Jimmy Carter | The New York Observer

Jimmy Carter Out of Mothballs, Momentarily

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:39:09 -0500

So maybe Barack Obama doesn't think Jimmy Carter has cooties after all. The soon-to-be-president broke bread and shared the Oval Office stage with Carter on Wednesday. Granted, two other former presidents, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush were also present, but it nonetheless marked the first time in the nearly two years since Obama launched his presidential campaign that he was willing to be so closely associated with the 39th...

McCain's Challenge Almost Bigger Than Reagan's

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:01:19 -0400

The New York Times' John Harwood makes a decent point today–that candidates with leads the size of Barack Obama's generally don't squander them in the final three weeks of a presidential campaign.

But this principle is even more iron-clad than Harwood seems to realize. He writes:

In the latest Gallup tracking poll, Obama leads Mr. McCain 50 percent to 43 percent among registered voters. Mr. McCain's...

Jimmy Carter Thinks the Convention Got a Lot Better Last Night

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 15:35:14 -0400

President Jimmy Carter acknowledged the tension between Barack Obama and the Clintons in an interview, but said it added excitement to the Democratic convention and set the stage for last night's dramatic speeches that ultimately left the Democrats better off.

“I thought Bill Clinton made a perfect speech,” said Carter, speaking to The Observer in the hallway of a downtown Denver hotel. “And I thought Joe Biden did superbly. It was the best night...

At the 2008 Convention, Carter Wanes, Again

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:27:06 -0400

Some nominees treat Jimmy Carter better than others. This marks the seventh Democratic convention of Carter's decorated post-presidency, but he wasn't exactly shown a great deal of respect by Barack Obama and this year's planners.

Carter addressed the convention in a pre-taped video message that aired well before primetime, after a speech by a New Orleans jazz singer and before remarks by Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng. The video featured...

Mondale Is Sure That Biden Will Work Out

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:51:59 -0400

DENVER -- Howard Dean came up from behind and clapped Walter Mondale on the shoulder. “Joe Biden,” he said. “Great choice. Great choice.”

It was two glasses into cocktail hour on Sunday evening at the International Leaders Forum, a quadrennial powwow of foreign dignitaries hosted by the National Democratic Institute, an organization that promotes good governance around the world. The NDI is loosely affiliated with the national Democratic Party, which explains why the forum’s opening...

No Straight Talk from McCain and No Change from Obama as Energy Moves to the Center of the Presidential Campaign

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:00:41 -0400

The energy issue has become central in the presidential campaign and we see little to suggest that either candidate will engage in a real discussion about the real choices we have. The fact is that the era of fossil fuels is coming to an end. There are too many people and too much need for energy for this to continue for very long. How long? More than a decade and less than a century....

Obama's Coattails and the Senate Majority

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:44:36 -0400

The latest wave of polling has been an almost uninterrupted parade of good news for Barack Obama – widening leads in national surveys, solid advantages in most swing states, and startling strength in numerous Republican bastions.

It could all mean nothing, of course. Michael Dukakis led George H. W. Bush by 13 points at this moment in 1988, a margin that would swell to 17 points after the July Democratic convention only to evaporate...

The Calculations of Barack Obama

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:26:49 -0400

Barack Obama the naïve sapling is out, replaced – for the time being at least – by a different caricature: the cunning opportunist, wrapping himself in the mantle of reform in ruthless and amoral pursuit of the White House.

The image began taking hold in the media last week, when Obama rationalized his way out of a previous commitment to make a good-faith effort at participating in the public financing system for the general election....

Obama's Poor Finish and the General Election

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:43:36 -0400

“In many ways,” the New York Times’ Adam Nagourney wrote over the weekend, “Mr. Obama is wheezing across the finish line after making a strong start: He has won only 6 of the 13 Democratic contests held since March 4, drawing 6.1 million votes, compared with 6.6 million for Mrs. Clinton.”

