WSJ: “Is Obama Smart?”

[PoliticalChic]

What was wrong with Jimmy Carter?

carter is a deeply underrated president. he was handed a massive shit sandwich with the mideast conflict and the economic aftershocks of vietnam, and he did what he could, quite courageously in my opinion, to try and change the direction of the country toward frugality and energy independence. folks didn't cotton to that, mainly because most people seem to prefer happy talk, facile nationalism and chicken-in-every-pot talk, so they went with reagan. obviously the hostage crisis was a problem but i've never heard a con explain to me what THEY would have done to solve it, except they would talk tough. i'll give carter props over obama on that, at least he never negotiated with the hostage takers the way obama did during the debt ceiling debate.

carter isn't going to go down as a great president, but i think he'll be remembered as better than average, esp. given the hand he was dealt. reagan, on the other hand, was a joke. but he really tapped into a cheap, facile nationalist streak among the hyper-con flag fetishists that's really easy to exploit.

Better than average? I would hate to see what you consider average, you must have a pretty low standard....

Carter, (he is a distant relative) was lost the day he arrived in DC, like a fish out of water, leadership requires a God given talent, you do not learn it in a Ivy League school, or any school for that matter, some of society's brightest could not lead you to the bathroom....

At this point, Obama has relieved Carter of the Worst POTUS in the last 100 years, history will clarify this in short order....

Now you just hold on there....

You've placed the very worst...Woodrow Wilson...just outside of your 100-year timeline. I demand a recount!

 

[PoliticalChic]

carter is a deeply underrated president. he was handed a massive shit sandwich with the mideast conflict and the economic aftershocks of vietnam, and he did what he could, quite courageously in my opinion, to try and change the direction of the country toward frugality and energy independence. folks didn't cotton to that, mainly because most people seem to prefer happy talk, facile nationalism and chicken-in-every-pot talk, so they went with reagan. obviously the hostage crisis was a problem but i've never heard a con explain to me what THEY would have done to solve it, except they would talk tough. i'll give carter props over obama on that, at least he never negotiated with the hostage takers the way obama did during the debt ceiling debate.

carter isn't going to go down as a great president, but i think he'll be remembered as better than average, esp. given the hand he was dealt. reagan, on the other hand, was a joke. but he really tapped into a cheap, facile nationalist streak among the hyper-con flag fetishists that's really easy to exploit.

Better than average? I would hate to see what you consider average, you must have a pretty low standard....

Carter, (he is a distant relative) was lost the day he arrived in DC, like a fish out of water, leadership requires a God given talent, you do not learn it in a Ivy League school, or any school for that matter, some of society's brightest could not lead you to the bathroom....

At this point, Obama has relieved Carter of the Worst POTUS in the last 100 years, history will clarify this in short order....

nice vent. hope you feel better, friend. i do continue to think that carter will be remembered as a better president than reagan, but that's just because i actually know a tad of history and i'm not just going on about "god given talent." but if that makes you feel better, god speed to you.

OMG!

You wouldn't know the difference between Cubism and Cuba!


You don't know the difference between Michelob and Michaelangelo!

What’s that you’re muttering? “Must-defend-self…”

 

[Patrick2]

There's no evidence that obama is smart, absolutely none, and nobody can cite anything that unequivocally shows that he is.

 

[highway234]

What was wrong with Jimmy Carter?

carter is a deeply underrated president. he was handed a massive shit sandwich with the mideast conflict and the economic aftershocks of vietnam, and he did what he could, quite courageously in my opinion, to try and change the direction of the country toward frugality and energy independence. folks didn't cotton to that, mainly because most people seem to prefer happy talk, facile nationalism and chicken-in-every-pot talk, so they went with reagan. obviously the hostage crisis was a problem but i've never heard a con explain to me what THEY would have done to solve it, except they would talk tough. i'll give carter props over obama on that, at least he never negotiated with the hostage takers the way obama did during the debt ceiling debate.

carter isn't going to go down as a great president, but i think he'll be remembered as better than average, esp. given the hand he was dealt. reagan, on the other hand, was a joke. but he really tapped into a cheap, facile nationalist streak among the hyper-con flag fetishists that's really easy to exploit.

"...i think he'll be remembered as better than average,..."
The glaring error in your quote is the first two words.

Unless you can find one teensy-weensy error in the following, retreat back into the corner, and be satisfied that you will be watered twice a day with the other vegetables.

“1980…Carter was the bumbling, egotistical coward bent on surrendering to the Soviets, who claimed to have been attacked by a giant swimming rabbit. Carter’s economic policies had produced a 21% interest rate, a 17% mortgage rate, and a 15% inflation rate in a ‘hat trick’ of presidential incompetence. Not only that, but he had produced skyrocketing unemployment.

Carter’s brilliant strategic ploy of abandoning the shah of Iran, an important American ally, soon led to soaring oil prices and, of course, Islamic lunatics holding fifty-two Americans hostage in Tehran, where they remained for 444 days, until Carter was safely removed from office by the American people. (Carter’s abandonment of the shah also gave rise to the global Islamofascist movement we’re still dealing with today.)

