The NOBEL PRIZE: Carter's Disgrace - former president Jimmy Carter

National Review, Nov 11, 2002

Former president Jimmy Carter's Nobel Peace Prize came with a booby prize for President George W. Bush. The official citation contrasted Carter with "a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power." Gunnar Berge, the chairman of the Norwegian prize committee, spelled it out for the slow: The award "should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the current [American] administration is taking toward Iraq." If George Bush shuts down Iraq as he has the Taliban, the world will be a safer place, but don't expect the Norwegians to notice.

Carter's comment on the matter captured the man. "I feel very strongly about" Iraq, he said (he is, of course, opposed to enforcing disarmament). "But I didn't think it was appropriate to mention it. I haven't spent the last 22 years walking around saying what I would or wouldn't do if I were still president." But that is exactly what Carter has done, setting himself up as a pious counterexample to Republican presidents, and a nagging offstage adviser to Democrat Bill Clinton. Carter's comment maintained a false front of propriety, over a proud, corrupt substance. Whited sepulchers, anyone?

The perfect comment on Carter's peacemaking came when North Korea followed the announcement of his award by announcing that it has nuclear weapons-in violation of a deal brokered by Carter in 1994. We see now where Carter's acumen led.

Jimmy Carter's pilgrimages to world hot spots follow a depressing pattern. He shows up, like a twelve-step intervener-except that he does not require his hosts, usually despots, to make any fundamental changes. In return for small, or illusory, concessions, he gives them favorable publicity, and dollops of self-esteem. Nations tell white lies and deal with rogues all the time, but a freelance liar and glad- hander lacks the power to offer concrete bribes or threats.

Carter's main achievement, cited by the Nobel Committee, took place when he was president: finalizing the peace accords known as "Camp David." But the instigators of this agreement were Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, who had largely worked out their deal before showing up in the Maryland woods.

When Bill Clinton began his retirement with the scandal of his midnight pardons, he was compared unflatteringly to Jimmy Carter. Let us hope Clinton keeps on partying and collecting speaker fees. One pernicious busybody is enough.