There He Goes Again: Jimmy Carter, our 'model ex-president'

National Review, May 20, 2002 by Jay Nordlinger

In 1997, Carter wrote an op-ed piece entitled "It's Wrong to Demonize China." In it, he said, "Westerners emphasize personal freedoms, while a stable government and a unified nation are paramount to the Chinese. This means that policies are shaped by fear of chaos from unrestrained dissidents or fear of China's fragmentation. . . ." He also suggested that freedom of religion had come to China -- causing activists in the field, who know the horrid truth, to gnash their teeth.

Many longtime Carter-watchers don't have much hope that he will perform admirably in Cuba. He is to visit there from May 12 to May 17. Indeed, it says something not very flattering about Carter that Castro has been so eager to have him: The dictator must reason that he has little to fear from the presence of the ex-president.

Care for a quick walk down Memory Lane? Joshua Muravchik reminded us of some Carter nuggets in a 1994 piece for The New Republic. While in office, Carter hailed Tito as "a man who believes in human rights." He said of Ceausescu and himself, "Our goals are the same: to have a just system of economics and politics . . . We believe in enhancing human rights." Since leaving office, Carter has praised Syria's late Assad (killer of at least 20,000 in Hama) and the Ethiopian tyrant Mengistu (killer of many more than that). In Haiti, he told the dictator Cedras that he was "ashamed of what my country has done to your country."

While in North Korea, Carter lauded Kim Il Sung, one of the most complete and destructive dictators in history. Said Carter, "I find him to be vigorous, intelligent, . . . and in charge of the decisions about this country" (well, he was absolute ruler). He said, "I don't see that they [the North Koreans] are an outlaw nation." Pyongyang, he observed, was a "bustling city," where shoppers "pack the department stores," reminding him of the "Wal-Mart in Americus, Georgia."

Then there's his notorious friendship with Daniel Ortega, former strongman in Nicaragua. In 1984, when the Reagan administration was trying to put maximum pressure on Ortega to submit to democracy, Carter urged Habitat for Humanity to build in Nicaragua. A fine idea, perhaps, but here's the (classic) Carter twist: "We want the folks down there to know that some American Christians love them and that we don't all hate them." In 1990, of course, Carter traveled to Managua to monitor the elections and to certify what he figured -- and hoped, it seemed -- would be a Sandinista victory. When the democratic opposition won instead, Carter was memorably churlish, even bitter. As Kirkpatrick says, "You'd have thought a democrat would be happy."

Small wonder that Free Cuba activists are nervous. Carter has vowed to "share ideas on how to improve the relationship between the United States and Cuba." The worry is, he is more interested in perfuming and legitimizing the dictator than in pushing for human rights and democratic elections. Cuba's people are hardly in need of more Fidel smooching and more indifference to their plight.