Under Carter, Americans were permitted to put gas in their cars only on alternate days, based on whether the last number of their license plates wan an even or odd number. The price of oil had risen 154% since the beginning of Carter’s presidency.

With all that going for them- plus that old Mondale magic- Democrats were dumbstruck that they lost the 1980 election. (Nor could they understand why gas prices, inflation and interest rates shot down and the nation enjoyed peace and prosperity soon after Reagan became president.) Naturally liberals asked themselves” What other than a dirty trick could explain Carter’s loss?

The Left’s theory was that in October, one month before the 1980 presidential election, members of Reagan’s campaign clandestinely met with representatives of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and offered to sell him weapons in exchange for his promise not to release the hostages before the election. By delaying the release of the hostages, the theory went, Reagan would deprive Carter of a triumphant victory on the eve of the vote. In other words, liberals believed the Islamofascist cutthroats who had been toying with Carter like a cat with a ball of yarn for the past year wanted Carter replaced by someone stronger, like Reagan.
But it seemed like a perfectly plausible theory to the editorial board of the New York Times.”
Coulter, “Demonic,” p. 84-85

BTW...those were Carter's good points!

Add this:

"to Make a Just Peace." In it, he let it all hang out as an apologist for Arafat and a bulldog against Sharon. Before getting to that piece, however, we should be clear about just how attached to Arafat and his cause the ex-president is. As Brinkley writes in his book The Unfinished Presidency — about Carter's celebrated post-White House years — "there was no world leader Jimmy Carter was more eager to know than Yasir Arafat." The former president "felt certain affinities with the Palestinian: a tendency toward hyperactivity and a workaholic disposition...."
Jay Nordlinger on Jimmy Carter on National Review Online


And, in his book, Brinkley pointed out that Carter wrote speeches for Arafat.

"...i think he'll be remembered as better than average,..."


Bonehead.

well, of course natrev is gonna savage carter, they're a right-wing rag. i'm not saying that the carter years were great, i'm saying the 70s downturn was due to the vietnam war and mideast unrest that was largely out of carter's control. as for the iranian hostage crisis, i know cons bloviate about that a lot but they never seem to have much of an idea what they would have done differently, except that they would have talked tough. i think that's a clownish worldview, it's the same as the idea that reagan singlehandedly overthrew the soviet union by telling them sternly to tear down the berlin wall. it just doesn't pass the laugh test.

also, am i seeing this right that one of your sources is ann coulter? i mean come on, this is a parade of right-wing partisan hackery, if you read more balanced sources, you might not be so rabid about this stuff.

beyond that i'll let all the unhinged insults and poo-flinging stand without comment.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Just another irrelevant attempt to criticize our President. Did these people examine Bush's mind I wonder? Was Bush smart enough to be president? If knowledge equals smart, are Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann smart or dumb? Seems the right wing while in power fails, but out of power they sure can nitpick? Is nitpicking a sign of intelligence? In life it is what you do that matters, what you say often means little and often amounts to less.


"The collapse of the Bush presidency, in other words, is not just due to Bush's incompetence (although his administration has been incompetent beyond belief). Nor is it a response to the president's principled lack of intellectual curiosity and pitbull refusal to admit mistakes (although those character flaws are certainly real enough). And the orgy of bribery and special-interest dispensation in Congress is not the result of Tom DeLay's ruthlessness, as impressive a bully as he was. This conservative presidency and Congress imploded, not despite their conservatism, but because of it." "Why Conservatives Can't Govern" by Alan Wolfe

The lack of specific references seems to indicate that all you read was the title...then, like the firehouse dalmatian, you leapt to the sound of the bell!


Also, if you have the time, if the Bush presidency collapsed, how is it that the Obama presidency continued so many of its policies?
Didn't Obama get your memo?

 

[highway234]

Better than average? I would hate to see what you consider average, you must have a pretty low standard....

Carter, (he is a distant relative) was lost the day he arrived in DC, like a fish out of water, leadership requires a God given talent, you do not learn it in a Ivy League school, or any school for that matter, some of society's brightest could not lead you to the bathroom....

At this point, Obama has relieved Carter of the Worst POTUS in the last 100 years, history will clarify this in short order....

nice vent. hope you feel better, friend. i do continue to think that carter will be remembered as a better president than reagan, but that's just because i actually know a tad of history and i'm not just going on about "god given talent." but if that makes you feel better, god speed to you.

OMG!

You wouldn't know the difference between Cubism and Cuba!


You don't know the difference between Michelob and Michaelangelo!

What’s that you’re muttering? “Must-defend-self…”

yeah, yeah, con good, lib bad, must fling poo. i get it.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Personally I don't find the Obama to be all that smart. He sees his polling numbers sliding into the crapper and he still stands up there acting like there isn't a problem and he should just continue on his merry way with trying to implement his "visions" on the American People.

The people spoke loud and clear in the November elections yet he just poo poo's them and acts like they don't know just how good they have it.

