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One of my favorite people, the ex-president with nothing to lose, Jimmy Carter

I admired President Jimmy Carter when he was president, and not a year goes by following his presidency that I don't admire the guy a little bit more.

Let me first issue my standard caveat -- nobody morally and ethically clean as a whistle makes it into the presidency. Having said that, I'll have to say that Carter probably comes the closest to being a moral, genuinely good Christian person as anyone could ask.

Given the way Carter was vilified by a couple of generations of neo-con Republicans as though he were personally responsible for all the world's woes from about 1976-2000 (??), he's pretty much faced all the animosity and adversity one ex-president can face. He has very little to lose when it comes to public conduct. What a liberating thing that must be: while other presidents are fawning and fearing about history's judgment of their presidencies, Jimmy Carter seems to smile, continue fishing, pound a few more nails for Habitat for Humanity, and contribute to the common good.

I thought of all that just awhile ago when I read a story on the Internet that Israeli leaders are currently shunning Carter. He's in the midst of a Middle East trip with plans to meet with the head of Hamas -- which is why he's not popular in Israel. Ironic, isn't it, that Carter was responsible for the Arab-Israeli peace deal back in the '70s?

I always thought Carter was a genuinely good man who just simply wasn't a very good president. I never gave him credit for all the woes that hit our economy and the world while he was president -- just as I really don't credit all the evils presently to George W. Bush, though I give him more credit for the boneheaded mess we're in than I gave Carter at the time of his boneheaded mess.

Keep up the good work, Jimmy. The world needs you out there on the front lines!
[tags]Jimmy Carter, Israel, Hamas, Arab-Israeli conflicts, just a guy who reads the papers[/tags]