Eminentoes/The Littlest Ex-President

...and confidently asserted: "We had very few outbreaks of terrorism when I was president...

...I wish I'd sent man who replaced him and castitold David Frost in December 1987...

...I think may not know precisely how ex-presunconscionable...

...ident...

...In 1985, for the first time in five years, Jimmy Carter actually made the Good Housekeeping list of the Ten Most Admired Men (he was eighth—sandwiched between Bob Hope and Jacques Cousteau...

...Yes, I've wondered about it," Carter T n Jimmy Carter's hands, the presiAs the Reagan Administration was Iran-contra, according to Carter, was replied...

...Reagan had pointed out that under previous management our armed forces boasted planes that couldn't fly and ships that couldn't sail, for lack of spare parts and trained personnel...

...the Democratic Party," Carter said...

...ince then, Jimmy has gone on a 10 spree...

...Laughter.] Hours after the interview, Reagan telephoned the reporter...

...by the Iran-contra affair...

...In March 1986, Carter told a group of businessmen and diplomats in Cairo that Ronald Reagan "is THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1988 31 was his way and the time he said it...

...It wasn't what he said," the ex-president told Bryant Gumbel on the "Today" show the morning after...

...Jimmy is not the first President to attempt a little image-boosting after leaving the White House, of course, but he is unique in that he has attempted to salvage his reputation primarily by trashing his successor's...

...shipped...

...In September, he criticized Reagan over the handling of the Lebanese hostage situation...

...But it's not something that I ident has become the littlest ex-pressidered, of course, paying any kind of was a very simple, relatively insignifi- care to pursue as an investigation...

...told USA Today in May 1986...

...The same month, Jimmy condemned a routine nuclear weapons test by the United States as an "embarrassment and serious mistake" and said "the Reagan Administration has missed a wonderful opportunity for a comprehensive test ban in its determination to go ahead with the Star Wars program...

...But on defense, I knew in the last year, he himself recognized that defense was being shortchanged...

...Reagan: Why didn't he just accuse me of lying...

...He has written books (three of them, one with the help of Rosalynn...

...President Reagan has not been inclined to use negotiation and diplomacy as a means to achieve our nation's goals nearly so much as have his Democratic and Republican predecessors," Carter said, adding, "I am not here to criticize my own government...

...He should have a much more aggressive policy for gaining their release," Carter said...

...He denounced what he called "missing leadership" in Washington...

...I've been wondering all day about it...

...In March 1987, Carter visited Stanford University (currently run by his former Food and Drug Administration chief, Donald Kennedy) and announced, "I didn't see any greatness in sending troops to Grenada...

...Reagan: Well, maybe he's just been too much victimized by that tendency for the media for a time to accuse me of gaffes, and that I am guilty of saying things that aren't true...

...If Jimmy had bombed Tehran," has proved himself unfit for exthat on October 11, 1980—just a few David Frost asked Carter in Decem- Rosalynn told a press conference in office...

...On the eve of the Reykjavik summit later that month, Carter criticized Reagan for showing "extreme interest" in a meeting with Gorbachev...

...What we didn't know then was that he was on his best behavior...

...Watergate years...

...Later he had a chance to clarify...

...When, in 1965, reporters pressed Eisenhower on a train trip for his reaction to the invasion of South Vietnam by North Vietnam, and to President Johnson's request for $700 million in arms to fight the Communists, Ike kept his counsel...

...But so far the Lord has not responded...

...He has called the Democratic party "an albatross around my neck" and accused New York Mayor Ed Koch of stabbing him in the back...

...It Between book tours and interna- l) tional conferences on gum disease, the Carter clan racks up frequentflier miles with excursions to various foreign capitals...

...weeks before the election—President ber 1987 if he had "ever wondered at all Reno, Nevada in 1987, "he probably The content, Jimmy added, was not Carter approved the shipment to the whether supporters of President Reagan would have been re-elected, but you "off the mark...

...Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe, after five minutes of a twenty-minute attack on the United States by Mr...

...He later wrote Johnson: At almost every stop along the way, I was asked by some newspaperman about the situation in Vietnam...

...praised Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's "excellent" arms control policies...

...nation in . . . the Mideast Arabian one more helicopter to Iran," Carter gating his former boss...

...Reporter: So you don't think you lie all the time...

...and now the littlest prescontra, Carter boasted: "We never con- sions of Richard Nixon...

...Now the obstacles are in Washington...

...Simple: with respect for the Oval Office and civility toward its occupants...

...He has called George Bush "effeminate" and told Jerry Falwell to "go to hell...

...Oh, for the days of killer rabbits...

...The same reporter then confronted Reagan in the Oval Office...

...foreign affairs, he should send his views on a confidential basis to the Administration...

...Since leaving office, Jimmy Carter has blasted Ronald Reagan for the 1986 bombing of Libya...

...I hope he has seen the error of his ways and in the future he will tell the truth...

...In May, after U.S...

...Carter kept his mouth shut for most of Reagan's first term, but his simmering rage finally boiled over in March 1986, when he accused Reagan of "habitually" misstating the Carter Administration's record on defense modernization...

...With warm personal regard and great respect, Sincerely, Dwight D. Eisenhower This should not be a terribly difficult example to follow, although in mitigation it is worth remembering that the aging Carters' first taste of retirement was bitter...

...presidential...

...He said you distort things, you exaggerate...

...He conducts himself like a ransom...

...It's been bothering me all day," he said...

...The gentleman-farmer from Plains couldn't find anything nice to say even as Reagan was en route to speak at the dedication of the Carter presidential library on October 1, 1986...

...This is something that he promised to do a couple of years ago, but, of course, he didn't do it...

...Reporter: Thank you...

