Carter Speaks For Many

Dismissing Leftists for being irrelevant relics would seem rational except their delusion has extended to believing that the last election mandated making their delusion proudly public, which makes dismissing Leftists dangerous--their delusion, unanswered, becomes, say, conventional wisdom. Dogma. They ran on centrist politics which got them elected, and, since Speaker Pelosi's coronation, become bold in their radical ways. Former President Carter typifies the brazen disrespect for the office he once held and the country he claims to love. But like Jeff Goldstein notes, it's more than that:

...you can give the guy 15 Nobel Peace Prizes, honor him with a million “humanitarian” awards, and pretend until the end of time that he is some sort of sage and world-wearied saint walking among us, reminding America of What It Should Be—and still, no amount of artificial burnishing of his “peace” credentials, or “manufactured consent” over his foreign policy wisdom, or revisionist history over his tenure as President will change the fact that Carter is a living, breathing embodiment of what is worst in the American character: the willingness to buy cheap grace at the expense of addressing difficult moral choices honestly and without predictable moral posturings; the desire to saddle ourselves with a kind of forced humility in an effort to diminish our national successes lest we begin believing our own hype about the historical superiority of a country founded on a belief in freedom and individual liberty; the ease with which we can assign bad-faithed motives to our ideological opponents; and the facile “understanding” of the human condition that has, by way of sheer intellectual laziness, led to a shallow, feel-good puddle of cultural relativism that, ironically, finds the faults of its own culture disproportionate to the collective faults of all other cultures (which, of course, it can’t presume to analyze—because doing so from our own cultural perspective does the Other the same disservice that Heisenburg’s gaze did to any object it happened to fix on).

Jimmy Carter typifies the Left's perspective: judgmental, condescending, zero self-awareness and blissful ignorance at the reality swirling around the world these days. But the former president possesses something worse, or rather, he lacks some very important traits for a man who claims Christ. Namely, he lacks the fruits of the spirit and the actions of love.

His razor-sharp tongue has been brandished as a weapon as late. He has no trouble speaking evil of dignitaries. He has no trouble vaunting himself or behaving unseemly. He could hardly be described as temperate or kind. He certainly shows no love for his enemies. (His chief enemy occupies the White House, not the rogue nations around the world. Those are his friends.) His rhetoric and demeanor is joyless. And the last thing he seems to seek with his ideological opponents is peace.

Now, I'm not here to condemn Jimmy Carter. His spiritual walk is between God and him. That said, his very public life, due to his very public statements, do reveal his fruit. His rotten fruit. Out of the abudance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And he keeps on speaking and revealing a root of bitterness that somewhere along the line took serious hold.

What has America done to Jimmy Carter that justifies his antipathy?

It would be easy enough to discuss the psychology of his pathology, but that really doesn't matter in the scheme of things. The man needs behavior modification. Since he speaks for many, heres some advice for his followers and ideological adherents:

1. Argue constructively. Name-calling isn't constructive.
2. Show some respect. Good grief! I'm no fan of President Clinton, but he was the President of the United States of America, the world's only super power. Just on the outside chance there is some divine providence involved, give the office of the president respect.
3. Consider the notion that your opponents have given as much thought to their opinions as you have given to yours. Or is that why you're so dismissive?
4. Shut. Up. Bile dripping vitriol demeans the person using the rhetorical device when the content of the argument is either unhelpful, ill-considered and/or just plain wrong.

Grandma Pelosi's threatening to sue the President. Comedians insulting the President to his face. Pastors using the House of the Lord at a funeral to denigrate the President's, who sits in front of him, policies. The press's non-stop amplification of the President's verbal mistakes and general awkwardness. Jimmy Carter's disrespect for the office he failed at himself (he, of all people, should know how difficult it is to be President). There seems to be no shortage of contempt for President Bush.

President Bush is a big man. He can take it. What is diminished by the non-stop poison is the office of President itself. What is diminshed is notion of constructive debate. What is diminished is the spirit of the people engaged.