At the age of 95, Jimmy Carter is now the longest-living U.S. president in history. “Great men are a dime a dozen,” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough noted on the former president’s birthday. “Jimmy Carter has always been something far greater than that. He has lived his life as a good man. And that is exactly what America needs right now.”
Now, I realize the Trump-obsessed Scarborough is attempting to juxtapose the former president with the present one. But the canonization of Carter has always been transparent revisionism. Habitat for Humanity or not, the world would have been a far better place had Carter retired from the world stage after his presidency. Carter’s post-presidency is a stark reminder, in fact, that “good” personal decorum doesn’t necessarily translate into “good” political actions.
“Great men” do not, as Carter has his entire post-presidential life, use freelance diplomacy abroad to undermine elected American governments. They do not coddle and legitimize tyrants and murderers around the world. They do not undercut liberalism by allowing despots to use them as props. It is one thing to meet with detestable characters as president — diplomacy and American interests often dictate it — but it is quite another to ally yourself with them as a free man. Yet, that’s what Carter has done for 40 years.
Carter was the first, and only, ex-president to visit communist Cuba. “I look forward to this opportunity to meet with Cuban people from all walks of life and to talk with President Castro,” Carter claimed. While there, Carter would spin fantasies about Cuba’s “superb systems of health care and universal education,” while offering perfunctory attention to the hundreds of political prisoners who were, as he tossed around a baseball with Castro, being imprisoned and tortured.
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See Also:
(1) How Jimmy Carter lost Iran
