent threats of today, the
evidence of history, and the record of his own career.
Repeating his theme of 1979, Carter thinks that the main threat to America's
security is ourselves: "Unilateral acts and demands have isolated the United
States from the very nations we need to join us in combating terrorism." But
what about the terrorists and what actions do we need to take to combat
them? The terrorists appear in this speech only in two indirect references;
their attacks are treated like an accident or natural disaster, not as the
actions of an enemy who must be fought.
Instead of clear and concrete action against the enemy, the only foreign
policy goal Carter advocates is friendly relations with other nations. "A
cowardly attack on innocent civilians brought us an unprecedented level of
cooperation and understanding around the world. But in just 34 months we
have watched with deep concern as all this good will has been squandered by
a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations."
Those looking for "a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and
miscalculations" might be tempted to remember, not the past 32 months, but
the 444 days of the Iran hostage crisis, when Carter stood passive and
paralyzed, his only attempt at action ending in a pathetically
under-supported, doomed rescue mission. If one were to look for a moment at
which America lost credibility and respect in the world, this would be it.
It was also the moment that created the terrorist threat we face today. It
allowed an Islamic theocracy to establish itself in Iran, becoming the
leading sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East for the last 25 years. And
it showed a generation of Muslim fanatics that terror attacks and hostage
taking the very strategies now employed by our enemies in Iraq could defeat
America.
In short, Carter presided over the most important foreign-policy failure in
the last quarter of a century. Yet he has the temerity to project its
results onto the policies of the current administration.
Even worse, he asserts: "Recent policies have cost our nation its reputation
as the world's most admired champion of freedom and justice." Which
policies? Overthrowing a brutal dictatorship in Iraq? Destroying a
bloodthirsty theocracy in Afghanistan? No, the liberated millions in those
two countries are ignored. The only "recent policy" Carter regards as worth
thinking about is the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib which was not,
despite Carter's smear, a "policy."
Carter then gets more brazen, blaming Bush for Clinton's to achieve peace by
rewarding Palestinian terrorists. "The achievements of Camp David a quarter
century ago and the more recent progress made by President Bill Clinton are
now in peril." But the "progress" made by Clinton was only an escalating
series of terrorist attacks against Israel and the craven deal he brokered
was smashed to pieces by Arafat four years ago, before Bush even took
office.
He ends on the biggest whopper of the evening: "Elsewhere, North Korea's
nuclear menace, a threat far more real and immediate than any posed by
Saddam Hussein, has been allowed to advance unheeded." Does anyone remember
who brokered the 1994 deal in which the Clinton administration agreed to
provided food and oil to North Korea, in exchange for its promise not to
develop nuclear weapons a promise the North Koreans promptly broke, allowing
them to threaten us with a nuclear bomb today? That's right: it was Jimmy
Carter.
This is the same psychological projection Carter employed in 1979. Back
then, he suffered a crisis of confidence that left him paralyzed before the
fateful challenges of the day yet he projected his malaise onto the America
people. Over the years, he championed a policy of appeasement that
squandered America's power and respect in the world yet he projects that
result onto those who advocate any element of American assertiveness. And he
is the one willing to obfuscate the facts to justify his feckless policies.
Well, there he goes again. Let's hope the American people don't find his
evasions any more convincing than they did 25 years ago.
Enjoy this writer's work? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Robert Tracinski is the editor and publisher of TIA Daily
and the Intellectual Activist. Click here to
visit his website. Comment by clicking here.
06/18/03: The Hazards of a Smoke-Free Environment
05/15/03: The road to victory goes through Tehran
03/19/03: Don't defy the UN --- end it
03/06/03: The withering Blix-krieg
02/27/03: Dictatorship by the numbers
02/20/03: The worldwide epidemic of doctors' strikes
02/13/03: Bad economics in one lesson
02/06/03: Defending America's second front
01/29/03: The self-made state of the states
01/23/03: The Iraq charade
01/17/03: Atlas Shrugs in Venezuela
01/03/03: Goodbye to Gehry's bad joke
12/19/02: The Dems' sorry lot
12/11/02: Venezuela's lonely rebellion
12/05/02: Red-tape conservationists
11/27/02: The craven appeasement of Islam by the West
11/20/02: The real revolutionaries
11/14/02: President must still release himself from political trap
11/06/02: The election we deserve 10/31/02: The rush from judgment
10/23/02: The grand illusion
10/17/02: Loose lips in the pressroom
10/10/02: Permission to speak
10/03/02: The bear market makes the case for privatizing social security
09/27/02: Enron vs. Atlas Shrugged
09/19/02: Bush loses the war, again
09/11/02: What have we lost?
09/05/02: The case for "destabilization"
08/29/02: "Sustainable" development's unsustainable contradictions
08/22/02: The photographing of public art and architecture has apparently been deemed a threat to the Republic
08/14/02: Talk vs. ideas
08/12/02: Blood for oil
08/06/02: The welfare debate we're not having
07/30/02: Newsflash: Hauling CEOs away in manacles makes market soar!
07/23/02: Clearing the way for real airport security
07/16/02: The war on CEOs
07/09/02: Small-time crooks
06/27/02: Martha and the tall poppies
06/21/02: The post-colonialist famine
06/12/02: America's Maginot Line
06/07/02: Time's up for Pakistan
05/28/02: Freedom's defenders
05/22/02: What they knew and when they knew it
05/16/02: The mixed-economy monster
05/08/02: Conference in Cloud Cuckoo Land
04/25/02: The 'Palestinian" victims?
04/18/02: Why Israel must not withdraw
04/09/02: LIVE FROM RAMALLAH: The Theater of the Absurd
03/26/02: Campaign finance corruption
03/21/02: Who is George Bush?
03/14/02: The prophets of defeatism
02/21/02: The war on terrorism and the war on reality
02/14/02: Multilateralism's one-way street
02/05/02: The Powell Problem
01/29/02: A profligate and irresponsible distortion of congressional priorities
01/22/02: Liberal conspiracy theories
01/15/02: Fading shock and fading resolve
01/08/02: Argentina's intellectual collapse
12/31/02: The real person of the year
12/26/01: With friends like us ...
12/19/01: Ending the "peace process war"
12/11/01: The ruthless grip of logic
12/04/01: War powers without war
11/27/01: An Afghanistan Thanksgiving
11/20/01: The end of the beginning
11/06/01: The phony war
10/30/01: A war against Islam
10/23/01: The economics of war
10/16/01: A culture of death
10/11/01: An empire of ideals
10/01/01: Why they hate us
09/24/01: The lessons of war
09/20/01: What a real war looks like
09/17/01: America's war song
09/12/01: It is worse than Pearl Harbor
09/11/01: Out of the fire and back into the frying pan
09/05/01: The UN Conference of Racists
08/28/01: Waging war on profits and lives
08/20/01: The Bizarro-World War
08/08/01: The death toll of environmentalism
07/31/01: Where does America stand?
07/25/01: Barbarians at the G8
07/17/01: The carrot and the carrot
07/11/01: The real Brave New World
07/03/01: The child-manipulators
06/19/01: The scientist trap
06/11/01: The National Academy of Dubious Science
© 2004
|