I find him to be arrogant, cold, uncaring, unbending, lazy, and he feels as if he is entitled because he the President.

And let's hope he continues in that vein.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I don't understand why people expect presidents to be humble and bad mouth themselves. What purpose would that serve....

I don't understand why liberals put so much effort into defending the indefensible.

Rider, that is exactly what I meant by the last line in the OP...

"So...does this analysis bleed over onto his erstwhile supporters???"

They realize the 'is he smart' applies to them, as well.

Every one of the supporters who made it know how magnificent Obama is/was, is now covered with the same egg on their face. They know it, and we know it....and we're not letting them forget it.

 

[PoliticalChic]

carter is a deeply underrated president. he was handed a massive shit sandwich with the mideast conflict and the economic aftershocks of vietnam, and he did what he could, quite courageously in my opinion, to try and change the direction of the country toward frugality and energy independence. folks didn't cotton to that, mainly because most people seem to prefer happy talk, facile nationalism and chicken-in-every-pot talk, so they went with reagan. obviously the hostage crisis was a problem but i've never heard a con explain to me what THEY would have done to solve it, except they would talk tough. i'll give carter props over obama on that, at least he never negotiated with the hostage takers the way obama did during the debt ceiling debate.

carter isn't going to go down as a great president, but i think he'll be remembered as better than average, esp. given the hand he was dealt. reagan, on the other hand, was a joke. but he really tapped into a cheap, facile nationalist streak among the hyper-con flag fetishists that's really easy to exploit.

"...i think he'll be remembered as better than average,..."
The glaring error in your quote is the first two words.

Unless you can find one teensy-weensy error in the following, retreat back into the corner, and be satisfied that you will be watered twice a day with the other vegetables.

“1980…Carter was the bumbling, egotistical coward bent on surrendering to the Soviets, who claimed to have been attacked by a giant swimming rabbit. Carter’s economic policies had produced a 21% interest rate, a 17% mortgage rate, and a 15% inflation rate in a ‘hat trick’ of presidential incompetence. Not only that, but he had produced skyrocketing unemployment.

Carter’s brilliant strategic ploy of abandoning the shah of Iran, an important American ally, soon led to soaring oil prices and, of course, Islamic lunatics holding fifty-two Americans hostage in Tehran, where they remained for 444 days, until Carter was safely removed from office by the American people. (Carter’s abandonment of the shah also gave rise to the global Islamofascist movement we’re still dealing with today.)

Under Carter, Americans were permitted to put gas in their cars only on alternate days, based on whether the last number of their license plates wan an even or odd number. The price of oil had risen 154% since the beginning of Carter’s presidency.

With all that going for them- plus that old Mondale magic- Democrats were dumbstruck that they lost the 1980 election. (Nor could they understand why gas prices, inflation and interest rates shot down and the nation enjoyed peace and prosperity soon after Reagan became president.) Naturally liberals asked themselves” What other than a dirty trick could explain Carter’s loss?

The Left’s theory was that in October, one month before the 1980 presidential election, members of Reagan’s campaign clandestinely met with representatives of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and offered to sell him weapons in exchange for his promise not to release the hostages before the election. By delaying the release of the hostages, the theory went, Reagan would deprive Carter of a triumphant victory on the eve of the vote. In other words, liberals believed the Islamofascist cutthroats who had been toying with Carter like a cat with a ball of yarn for the past year wanted Carter replaced by someone stronger, like Reagan.
But it seemed like a perfectly plausible theory to the editorial board of the New York Times.”
Coulter, “Demonic,” p. 84-85

BTW...those were Carter's good points!

Add this:

"to Make a Just Peace." In it, he let it all hang out as an apologist for Arafat and a bulldog against Sharon. Before getting to that piece, however, we should be clear about just how attached to Arafat and his cause the ex-president is. As Brinkley writes in his book The Unfinished Presidency — about Carter's celebrated post-White House years — "there was no world leader Jimmy Carter was more eager to know than Yasir Arafat." The former president "felt certain affinities with the Palestinian: a tendency toward hyperactivity and a workaholic disposition...."
Jay Nordlinger on Jimmy Carter on National Review Online


And, in his book, Brinkley pointed out that Carter wrote speeches for Arafat.

"...i think he'll be remembered as better than average,..."


Bonehead.

well, of course natrev is gonna savage carter, they're a right-wing rag. i'm not saying that the carter years were great, i'm saying the 70s downturn was due to the vietnam war and mideast unrest that was largely out of carter's control. as for the iranian hostage crisis, i know cons bloviate about that a lot but they never seem to have much of an idea what they would have done differently, except that they would have talked tough. i think that's a clownish worldview, it's the same as the idea that reagan singlehandedly overthrew the soviet union by telling them sternly to tear down the berlin wall. it just doesn't pass the laugh test.

also, am i seeing this right that one of your sources is ann coulter? i mean come on, this is a parade of right-wing partisan hackery, if you read more balanced sources, you might not be so rabid about this stuff.

beyond that i'll let all the unhinged insults and poo-flinging stand without comment.