Actually, it’s now worse than that: Mr. Obama’s late-in-the-campaign numbers took an additional hit on the final weekend of primary season, when Puerto Rico...

Hendrik Hertzberg: In Praise of Chris Matthews (Seriously)

Tue, 27 May 2008 13:02:30 -0400

On his New Yorker blog (which you should be reading if you don't already), Hendrik Hertzberg has a fun reminiscence of his old Carter administration colleague Chris Matthews. "When I first met him, thirty or so years ago, his hair was a different color, he was skinnier, and his neckties were more random, but he was otherwise pretty much the same political jabber machine he is today," writes Mr. Hertzberg.

After recounting some details of...

Jimmy Carter on Clinton's 'Uncomfortable' Path to the Nomination

Thu, 01 May 2008 10:32:39 -0400

Jimmy Carter is still on his book tour, and still hinting at support for Barack Obama without saying it directly.

In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer taped for The Situation Room, Carter said that if superdelegates overturn what is nearly certain to be a majority of pledged delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Denver (the only way Hillary Clinton can win at this point), it would be "uncomfortable." Carter, while admitting...

Penn, Wolfson on Superdelegate Leakage

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:22:45 -0400

Responding to Jon Corzine's comments today indicating that he would consider switching his support to Barack Obama from Hillary Clinton if the Illinois Senator were to win the popular vote, Mark Penn said in today's Clinton conference call, "All superdelegates are going to look at this race, they are going to look at the popular vote including Michigan and Florida."

Penn's comment serves as an illustration of the increasingly selective metrics the Clinton campaign is...

Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy and the Big-State Argument

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:32:37 -0500

Hillary Clinton’s thematic inspiration may come from Walter Mondale and his “I am ready to be president now” campaign of 1984, but the uphill climb to the nomination she now faces actually mirrors the challenge confronted by a different Democratic candidate from days gone by: Ted Kennedy in 1980.

Kennedy, in challenging President Jimmy Carter, won enough giant industrial states to keep afloat during the months-long primary season, even as Carter commanded the edge in...

Turning Obama Into Jimmy Carter

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:22:33 -0500

Late in the summer of 1976, President Gerald Ford and his inner circle huddled in Vail, Colorado, facing the grimmest general election outlook for a Republican since the L.B.J. landslide of ‘64.

An unelected president, Ford had barely secured the Republican nomination against a fierce challenge from Ronald Reagan, leaving the party’s conservative base dispirited and even more distrustful of Ford than they already had been. And the stench of Watergate—and Ford’s politically damaging pardon...

"Dark Horse" Huckabee, Losing Santana

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:30:50 -0500

Steve Kornacki thinks there are parallels between Jimmy Carter's primary campaign and Mike Huckabee's, but by losing his "dark horse" status this early, Huckabee will run into trouble.

Also from the Observer, Howard Megdal finds it hard to believe that the Yankees would let Johan Santana go to another...

So Much for Huckabee's Dark-Horse Campaign

Wed, 05 Dec 2007 21:31:59 -0500

It’s tempting to compare Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign to Jimmy Carter’s in 1976.

Both men, personable and devoutly Christian former governors from small southern states, began in total anonymity, only to navigate their way in dogged fashion to the head of crowded primary packs.

In Mr. Carter’s case, the momentum carried him all the way to the Democratic nomination and the presidency, a feat that made him the patron saint of all future White House long...

Why the Next Democratic Era May Be Different

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:46:40 -0400

Let’s start by stipulating the obvious: A Republican, particularly one named Rudolph, could wind up winning next year’s presidential race, denying Democrats simultaneous control of the White House and Congress at least through 2012.

But let’s say that doesn’t happen. Let’s suppose that, for the first time since the Republican tidal wave of 1994, Democrats end up next year with total control of the federal government.

It’s not an unlikely prospect.

The House and...

Romney Hits Jimmy Carter at Yeshiva

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 09:18:17 -0400

Mitt Romney spoke to Yeshiva University’s business school in Manhattan last night, talking about the threat of radical jihad, terrorism and Jimmy Carter.

