Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Worst in history, redux

Jeff Jacoby piles on:

The fruits of Carter's spinelessness, says scholar Steven Hayward, have been bitter. The fall of Iran, he observes, "set in motion the advance of radical Islam and the rise of terrorism that culminated in Sept. 11." By doing nothing to prevent the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Carter invited an evil from which grew the jihadist violence that is such a menace today.
"Nothing?" What about boycotting the Moscow Olympics? That show'd em!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah! Why didn't that loser institute "The Carter Doctrine" and invade Iran? That would have slammed the brakes on radical Islam once and for all.

So Carter's the worst President because he didn't respond forcibly enough for Jacoby's tastes to the Red Menace in Mozambique? Or because Vietnam had just fallen, and the long-feared "domino theory" was about to play out exactly as the neocons always said it would? This dimwit Jacoby really wants to put 9/11 in Jimmy Carter's in-box? Or did Jeff just plagiarize the accusation from the "it was Clinton's fault!" crowd?

If Jacoby's column were a President, it'd be less a Jimmy kind of column (well-intentioned, ineffectual, ultimately forgettable) and more a Dubya column (contemptuous, overreaching, totally tapped out).

Anonymous said...

No, Carter's the worst President history because of all the combined things he did do and didn't do. Only a dimwit, someone not even 10 years old in 1976-80, or an ideologue blinded by BDS could even consider anyone other than Carter as the worst President ever.

His nickname should be either "Blame America First" or "I Never met a Leftist Dictator I Didn't Want to ButtSmooch."

Anonymous said...

No, Carter's the worst President history because of all the combined things he did do and didn't do. Only a dimwit, someone not even 10 years old in 1976-80, or an ideologue blinded by BDS could even consider anyone other than Carter as the worst President ever.

"Blinded by BDS"? Tell us more about this intriguing theory of yours, that George W. Bush and James Earl Carter are direct political rivals.

I'd love to hear how each man's glory can only rise to the degree that the other's subsides.

God, you're dumb.

Brian said...

I was born in 1971. In 1980, I realized how bad of a President Jummi Carter was. I loved Reagan when I was a kid (and still do now), and I know Carter had a lot to do with that.

I have never heard anyone in person defend Carter. Not even the biggest leftists in law school ever defended him or argued that he was any good. Only online have I ever seen any support for that incompetent peanut farmer, who EVERYONE knows is on the payroll of the Arab world and has been for years.

Anonymous said...

The political insight and sophistication of a 9-year-old. Well, that explains a lot.

At long last, this is what it's come down to. George W. Bush's motley supporters, trying to pre-shape the verdict of history with the pathetic rhetorical lifeline, "Yeah, well, he's less sucky than Carter!"

The minor difference between "comprehensive failure to achieve" and "achieving comprehensive failure," that wouldn't ding any mental bells for you, huh? No? Didn't think so.

Rewriting the imperial Presidency... amassing "capital, political capital"... installing the infrastructure for a generation of GOP electoral gains to come... the Coalition of the Chillin'... mmm, yeah. Those were good times. Good times.

Anonymous said...

There isn't much that Carter could have done to stop the Soviet invasion of Iraq. There is not much that any country can do to stop a major power from invading another country unless they are willing to commit to all-out war. Most countries were opposed to the US invasion of Iraq (including China and Russia, but did nothing meaningful or effective to stop it.

It would not have been worth the risk for Carter to militarily engage a nuclear-powered Soviet Union to save Afghanistan, and anything short of direct military action would have been ineffectual in the short term. Would the US actually take direct military action today to defend Taiwan if China mounted a full-scale invasion?

The Russians may have been bastards, but that didn't stop the jihadists from fighting. In the long run they were forced to acknowledge that their attempt to subdue the jihadists was too costly and would not succeed, due in no small part to the support of Afghanistan's Islamic insurgency by an outside power.

The CIA's strategy of arming and training Islamic fighters was a smashing success in getting the Soviets out of Afghanistan. This was a similar strategy that the Soviets had used against the US in Viet Nam because they were not willing to engage in full-scale war against us there.

Our strategy in Afghanistan had the unintended consequence of making the jihadists realize they could significantly influence the behavior of superpowers using asymmetric tactics. If said superpower decides to deal with armed jihadists through military engagement they make the error of allowing the enemy to bring them to their field of battle.