There is nothing more sophomoric, and indicative of how flawed your argument is, than attacking the source rather than the data.

Can't find any errors, eh?
Every single criticism of Carter is correct, and deserved?
Thought so.

C'mon, say it again: "...i think he'll be remembered as better than average,..."
I bet you thought I’d run out of ways to humiliate you.

But I like the 'insults,' especially when they are so very much deserved.
I get that warm, fuzzy feeling that only cruelty to the stupid can provide.

Carter...underrated.
Bet you think Casey Anthony was underrated as a mother.
And Saddam Hussein underrated as a philanthropist.

Are you having second thoughts…oops! That implies that you had first thoughts.
Brutal, huh?
Sorry you didn’t run with scissors when you had the chance?

So...why aren't you back in the corner with the other vegetables?
Get movin.'

 

[Wry Catcher]

I’m sure most of us recall the debates about President Obama not releasing his grades, his selection to the presidency of the law review, from Harvard Law School Magna Cum Laude,...
Always an interesting, if not enlightening, debate.

Well, many will get a kick out of this WSJ piece called “Is Obama Smart?”

1. "I think I'm a better speech writer than my speech writers," he reportedly told an aide in 2008. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm . . . a better political director than my political director."

2. On another occasion—at the 2004 Democratic convention—Mr. Obama explained to a Chicago Tribune reporter that "I'm LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got game."

3. How many times have we heard it said that Mr. Obama is the smartest president ever? Even when he's criticized, his failures are usually chalked up to his supposed brilliance. Liberals say he's too cerebral for the Beltway rough-and-tumble; conservatives often seem to think his blunders, foreign and domestic, are all part of a cunning scheme to turn the U.S. into a combination of Finland, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.

4. I don't buy it. I just think the president isn't very bright.

5. Socrates taught that wisdom begins in the recognition of how little we know. Mr. Obama is perpetually intent on telling us how much he knows. Aristotle wrote that the type of intelligence most needed in politics is prudence, which in turn requires experience. Mr. Obama came to office with no experience. Plutarch warned that flattery "makes itself an obstacle and pestilence to great houses and great affairs." Today's White House, more so than any in memory, is stuffed with flatterers.

6. Much is made of the president's rhetorical gifts. This is the sort of thing that can be credited only by people who think that a command of English syntax is a mark of great intellectual distinction. Can anyone recall a memorable phrase from one of Mr. Obama's big speeches that didn't amount to cliché?

7. Then there is Mr. Obama as political tactician. He makes predictions that prove false. He makes promises he cannot honor. He raises expectations he cannot meet. He reneges on commitments made in private. He surrenders positions staked in public. He is absent from issues in which he has a duty to be involved.

8. Mr. Obama, by contrast, appears to consider himself immune from error. Perhaps this explains why he has now doubled down on Heckuva Job Geithner. It also explains his insulting and politically inept habit of suggesting—whether the issue is health care, or Arab-Israeli peace, or change we can believe in at some point in God's good time—that the fault always lies in the failure of his audiences to listen attentively. It doesn't. In politics, a failure of communication is always the fault of the communicator.

9. Stupid is as stupid does, said the great philosopher Forrest Gump. The presidency of Barack Obama is a case study in stupid does.
Stephens: Is Obama Smart? - WSJ.com

Remember this?
November 11, 2008
Historian Michael Beschloss was interviewed Monday on Don Imus’ radio show and he made the claim that President-elect Obama’s IQ is off the charts and that he is the smartest president we have ever had. Here is the meat of the conversation:
Quote:
Historian Michael Beschloss: Yeah. Even aside from the fact of electing the first African American President and whatever one’s partisan views this is a guy whose IQ is off the charts — I mean you cannot say that he is anything but a very serious and capable leader and — you know — You and I have talked about this for years …

Imus: Well. What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: … our system doesn’t allow those people to become President, those people meaning people THAT smart and THAT capable

Imus: What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: Pardon?

Imus: What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: Uh. I would say it’s probably - he’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President.


Schadenfreude: my guilty pleasure.
So...does this analysis bleed over onto his erstwhile supporters???

I suggest PC that you consider point number five in this cute little bullet point 'analysis'.

 

[PoliticalChic]

nice vent. hope you feel better, friend. i do continue to think that carter will be remembered as a better president than reagan, but that's just because i actually know a tad of history and i'm not just going on about "god given talent." but if that makes you feel better, god speed to you.

OMG!

You wouldn't know the difference between Cubism and Cuba!


You don't know the difference between Michelob and Michaelangelo!

What’s that you’re muttering? “Must-defend-self…”

yeah, yeah, con good, lib bad, must fling poo. i get it.

See...that's the point: you don't get it.

Let me guess: government school education?

Here in the real world folks expect correct answers, not just answers.

When you make as dumb a statement as you have, re: Carter being better than Reagan,
well, then guess what you're in store for:

Welcome to the Theatre of Pain.
Just like snowflakes, no two destructions are alike.