“Take former president Jimmy Carter," he said. "President Carter thinks Israel’s security threats is the thing that keeps peace from coming to the holy land. Having just been to Israel, I came to the opposite conclusion. The security threats keeps peace in Israel."

Thunderous applause.

“Threats is...

A Few Thoughts About Obama's Threat to Zionism

Sat, 10 Feb 2007 07:13:18 -0500

My dad's real smart, even if he doesn't agree with me on my Middle East politics, and a couple weeks ago he said something that stuck. He was saying that Jimmy Carter's book is a sign of rising anti-Semitism (something I disagree with), a sign we're entering a new phase for Jewish power in the U.S. That the result of Carter's book and Walt-Mearsheimer and other developments that I cheer and my dad fears...

O.K., Leftwing Jews Have a Movement. What Does It Stand For?

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 06:26:26 -0500

A reporter called me yesterday and said I was wrong in declaring there's a movement of progressive Jews who are criticizing Zionism. He asked for my evidence. I started with Jewish Voice for Peace, which runs muzzlewatch and rallied in the cold to support Jimmy Carter at Brandeis. He said, "But they're kind of a fringe organization." Well, gee. That's actually what movement means, a rearrangement of the political hierarchy (of which that reporter is...

Jimmy Carter Is Still Passionless (but Soulful)

Sun, 28 Jan 2007 08:20:11 -0500

A couple of times now, I've posted items imagining Jimmy Carter as being motivated by a spiritual debt to Anwar Sadat. Carter made Sadat stay at Camp David in 1978 when he wanted to leave; and Sadat gave his life for the accords he signed there. Now Carter is making up to his old friend. Well I'm finally reading Carter's book, and I'm wrong. Carter is passionless (as James Fallows told us many years...

Congressional Junkets to Israel: A Key Tool of the Rightwing Lobby

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:35:02 -0500

One of Jimmy Carter's most powerful points at Brandeis Tuesday was a challenge to Brandeis to organize its own trip to the Occupied Territories to find out whether he was exaggerating the horrible conditions that Palestinians face. "See for yourself." That's an important issue. Today's Christian Science Monitor has a strong piece by former S.D. Sen. James Abourezk talking about the Israel lobby's use of congressional trips to sway political opinion to the view...

Carter's Breakup on NBC Nightly News: Survivor Guilt?

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:21:11 -0500

Brian Williams stood up for Jimmy Carter Monday by airing a wonderful scene from the Carter Center over the weekend. At some panel convened by Williams, Carter volunteered a scene at Camp David with Anwar Sadat that is apparently not in his book. Sadat was leaving. Carter changed into a suit and tie, knelt in his room and prayed to God for guidance, then went into Sadat's room and, surrounded by suitcases, asked Sadat's...

Urban Outfitters Stops Selling Kaffiyehs as 'Antiwar' Scarves

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 05:11:18 -0500

You think Jimmy Carter has problems. Yesterday on the progressive Jewish blog, Jewschool, Mobius noted that Urban Outfitters was selling kaffiyehs—the Arab scarf popularized by Yasir Arafat—as "antiwar scarves": In hipster enclaves such as Berlin and Brooklyn, the kaffiyeh is so ubiquitous it's already passe [and] as a fashion item it is viewed by many in the Palestinian solidarity movement as a trivialization of the Palestinian struggle... Well, the kaffiyeh just got 10 TIMES...

When They Sandbag Jimmy Carter, Jewish Leaders Deny the Facts

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 04:43:07 -0500

Last night 100 progressive people, almost all Jewish (one wore Muslim head covering), crowded the Village Temple in New York to learn about conditions in the Occupied Territories. The speakers were a former Israeli soldier and a former Palestinian resistance fighter. They said the following: —There are 530 checkpoints in the West Bank. Only 30 are on the Green Line between the West Bank and Israel. Yes; some of those have stopped suicide bombers. The...

