The Wretched Former President

The commissioning of the attack submarine USS Jimmy Carter is cause for a moment of reflection on our 39th president. A man of failed policies at home and abroad. A man possessed of a distinct lack of moral clarity. A man for whom Communists and Islamofascists were not enemies, but allies to be leveraged in campaigns against America. Too harsh? Read on.

Sure, we could simply point to Carter's horrific record as president: the human rights disasters occasioned by his failed policies in Iran and Nicaragua. In fact, the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Mullahs in Iran -- directly attributable to Carter - provided the central bastion for Islamofascism leading up to 9/11. His failure to support the Shah also emboldened the Soviets, who rolled into Afghanistan in 1979, correctly figuring that Carter would do nothing but bluster.

And everyone over the age of forty probably recalls the astronomical inflation rates during the Carter years (I, for one, had a 16% loan on my first automobile purchase). Henry Kissinger summarized it best:

...The Carter administration has managed the extraordinary feat of having, at one and the same time, the worst relations with our allies, the worst relations with our adversaries, and the most serious upheavals in the developing world since the end of the Second World War...

Peter Schweizer, author of the new book "Reagan's War", scoured once-classified KGB, East German Secret Police (Stasi), and Soviet Communist Party files. He has found startling ties between high-ranking Democrats and the leaders of the Eastern Bloc. Chief among the Democrats was Jimmy Carter, who approached the Russians in 1980 when it became clear that Reagan's campaign was in upswing. Yes, read that again. Carter went to our mortal enemies the Soviets, during the Cold War, to cut a deal to beat Reagan:

...Russian documents that show that in the waning days of the 1980 campaign, the Carter White House dispatched businessman Armand Hammer to the Soviet Embassy... [Hammer] explained to the Soviet ambassador that Carter was "clearly alarmed" at the prospect of losing to Reagan. Hammer pleaded with the Russians for help. He asked if the Kremlin could expand Jewish emigration to bolster Carter's standing in the polls. "Carter won't forget that service if he is elected," Hammer told Dobrynin.

Powerline's Hindrocket has been a bulldog in pursuing Carter's history, which paints the man as an opportunist intent on building a legacy at the expense of his country. Hindrocket quotes Steven Hayward, author of The Real Jimmy Carter :

...Carter [lusted for a] Nobel Peace Prize for years, seeing it as a means of gaining official redemption for his humiliation at the hands of the voters in 1980. He lobbied quietly behind the scenes for years to get the prize, and finally met with success in 2002 when the... committee saw an opportunity to use Carter as a way of attacking President Bush and embarrassing the United States. The head of the Nobel Prize committee openly admitted that this was their motivation in selecting Carter. Any other ex-president would have refused to be a part of such an obvious anti-American intrigue, but not Jimmy...

And Carter was the perfect target when Iraq's Oil-for-Food lobby attempted to influence American opinion to relax the sanctions on Saddam Hussein.

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Yes, the name USS Jimmy Carter   is sure to strike terror in our nation's enemies. Heaven knows, his name alone terrifies me. Because America can't afford another President as wretched as Jimmy Carter.