In the future, no more posts where good judgment just gets in the way.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I’m sure most of us recall the debates about President Obama not releasing his grades, his selection to the presidency of the law review, from Harvard Law School Magna Cum Laude,...
Always an interesting, if not enlightening, debate.

Well, many will get a kick out of this WSJ piece called “Is Obama Smart?”

1. "I think I'm a better speech writer than my speech writers," he reportedly told an aide in 2008. "I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm . . . a better political director than my political director."

2. On another occasion—at the 2004 Democratic convention—Mr. Obama explained to a Chicago Tribune reporter that "I'm LeBron, baby. I can play at this level. I got game."

3. How many times have we heard it said that Mr. Obama is the smartest president ever? Even when he's criticized, his failures are usually chalked up to his supposed brilliance. Liberals say he's too cerebral for the Beltway rough-and-tumble; conservatives often seem to think his blunders, foreign and domestic, are all part of a cunning scheme to turn the U.S. into a combination of Finland, Cuba and Saudi Arabia.

4. I don't buy it. I just think the president isn't very bright.

5. Socrates taught that wisdom begins in the recognition of how little we know. Mr. Obama is perpetually intent on telling us how much he knows. Aristotle wrote that the type of intelligence most needed in politics is prudence, which in turn requires experience. Mr. Obama came to office with no experience. Plutarch warned that flattery "makes itself an obstacle and pestilence to great houses and great affairs." Today's White House, more so than any in memory, is stuffed with flatterers.

6. Much is made of the president's rhetorical gifts. This is the sort of thing that can be credited only by people who think that a command of English syntax is a mark of great intellectual distinction. Can anyone recall a memorable phrase from one of Mr. Obama's big speeches that didn't amount to cliché?

7. Then there is Mr. Obama as political tactician. He makes predictions that prove false. He makes promises he cannot honor. He raises expectations he cannot meet. He reneges on commitments made in private. He surrenders positions staked in public. He is absent from issues in which he has a duty to be involved.

8. Mr. Obama, by contrast, appears to consider himself immune from error. Perhaps this explains why he has now doubled down on Heckuva Job Geithner. It also explains his insulting and politically inept habit of suggesting—whether the issue is health care, or Arab-Israeli peace, or change we can believe in at some point in God's good time—that the fault always lies in the failure of his audiences to listen attentively. It doesn't. In politics, a failure of communication is always the fault of the communicator.

9. Stupid is as stupid does, said the great philosopher Forrest Gump. The presidency of Barack Obama is a case study in stupid does.
Stephens: Is Obama Smart? - WSJ.com

Remember this?
November 11, 2008
Historian Michael Beschloss was interviewed Monday on Don Imus’ radio show and he made the claim that President-elect Obama’s IQ is off the charts and that he is the smartest president we have ever had. Here is the meat of the conversation:
Quote:
Historian Michael Beschloss: Yeah. Even aside from the fact of electing the first African American President and whatever one’s partisan views this is a guy whose IQ is off the charts — I mean you cannot say that he is anything but a very serious and capable leader and — you know — You and I have talked about this for years …

Imus: Well. What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: … our system doesn’t allow those people to become President, those people meaning people THAT smart and THAT capable

Imus: What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: Pardon?

Imus: What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: Uh. I would say it’s probably - he’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President.


Schadenfreude: my guilty pleasure.
So...does this analysis bleed over onto his erstwhile supporters???

I suggest PC that you consider point number five in this cute little bullet point 'analysis'.

I suggest you consider points one through nine, Wry-boy.

You supported this windbag, didn't you?

Hurts, huh?

Well, if you need a shoulder to cry on, pull over to the side of the road.

 

[highway234]

OMG!

You wouldn't know the difference between Cubism and Cuba!


You don't know the difference between Michelob and Michaelangelo!

What’s that you’re muttering? “Must-defend-self…”

yeah, yeah, con good, lib bad, must fling poo. i get it.

See...that's the point: you don't get it.

Let me guess: government school education?

Here in the real world folks expect correct answers, not just answers.

When you make as dumb a statement as you have, re: Carter being better than Reagan,
well, then guess what you're in store for:

Welcome to the Theatre of Pain.
Just like snowflakes, no two destructions are alike.



In the future, no more posts where good judgment just gets in the way.

see, though, you keep saying reagan is better than carter, but you never explain why. you just assume anyone who doesn't see it the way you do is an idiot. it's real low-grade discourse you're engaged in here. thoughtless regurgitation of received wisdom.

 

[highway234]

"...i think he'll be remembered as better than average,..."
The glaring error in your quote is the first two words.

Unless you can find one teensy-weensy error in the following, retreat back into the corner, and be satisfied that you will be watered twice a day with the other vegetables.

“1980…Carter was the bumbling, egotistical coward bent on surrendering to the Soviets, who claimed to have been attacked by a giant swimming rabbit. Carter’s economic policies had produced a 21% interest rate, a 17% mortgage rate, and a 15% inflation rate in a ‘hat trick’ of presidential incompetence. Not only that, but he had produced skyrocketing unemployment.