Virulent Anti-Carterism Sweeps Country

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 13:27:17 -0500

Patrick O'Connor of Palestine Media Watch has an interesting quantitative analysis on the latest exponent of anti-Carterism: Ethan Bronner, who reviewed Jimmy Carter's book in a predictable manner in yesterday's NYT. Bronner has written 18 articles on Israel and Palestine for the Times since July 30, 2000. In them he quoted 1226 words from Israelis, and just 145 words from Palestinians. For example, in the Week in Review on July 30, 2000, after the...

The Christian Divide: Liberal Protestants Criticize Israel, the Religious Right Defends Her

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 09:46:34 -0500

The latest battle in the ideological war over Israel/Palestine took place the other day at a high school outside Boston. Andover High had invited a pro-Palestinian group called Wheels of Justice to talk at the school. Local Jewish groups rose in opposition; the event was cancelled. Then the ACLU stepped in and the event took place, 300 people jammed into a library, with loud protest. A few comments: 1. As Jimmy Carter has shown,...

Jimmy Carter Gains Support From (the Great) Siegman

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:20:11 -0500

Henry Siegman has again and again proved a leader on the Israel/Palestine issue. His review of Jimmy Carter's apartheid-in-Palestine book in the Nation offers breathtaking relief from the smear campaign against Carter. His piece concludes with an explanation of Carter's enormous contribution to Israel's security. Accusations by Alan Dershowitz and others that Carter is indifferent to Israel's security only prove that no good deed goes unpunished. Arguably, the single most important contribution to Israel's security...

Gender Gap

Thu, 28 Dec 2006 05:30:00 -0500

In a new Gallup poll asking people what male and female public figures they admire most, the top finishers were George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton. Most admired men: 13 percent--George Bush 5 percent--Bill Clinton 4 percent--Jimmy Carter 3 percent--Barack Obama 3 percent--Billy Graham 2 percent--Colin Powell 2 percent--Pope Benedict XVI 1 percent--Nelson Mandela, George H.W. Bush and Bill Gates A little lower on the list was John McCain, who edged out George Clooney, Mel Gibson, Al Gore, Tony Blair and Rudy Giuliani...in...

I Meet 'Galut' Jews at a Christmas Party in L.A.

Sun, 24 Dec 2006 07:55:29 -0500

I'm in L.A. One of the liberating things about being here is that while there's Jewishness all around me, it is not as confining a Jewishness as the one in New York. The definition is looser. At a Christmas party of people in the movie business two nights ago, I talked to three Jews. 1 was a movie producer who said he welcomed Jimmy Carter's statements about the Middle East and couldn't believe the...

Jimmy Carter, on Mission

Sat, 23 Dec 2006 12:08:13 -0500

A friend went to Jimmy Carter's book-signing in Pasadena the other day. 3200 books, all snapped up weeks before, then signed by an aloof former president, who did not shake hands but was flanked by two phalanxes of security. Everyone who came in was X-rayed, or wanded. My friend tells me Carter had a focused forward expression, he was on a mission. "Do you think someone is going to try and knock him off?" The...

Brandeis: Jimmy Carter Can Come, If He Does a Dog-and-Pony With Dershowitz

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:21:19 -0500

M.J. Rosenberg has a terrific piece on TPM about his alma mater Brandeis saying that Jimmy Carter can only speak there if he's balanced by Alan Dershowitz. It is with real pain that I note that Brandeis is yielding to what amounts to an academic boycott of a former President for criticizing Israel.... We look like mini-Joe McCarthys and we are all being hurt by this... Israelis themselves just laugh. How is it, they ask,...

