Legal Commentary

Playing the Jimmy Carter card

By Tom Kirkendall

You know it's desperation time for McCain when Victor Davis Hanson plays the Jimmy Carter card against Obama:

A great many moderates and conservatives are worn out and tired of Bush and Bush hatred, the European furor, serial charges of racism and illiberalism, and finally, in their weariness, think that Obama will, in a variety of ways, just make all the ickiness go away-as if he will make all of us be liked abroad and end racial and red/blue fighting at home. They should ask themselves whether Jimmy Carter restored American popularity with his human rights campaigns, praise of left-wing dictators, dialogue during the hostage crisis (cf. "The Great Satan"), boasts of no more inordinate fear of communism, etc., or whether Obama, in his Trinity/Acorn/Pfleger years, brought racial healing and understanding to Chicago.

This post from four years ago surveys the disastrous effect that the Carter Presidency had on the Democratic Party, and here is an earlier Hanson broadside on Carter.

The playing of the Jimmy Carter card reminded me of the following portrait of Carter penned by his first Treasury Secretary, W. Michael Blumenthal. The description is included on page 338 of Robert D. Novak's The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington (Crown 2007), which is a rollicking good read:

I saw [Carter] in 1977 and 1978 with outside groups in various settings, and I always felt that he made a very good impression because he would ask questions and listen. But I realized after a while that it was a PR operation because he paid absolutely no attention to what they said. He wrote it down, but nothing would happen with it. After a while, you get a sense of it. This was his way of trying to impress people.  .   .

He has a deep sense of inferiority, a very deep sense of inferiority. I discovered it when I began to realize that he confided in no one. Charlie {Chief Economic Adviser Charles Schultze] would have a weekly meeting with him, and he would come out and say to me that he had never worked for a man like that before. He never reacts. Occasionally, he would ask a question. He never debates. He never disagrees.  .  .  .

He doesn't want strong people. He ruled out [John] Dunlop [for Secretary of Labor] and he ruled out George Ball [for Secretary of State]. He ruled out when he knew the people were strong, aggressive, confrontational personalities. He didn't know me from Adam. He he known me, he would never have invited me in .  .  .

He dislikes people who are very strong and successful. That is why he doesn't like major businessmen, bankers or people who run big labor unions. You have to watch him, and he is very uncomfortable with the. He has this outward sort of politeness and gives his little spiel, but his eyes glaze over and latter on he frequently makes derogatory comments about them. He feels very put upon by these people, and it is essentially that he is afraid that they know more than he does .   .  .  .

The danger of isolation is great, and flattery is a commodity in abundance. We had a few Cabinet meetings, and people were kissing his ass. I asked if he recognized it when it was subtle and indirect, and he responded that he could tell. I could see increasingly that flattery went very far with him -- a person who does not recognize when he is being shamelessly flattered and who enjoys it.  .  .  .

He briefs very quickly with sort of a veneer of knowledge and he can give back in an orderly fashion, but he doesn't retain it for very long.  .   .   . I think the President when he came into office was a very inexperienced and poorly informed man.

Full post as published by Houston's Clear Thinkers on October 16, 2008 (boomark / email).