Carter’s brilliant strategic ploy of abandoning the shah of Iran, an important American ally, soon led to soaring oil prices and, of course, Islamic lunatics holding fifty-two Americans hostage in Tehran, where they remained for 444 days, until Carter was safely removed from office by the American people. (Carter’s abandonment of the shah also gave rise to the global Islamofascist movement we’re still dealing with today.)

Under Carter, Americans were permitted to put gas in their cars only on alternate days, based on whether the last number of their license plates wan an even or odd number. The price of oil had risen 154% since the beginning of Carter’s presidency.

With all that going for them- plus that old Mondale magic- Democrats were dumbstruck that they lost the 1980 election. (Nor could they understand why gas prices, inflation and interest rates shot down and the nation enjoyed peace and prosperity soon after Reagan became president.) Naturally liberals asked themselves” What other than a dirty trick could explain Carter’s loss?

The Left’s theory was that in October, one month before the 1980 presidential election, members of Reagan’s campaign clandestinely met with representatives of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and offered to sell him weapons in exchange for his promise not to release the hostages before the election. By delaying the release of the hostages, the theory went, Reagan would deprive Carter of a triumphant victory on the eve of the vote. In other words, liberals believed the Islamofascist cutthroats who had been toying with Carter like a cat with a ball of yarn for the past year wanted Carter replaced by someone stronger, like Reagan.
But it seemed like a perfectly plausible theory to the editorial board of the New York Times.”
Coulter, “Demonic,” p. 84-85

BTW...those were Carter's good points!

Add this:

"to Make a Just Peace." In it, he let it all hang out as an apologist for Arafat and a bulldog against Sharon. Before getting to that piece, however, we should be clear about just how attached to Arafat and his cause the ex-president is. As Brinkley writes in his book The Unfinished Presidency — about Carter's celebrated post-White House years — "there was no world leader Jimmy Carter was more eager to know than Yasir Arafat." The former president "felt certain affinities with the Palestinian: a tendency toward hyperactivity and a workaholic disposition...."
Jay Nordlinger on Jimmy Carter on National Review Online


And, in his book, Brinkley pointed out that Carter wrote speeches for Arafat.

"...i think he'll be remembered as better than average,..."


Bonehead.

well, of course natrev is gonna savage carter, they're a right-wing rag. i'm not saying that the carter years were great, i'm saying the 70s downturn was due to the vietnam war and mideast unrest that was largely out of carter's control. as for the iranian hostage crisis, i know cons bloviate about that a lot but they never seem to have much of an idea what they would have done differently, except that they would have talked tough. i think that's a clownish worldview, it's the same as the idea that reagan singlehandedly overthrew the soviet union by telling them sternly to tear down the berlin wall. it just doesn't pass the laugh test.

also, am i seeing this right that one of your sources is ann coulter? i mean come on, this is a parade of right-wing partisan hackery, if you read more balanced sources, you might not be so rabid about this stuff.

beyond that i'll let all the unhinged insults and poo-flinging stand without comment.

There is nothing more sophomoric, and indicative of how flawed your argument is, than attacking the source rather than the data.

Can't find any errors, eh?
Every single criticism of Carter is correct, and deserved?
Thought so.

C'mon, say it again: "...i think he'll be remembered as better than average,..."
I bet you thought I’d run out of ways to humiliate you.

But I like the 'insults,' especially when they are so very much deserved.
I get that warm, fuzzy feeling that only cruelty to the stupid can provide.

Carter...underrated.
Bet you think Casey Anthony was underrated as a mother.
And Saddam Hussein underrated as a philanthropist.

Are you having second thoughts…oops! That implies that you had first thoughts.
Brutal, huh?
Sorry you didn’t run with scissors when you had the chance?

So...why aren't you back in the corner with the other vegetables?
Get movin.'

reasoning, chum, i need reasoning. this stuff is just chaf.

 

[PoliticalChic]

yeah, yeah, con good, lib bad, must fling poo. i get it.

See...that's the point: you don't get it.

Let me guess: government school education?

Here in the real world folks expect correct answers, not just answers.

When you make as dumb a statement as you have, re: Carter being better than Reagan,
well, then guess what you're in store for:

Welcome to the Theatre of Pain.
Just like snowflakes, no two destructions are alike.



In the future, no more posts where good judgment just gets in the way.

see, though, you keep saying reagan is better than carter, but you never explain why. you just assume anyone who doesn't see it the way you do is an idiot. it's real low-grade discourse you're engaged in here. thoughtless regurgitation of received wisdom.

Glaring error number two....
after you were unable to simply mumble about not liking the source, now you stumble on to 'change subject' gambit.

Stike Two!


The question under discussion revolved around whether or not you could find any errors in the multiple indicia of Carter-incompetence that I provided.

Didn't you read the requirements before you joined?
This is a BYOB board: Bring Your Own Brains.