'How Many Bubbles in a Bar of Soap?' Jimmy Carter Fails the Literacy Test

Fri, 15 Dec 2006 06:18:46 -0500

The Times mentioned Jimmy Carter twice in yesterday's paper. On the sports age, he was described as "soft-spoken, cautious, reserved, conformist, reliable" (a piece on blood types). But the other article was in Arts, and labelled him a raving lunatic. This was part of the Times' continuing series to give space to (Jewish) defenders of Israel to denounce Carter as misinformed and dotty because he dared to write a book likening the Israeli occupation...

Standing Up for Jimmy Carter's Use of the Word 'Apartheid'

Thu, 07 Dec 2006 05:58:00 -0500

Jimmy Carter's use of the word "apartheid" in the title of his new book has generated a lot of controversy—the Washington Post reporting that a Middle East scholar has angrily resigned his affiliation with the Carter Center over Carter's book. The Democratic Party has of course banished Carter over the word, and, inevitably, Dershowitz has castigated the gentlemanly old prez. The word is obviously loaded, as it echoes the South African regime that oppressed...

Scripting Jimmy Carter

Sun, 03 Dec 2006 07:21:27 -0500

Jimmy Carter's interviewers have repeatedly challenged him about Hamas: Why should Israel talk to Hamas when Hamas doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist? Carter answers by describing the democratic elections that brought Hamas to power. He ought to cite the insight of his former NSA Zbig Brzezinski, who said on public television that as the Carter Administration geared up the Camp David process in '78, Israel was led by an extremist party, Likud, that refused...

Scott Ritter on 'My Good Friend,' Israel

Tue, 14 Nov 2006 10:25:03 -0500

Last night at Columbia's school of international affairs, Scott Ritter, the former weapons inspector, and former Marine, opened a speech about Iran bracingly, by speaking not of Iran but about the "elephant in the room": Israel. He said that Israel is our close ally; and if Iran actually intends to develop nuclear weapons, not nuclear power (as the Iranian Ambassador had said, in the speech preceding Ritter's), and if Iran fails to repudiate Ahmedinejad's...

Rachel Corrie, and Jimmy Carter, on Apartheid

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 05:58:33 -0400

As I went downtown to see the play "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" last night, I read the Forward's coverage of Jimmy Carter's much-awaited book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Forthcoming from Simon & God bless them Schuster.. The article said that supporters of Israel are most upset by the characterization in the title, apartheid. That characterization used to upset me too, as being tendentious and emotional, till I went to Hebron last summer, the...

Al Gore Is a Serious Person. Is Bill Clinton?

Fri, 26 May 2006 03:25:13 -0400

I like this Al Gore moment, I hope it lasts a long time. (Heck, I was for him becoming President back in '99, but my former party failed me on that). Al Gore is doing a truly great thing. Wired is crazy for him. So is New York Magazine, where John Heilemann writes that the party might just be turning against Hillary ahead of time. Al Gore is committed on global warming. As he...

Jimmy Carter Calls Israel's Plans a "Land-Grab"

Fri, 19 May 2006 17:04:17 -0400

Is USA Today emerging as an idealistic voice? It broke the big story on wiretapping citizens. Now Jimmy Carter, once again distinguishing himself as a moral voice, says that Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's plans for fences deep inside the occupied territories of the West Bank, preserving settlements, are a landgrab. It is inconceivable that any Palestinian, Arab leader, or any objective member of the international community could accept this illegal action as a...

While Politicians Pander, Conservation Is Ignored

Sun, 14 May 2006 20:00:00 -0400

As the price of gasoline jiggles about and above the $3 line, there is cause for tepid rejoicing for some and glee for others. For Democratic politicians hoping to score big in November, there was glee—a lot more glee than sense. For those who are worried that nature may be about to take revenge on what humans have done to her, the higher the price of hydrocarbons, the more reason not for rejoicing exactly,...

Bush's Tough Oil Talk Lasted About 24 Hours

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Only moments after the damning phrase left his lips, the President’s flacks and factotums were assuring anyone who had listened to his State of the Union address that he meant nothing when he declared that America is “addicted to oil.” His words meant nothing, they said, when he vowed to break that addiction with new sources of energy. He wasn’t even talking about foreign oil, they added, when he mentioned our problems with...

