Jimmy Carter—Former President

And Current Doddering Old Fool…

Just in case you didn’t see it, for some reason I was watching NBC’s Today Show this morning and former Socialist Dictator Appeaser-In-Chief Jimmy Carter was at it again, blithering and second guessing the Bush White House. The Associated Press managed to print this part of his statement:

“The Bush Administration's prewar claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction were "manipulated, at least" to mislead the American people, former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday.

The decision to go to war was the culmination of a long-term plan to attack Iraq that resulted from the first President Bush not taking out Saddam, Carter said on NBC's "Today" show.”

Having actually watched the show, I have a problem with the reporting in this part of the AP story. I’ve looked for the transcript online and it isn’t posted yet, but what I heard Carter actually saying was that the “intelligence data was manipulated, at least…or mistaken…” and the result was that of “misleading the American people. I distinctly recall the basic wording of his statement because I sat up and thought about writing about it.

Carter did say that the data could have been "mistaken," but I don't expect to hear Carter complaining about the omission in the story.

Do you see the difference here between what he actually said and how it ended up being reported by the AP? The AP only printed what they needed out of his statement to support their headline that read:

“Carter: White House Mislead US On Iraq”

That’s not ALL of what he said. He also said that the data could have just simply been WRONG. It’s subtle, but by omitting the balance of the quote, the AP gets their point across—“Bush lied, people died.

As I understand it, you LIE when you make statements that you KNOW are not true when you make them. You are MISTAKEN when you make statements that you believe at the time to be correct, but are later proven to be FALSE.

Am I missing something here?

I’d like to blame President Carter’s continued opposition to the war on Alzheimer’s or just plain old age, but I think that ole' Jimmy, like the balance of the liberal media and the Democratic Party, just has a bad case of convenient memory.

Here is what he was quoted as saying in February of 2003:

"There has been a virtual declaration of war but a case for pre-emptive action against Iraq has not been made. We want Saddam Hussein to disarm but we want to achieve this through peaceful means.

"He obviously has the capability and desire to build prohibited weapons and probably has some hidden in his country.

"A sustained and enlarged UN inspection team is required."

Could not the case be made using the same criteria being used on President Bush that, by making these statements, Jimmy Carter LIED to the American people?

After all, the UN has since been proven to be a feckless, obtuse, duplicitous, corrupt bunch of ineffective diplomats representing despots and dictators that were using the UN Oil for Food program to allow Saddam to continue to fund his weapons program?

Yes Jimmy, the UN was the solution.

And yes Jimmy there is a Santa Clause (and an Easter Bunny and a Tooth Fairy and a Great Pumpkin too.)