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Danged! We were mentioned on TV again - and missed the program again - this time MSNBC's "Connected". Featured blogs have been posted at www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7288400/, ours under something called "International Handshakes" (sounds positive?) , way down the page.

(Edited Jan 23, see addendum below)


Jimmy Carter has been dining out on the '78 Israel-Egypt peace accords for nigh 30 years. Again and again he has reminded the world that that treaty was all about J. Carter. That it's because of him that there has been peace between the 2 former sworn enemies. Conversely that if it weren't for him there could have been no peace, that he was the star of the piece.

He's been at it again, fashioning another book on Palestine-Israel and defending his self-declared expert, if Arab-sponsored, credentials last Saturday (per Haaretz) by emotionally telling an audience how:

"(H)e saved the 1978 Camp David peace talks when it appeared Egyptian president Anwar Sadat would leave"

A man's got to be his own promoter, of course.

There's no doubt, further, that Carter's goodwill and mediation skills helped facilitate the historic deal. Yet Anwar Sadat's heroism in suddenly flying to Jerusalem to confront a shell-shocked Israeli leadership - for which the Egyptian leader, successor to the Ahmadinejad-like populist Nasser, eventually paid with his life - was undoubtedly one of the most marvelous acts of political bravado in the twentieth century.

Even most Israelis would concede that. Not that Begin's own contribution should be underestimated. He rewarded Sadat by giving back to Egypt an area of land larger than the entire remaining state of Israel. Quite a liberal move for a former "freedom fighter", and contemporary right-wing party leader.

It simply belittles Carter to perpetually talk himself up at Sadat and Begin's legatorial expense.

The effect is to promote the visage of a man drowning in ego-driven desperation. Of course, the blows to Carter and his legacy have certainly been thick. First Reagan dumped him from office and went on to overshadow him historically. Then the Clintons inherited the Democrat mantle, Bill proving that - for better or for worse, come Flowers or Whitewater - to be a modern Democrat president was not necessarily to be a loser.

Under Clinton Carter, bursting to remind the world of his mediation genius (the Carter Center's mission statement tells us that "The Center is nonpartisan and acts as a neutral party in dispute resolution activities."), performed duties which included negotiating the North Koreans out of their nuclear ambitions. The former president loudly trumpeted his resounding success to that end. He might have been dismayed when it recently came to the world's attention that he in fact wasn't very successful, that he may have actually been taken for an expensive and Chamberlain-like ride.

Then at some early stage in the new millenium he hopped on the Bush-bash bandwagon. North Korean nukes were Bush's fault, he said. Ask Dick Clarke, he said. Kim Jong-Il was sincere with me, he said, Bush forcing him to change his mind on nuclear weapons development.

Who knows, Carter may not have therein been concerned about his legacy at all, only with presenting truth in history. He may also not be jealous about Bush's re-election, and we are all free to make up our minds about that.

Whatever his personal motivations and views, it may be of some comfort to the ex-President - and hence may quieten his activity somewhat - to consider that, looking objectively, he quite genuinely may not have been the worst president in US history after all.

A number of US presidents lucked into the role either in the tailwind of a popular president - like the first Bush after Reagan, or John Adams after Washington - or through the death of a predecessor. Chester Arthur was pretty shady, they say, Andrew Johnson a belligerent drunk, Millard Filmore a fill-gap, William Taft a hen-pecked giant aping Theodore Roosevelt (badly).

Scrolling through their names only a few stand out, in fact. Carter has plenty of competition.

Addendum:

Alan Dershowitz ("Ex-President for Sale" @ alandershowitz.gather.com) does quite a job on Carter regarding the ex-President's sponsorship from dubiously motivated sources, these including inter alia:

- Half a million dollars and an award (of a further half-mill) from Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the long-time ruler of the United Arab Emirates, whose personal foundation, the Zayed Center, claims that it was Zionists, rather than Nazis, who "were the people who killed the Jews in Europe" during the Holocaust (a "fable"). It has held lectures on the blood libel and conspiracy theories about Jews ("the enemies of all nations") and America perpetrating Sept. 11. They have attributed the assassination of John Kennedy to Israel.

They have also hosted a speech by Jimmy Carter;

- A million dollar pledge from the Saudi-based bin Laden family;

- The bail-out of the Carter family peanut business, $500,000 to help the former president establish his center and more than $10 million to Mr. Carter's different projects by BCCI, a now-defunct bank indirectly controlled by the Saudi Royal family, or the bank's founder Agha Hasan Abedi. Abedi had called his bank "the best way to fight the evil influence of the Zionists."

Over and above the abovementioned, Dershowitz also says that Saudi King Fahd contributed millions to the Carter Center - in 1993 alone...$7.6 million - as have other members of the Saudi Royal Family.