Bush’s Tough Oil Talk Lasted About 24 Hours

Sun, 12 Feb 2006 19:00:00 -0500

A Presidency Scrutinized, Lapses, Political Savvy and All

Sun, 08 Jan 2006 19:00:00 -0500

When Richard Reeves set out to explain Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, he ran the risk—no, the certainty—of being accused by Reagan acolytes and book critics alike of “not getting it.” In the eyes of the faithful, the late President is such an inscrutable character that no biographer or observer, however skilled, will ever be credited with understanding his complex nature and appeal.

Edmund Morris, the authorized biographer, famously spent years trying to understand Reagan and wound...

Back on Charlotte Street

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 04:33:00 -0400

Freddy's back with Bill Clinton today on Charlotte Street, where the two men stood together in December of 1997 and made the case for active government. Of course, Jimmy Carter was the one who made Charlotte street cool in the first place; the picture is from his famous 1977 visit to the ruined...

The Blue-Ribbon Boys Make a Mess of Voting

Sun, 09 Oct 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Another one of those limp-dick, hoity-toity, bipartisan blue-ribbon panels has come through with another one of those sets of recommendations. This time it’s on election reform, if one uses the word “reform” very loosely. These kinds of reports serve one purpose, if nothing else: They tell us what the clubbable people—the moneyed, prestige types—have on their minds. They are a means by which the rulers communicate with the ruled. This panel is co-chaired by...

Cap'n Kerry Sails Into Choppy Waters, Then Scurries to Port

Sun, 16 May 2004 20:00:00 -0400

Now that the war in Iraq is over, time to consider the battles being waged inside the Kerry campaign.

Oh, you missed the Baghdad finale? It was those souvenir snaps of our boys and girls smirking at the naked, hooded human beings in their charge-the "its," they called them. Game, set, match-over and out. No need to instruct your broker to dump Halliburton just yet, however. As Henry Kissinger will tell you, the next time...

Religion and Politics: Imperfect Together

Sun, 07 Mar 2004 19:00:00 -0500

I have not seen Mel Gibson's movie. But the descriptions and explanations of it made by its supporters-several of them friends of mine-have been a powerful conversion experience. They have almost converted me away from Christianity. The substitutionary atonement, always a difficult doctrine, has become dark in the hands of its exponents.

If Jesus' sufferings are the fault of all men at all times, then the Passion takes on too much. I was born in...

American Song-Poem Anthology: Odds, Sods Make Beautiful Music

Sun, 16 Feb 2003 19:00:00 -0500

Last year, Barneys had an unusual little item for sale: A green and yellow designer pillow with the seven deadly sins embroidered on it in a retro computer font. This faux flea-market charm, which looked like something you would have found on a distant cousin's couch in 1983, cost about $200.

On the one hand, it was a neat trick of fashion hucksterism-retro lowbrow for the uptown fabulous. On the other, it acknowledged a simple...

Bungling Bushies Wrong About Cuba

Sun, 02 Jun 2002 20:00:00 -0400

Despite his blustering and joking during his recent trip across Europe and Russia, George W. Bush surely wonders sometimes why nations otherwise friendly to America are so suspicious of him and his government. It must be frustrating that millions of people abroad (and more than a few at home, despite "patriotic" strictures against dissent) question not only his policies, but his intentions. There he is, trying his best to lead a worldwide struggle against...

Time to Junk Gas-Guzzling S.U.V.'s

Sun, 11 Nov 2001 19:00:00 -0500

The automobile showrooms around town are still showing off shiny sport-utility vehicles, which means that a lot of us haven't changed much, if at all, since the World Trade Center attack. We can announce an end to irony; we can declare that our new celebrities are not dopey film stars, but working-class firefighters; we can sneer at the shallowness of those time has left behind. But if we're still buying these gas-guzzling threats to...