Now let me head you off at the pass...if you can't find any errors in the post under question, you might want to do what most losers do....simply amble away for the thread, and never, ever re-post about Carter being underrated, or better than average...or (giggle) better than President Reagan.

One more thing: When Galileo stated that everything falls at the same speed, he wasn’t referring to your reputation.


Corner. Water. Get goin.'

 

[highway234]

incidentally, here's a little tidbit i dug up on wiki.

Shortly before the revolution on New Year's Day 1979, American president Jimmy Carter further angered anti-Shah Iranians with a televised toast to the Shah, declaring how beloved the Shah was by his people. After the revolution in February, the embassy had been occupied and staff held hostage briefly. Rocks and bullets had broken enough of the embassy front-facing windows for them to be replaced with bullet-proof glass. Its staff was reduced to just over 60 from a high of nearly 1000 earlier in the decade.[18]

The Carter administration attempted to mitigate the anti-American feeling by finding a new relationship with the de facto Iranian government and by continuing military cooperation in hopes that the situation would stabilize. However, on October 22, 1979 the U.S. permitted the Shah - who was ill with cancer - to attend the Mayo Clinic for medical treatment. The American embassy in Tehran had discouraged the request, understanding the political delicacy,[19] but after pressure from influential figures including former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Council on Foreign Relations chairman David Rockefeller, the Carter administration decided to grant the Shah’s request.[20][21][22]
The Shah's admission to the US intensified Iranian revolutionaries' anti-Americanism and spawned rumors of another U.S.-backed coup and re-installation of the Shah.[23]

now, didn't one of those hack sources of americhic's say that carter was to blame for the iranian revolution because he "abandoned" the shah? the opposite is clearly true. the US accidentally trigged the coup by not sensing the degree of revolutionary fervor brewing in iran and excessively coddling the shah. you're just not going to get the facts reading far-right partisan stuff.

 

[highway234]

as for the gas lines, etc., and scapegoating carter for that, you do realize that both the '73 crisis (which i presume you're not going to blame nixon for) and the '79 crisis were both caused by oil embargos, in the '73 case by OPEC after the yom kippur war, in '79 by the iranian revolutionary government. there was also an oil shock in '67 sparked by the six day war, which i assume you won't blame LBJ for, although who knows, he's Team Democrat and you're Team -- well, whatever team you're on -- so you might.

gas shocks and oil crises were endemic in that era because israeli-arab relations were so poor and because of the '53 coup in iran, both of which created bad blood in the arab world toward the US and led them to use oil embargos as a weapon against us. the best thing carter, or nixon, or LBJ, could have done to put a stop to this would have been to try and improve arab-israeli relations -- which carter and nixon both put quite a bit of effort into -- and try to assure the iranian public that we weren't planning a repeat of that coup. carter did a poorer job of that, but not because he didn't engage in enough tough talk, because he made the US look like it was too close to the shah.

 

[PoliticalChic]

incidentally, here's a little tidbit i dug up on wiki.

Shortly before the revolution on New Year's Day 1979, American president Jimmy Carter further angered anti-Shah Iranians with a televised toast to the Shah, declaring how beloved the Shah was by his people. After the revolution in February, the embassy had been occupied and staff held hostage briefly. Rocks and bullets had broken enough of the embassy front-facing windows for them to be replaced with bullet-proof glass. Its staff was reduced to just over 60 from a high of nearly 1000 earlier in the decade.[18]

The Carter administration attempted to mitigate the anti-American feeling by finding a new relationship with the de facto Iranian government and by continuing military cooperation in hopes that the situation would stabilize. However, on October 22, 1979 the U.S. permitted the Shah - who was ill with cancer - to attend the Mayo Clinic for medical treatment. The American embassy in Tehran had discouraged the request, understanding the political delicacy,[19] but after pressure from influential figures including former United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Council on Foreign Relations chairman David Rockefeller, the Carter administration decided to grant the Shah’s request.[20][21][22]
The Shah's admission to the US intensified Iranian revolutionaries' anti-Americanism and spawned rumors of another U.S.-backed coup and re-installation of the Shah.[23]

now, didn't one of those hack sources of americhic's say that carter was to blame for the iranian revolution because he "abandoned" the shah? the opposite is clearly true. the US accidentally trigged the coup by not sensing the degree of revolutionary fervor brewing in iran and excessively coddling the shah. you're just not going to get the facts reading far-right partisan stuff.

More Iranians were killed during Khomeini’s first month in power than in the Shah’s 37-year reign. Yet Carter, Ted Kennedy, and the Western media, who had brayed so long about the Shah’s alleged “human rights” violations, said nothing. Mass executions and torture elicited no protests. Seeing his country thus destroyed, the exiled Shah raged to an adviser: “Where are the defenders of human rights and democracy now?” Later, the Shah wrote that there was

not a word of protest from American human rights advocates who had been so vocal in denouncing my “tyrannical” regime! It was a sad commentary, I reflected, that the United States, and indeed most Western countries, had adopted a double standard for international morality: anything Marxist, no matter how bloody and base, is acceptable.