...Laughter.] Reagan: No—so I don't have a habit of saying things that aren't true...

...We never delivered any cant crime of breaking into an office It's not something that can be undone fired employee who traipses from job weapons or any benefits to Ayatollah and trying to steal some things from if it is true...

...And he's become a fixture on the liberal charity circuit, sharing platforms with Ted Turner, John Denver, Yoko Ono, Houston socialite Dominique de Menil, and other former constituents...

...Carter had been peddling versions of ing the alleged inadequacies of the "I wouldn't have been tempted," he "The Iran scandal has damaged our this story for some time...

...Immediately after the summit, Jimmy said that "Reagan missed a wonderful opportunity" by refusing to give up the Strategic Defense Initiative at Hovde House...

...Reagan: . . . can you be specific...

...The peanut business was in the tank...

...Those reports had been made 1 dency itself seemed somehow nearly consumed by the chaos of Iran- even more serious than the transgres- to me, you know, for the last six diminished...

...Of Moammar Qaddafi, who claimed to have lost a child in the bombing, Carter said, "If seventeen years ago, somebody had killed Amy, I would not have rested until her killer was punished...

...In rebuttal, Carter soon appeared on the "CBS Morning News...

...Closer to home, however, Jimmy weapons which the Shah had ordered ment] to suggest a delay or suggest the Carter found himself deeply offended and paid for, but which had not been timing of the release of the hostages...

...And just this summer, the managers of the Democratic convention even let Jimmy speak during prime time from Atlanta...

...Asked if he was satisfied with Reagan's apology, Carter said, "Well, it depends on whether he's stopped misstating the facts...

...Jimmy said he didn't think the bombing of Libyan targets "has reduced the incidence of terrorism—it's probably 30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1988 increased it...

...more inclined to form a contra army to overthrow the Sandinistas or inject the Marines into Lebanon or use American battleships to shell villages around Beirut" than to negotiate peace agreements...

...David Kariamizira (the Zimbabwean Minister of Youth, Sport, and Culture), the Washington Post assigned page one acreage to the story...

...Even the hopelessly inoffensive Time magazine columnist Hugh Sidey has been a target, simply because Sidey once suggested that the Carter White House lacked class...

...This whole thing—I felt very bad about it...

...had contacts with [the Iranian govern- can't do something just to be popular...

...When Jimmy abruptly departed a Fourth of July party at the U.S...

...Jimmy Carter, alas, National Security Council, has written turned him out of office in 1980...

...fighter planes bombed terrorist facilities in Libya, Carter lashed out at this "macho exertion of America's enormous power...

...I asked the Lord to help me forgive Sidey," Carter says...

...that it provided a chance to relate his the election without much of a prob- fied, gracious if possible, and, well, Gary Sick, a member of the Carter bizarre theories about why America lem...

...Reporter: Well, he said that you have a habit of saying things that you know are not true, basically...

...Amy was careening towards puberty...

...Americans "To me, the bribery of kidnappers is Gulf area and internally as well...

...To this I add that if there is any who oppose the President in his conduct of our Joseph Rodota was deputy director of the White House public affairs office and now directs a research company in Sacramento, California...

...They follow the example (among thirty-seven others) of Dwight Eisenhower...

...In April 1986, he said that the Reagan Administration has "had no detectable achievements in foreign policy...

...It was never con- But perhaps the best part about Iran- had our hostages in Iran been released idents should conduct their affairs, sidered by me or any of my asso- contra, from Jimmy's perspective, was early in the year, that I would have won except that they should be digniciates...

...The president who was in office when the Sandinistas came to power also said, "I think the major obstacle to progress toward peace in Central America under the Contadora umbrella or other initiatives has been the recalcitrance of the United States...

...This exchange is drawn from the official White House transcript for the March 21, 1986 interview: Reporter: We would like to give you a chance to respond to Jimmy Carter, who said some not too favorable things about you in a recent interview with the New York Times...

...Jimmy and Rosalynn returned to Plains humiliated and nearly broke...

...In the 1970s," Carter told his attentive Stanford listeners, "under Ford and in my term, there were few who protested our nuclear policies because there was no doubt that we were supporters of nuclear arms control...

...Carter told a New York Times reporter that Reagan was making statements about Carter-era defense policies "he knows are not true and which he personally promised me not to repeat...

...I know 1 have made him a target on things like the economy," said Reagan...

...His friends have given him thirty-five china place settings for use at his presidential library...

...defended the foreign policy meddling of House Speaker Jim Wright...

...none of us should try to divide the support that citizens owe to their Head of State in critical international situations...

...I have consistently said (and shall continue to say) that, first, we should all understand that there is only one spokesman for America in conducting our current foreign relations: the President of the United States...

...At the time, the obstacles came from the Kremlin...

...So how are ex-presidents supposed to behave...

...He has supervised the construction of a $27 million presidential library and educational center...

...None of which has improved the Carter disposition...

...Ayatollah of $150 million in U.S...

...Seven years later, however, Jimmy has managed to patch his life together and make a few bucks...

...Some of his statements," Jimmy said, "are almost more than a human being can bear...

...It was an insult to my country and an insult to me personally," said Carter...

...The Minister had blasted Reagan for bombing Libya, applying economic pressure to Ortega and Qaddafi, and ignoring "terrorism" committed by South Africa...

...A few hours before Air Force One touched down near Atlanta, Carter interrupted a tour of his presidential museum to declare, "We've had five-and-one-half years of no progress, even retrogression, for nuclear arms control...

...It's not true I'm saying those things about him...

...The frugal Carters hadn't ordered any while at the White House...

...In August, Carter said the Reagan farm policy "has been a disaster...

...interview to job interview, catalogKhomeini...

...32 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 1988...

...What are one or two of the things that he might have said...