Exile
The Shah’s personal tragedy wasn’t over. He stayed briefly in Egypt and Morocco, but did not wish to impose risks on his hosts from Muslim extremists. Eventually he welcomed Mexican President Lopes Portillo’s hospitality.

However, in Mexico the Shah received an invitation from CFR Chairman David Rockefeller, who used influence to secure permission for the Shah to come to America for medical treatment. Rockefeller sent a trendy Park Avenue MD to examine the Shah, who agreed — against his better judgment — to abandon his personal physicians and fly to New York for treatment. In October 1979, he was received at the Rockefeller-founded Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital for cancer treatment. Here the Shah experienced a fateful delay in spleen surgery that some believe accelerated his death.

The Shah’s admission to the United States had another outcome. Partly in retribution, on November 4, 1979, Iranians took 52 hostages from the U.S. embassy in Teheran. (According to Nahavandi, Soviet special services assisted them.) This embarrassed Jimmy Carter, who had done so much to destroy the Shah and support Khomeini. The seizure made the Shah a pawn.

Carter faced a dilemma. Iran wanted the Shah’s return — for a degrading execution — in exchange for the American hostages. However, a direct trade might humiliate the United States.

Therefore, Panama was selected as intermediary. Following treatment in New York, the Shah was informed he could no longer remain in America, ...
Evidence Jimmy Carter abandoned the Shah

 

[highway234]

[More Iranians were killed during Khomeini’s first month in power than in the Shah’s 37-year reign. Yet Carter, Ted Kennedy, and the Western media, who had brayed so long about the Shah’s alleged “human rights” violations, said nothing. Mass executions and torture elicited no protests. Seeing his country thus destroyed, the exiled Shah raged to an adviser: “Where are the defenders of human rights and democracy now?” Later, the Shah wrote that there was not a word of protest from American human rights advocates who had been so vocal in denouncing my “tyrannical” regime!

if the shah really said this (which i doubt, i find this source extremely questionable), then he didn't understand his own country very well. public statements from the US condemning the human rights violations of the ayatollah would plainly have been ignored by the revolutionary government, since they'd broken diplomatic ties with the US and for that reason we had no leverage with them. in fact, it may have bolstered the revolutionary government since the US was so hated by the public in Iran at that time.

It was a sad commentary, I reflected, that the United States, and indeed most Western countries, had adopted a double standard for international morality: anything Marxist, no matter how bloody and base, is acceptable.

this writing is so botched up. "I reflected"? who reflected? is this still the shah, or is this the author talking? who's making this absurd suggestion that the carter administration was supporting "marxists"? where are there "marxists" in this equation? the shah was a monarchal dictator, the revolutionaries were religious extremists. marxists are atheists. this is cheap opinionating, sloppily done.

Exile
The Shah’s personal tragedy wasn’t over. He stayed briefly in Egypt and Morocco, but did not wish to impose risks on his hosts from Muslim extremists. Eventually he welcomed Mexican President Lopes Portillo’s hospitality.

However, in Mexico the Shah received an invitation from CFR Chairman David Rockefeller, who used influence to secure permission for the Shah to come to America for medical treatment. Rockefeller sent a trendy Park Avenue MD to examine the Shah, who agreed — against his better judgment — to abandon his personal physicians and fly to New York for treatment. In October 1979, he was received at the Rockefeller-founded Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital for cancer treatment. Here the Shah experienced a fateful delay in spleen surgery that some believe accelerated his death.

what delay? again, what's the author talking about? who was responsible for this delay? who are these "some" who "believed" it accelerated his death? this stuff is unsubstantiated pap. the rest of this stuff actually shows a US government bending over backward to provide the shah with top-flight medical treatment and flying top-flight doctors all over tarnation for him, and then somehow the author uses this to claim, using heresay and opinion, that the US abandoned him? naw, this stuff doesn't make any sense.

The Shah’s admission to the United States had another outcome. Partly in retribution, on November 4, 1979, Iranians took 52 hostages from the U.S. embassy in Teheran. (According to Nahavandi, Soviet special services assisted them.) This embarrassed Jimmy Carter, who had done so much to destroy the Shah and support Khomeini. The seizure made the Shah a pawn.

again, the author comes out of left field with a silly statement of opinion. carter had done so much to destroy the shah? by trying to help him get cancer treatment? what? and carter was trying to "support" khomeini? on which planet? khomeini probably would have risen to power in iran in any case, but if carter did anything to "support" khomeini, it was providing the shah with medical treatment and thereby inflaming iranian revolutionary sentiment. i doubt there was much the US could have done to forestall the iranian revolution short of full-scale military invasion or another covert coup attempt, and the '53 coup was a big part of what started this whole mess in the first place.

naw, this stuff is red meat for people who hate carter already, but there's just no substance at all to this as a historical reading. it's a hit piece.

 

[highway234]

also, you know what would have prevented the revolution? if carter had pressured the shah more not to oppress the iranian public back in '77 when carter took office. go ahead and blame carter for not doing that, i'll join right along with you.