I'm convinced that when you become President of the United States something happens to you as a human being. I don't see how it can't. You'd have to represent the most powerful nation in all the world. More than that you have to lead what it has become. Bear in mind that in modern Statecraft a nation is the sum of it's interests. While we're led to believe the democratic State is made up of the interests of its people, in this day and age the people don't care to know the nuts and bolts of how it all operates. So when and if you get to the top it must change you. Therefore, anytime a former President makes the mistake of telling it like it is, the media must yank him back into line.
On NPR's Morning Edition this morning I heard Steve Inskeep ask President Carter an awful lot of stupid questions. You should listen for yourself, but essentially the interview is set up with Carter on the hot seat regarding his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. He gets a call right after his speech at Brandeis University. Stein wants to know if its true that the former president is losing his mind. Is he senile? Did he plagiarize his book? Did he lie? But the real burning question is "Was his use of language unfair to Israel?"
I love Ken Stein's question "How did you write your book?" President Carter's reply is directly to the question: "With a word processor, or computer." This is legendary journalism. Truthfully, in the fifteen years of NPR I've consumed this has got to be the worst interview--ever! And I heard the Fresh Air interview with KISS frontman Gene Simmons! That was at least entertaining. It proves that for as liberal as NPR claims to be, when it comes to the State of Israel, even liberal American journalists jerk to the right. Stein has to make scandal where there isn't any. President Carter is speaking facts about life in the Middle East as it is. What is truly shocking is that even in this day and age the media can't seem to face reality without spin. It needs to slow the world down, reword, rework and feed it back for the consumer.
I have not read Jimmy Carter's book. But at face value I have to tell you that he hasn't said anything out of the ordinary. Desmond Tutu noted the similarities between Israeli treatment of Palestinians and South African Apartheid back in 2002. The same voices that call Carter anti-semitic said that of Tutu back then. Let's look at this clearly people. Israel's use of Military Occupation hasn't worked for forty years. What it has set is a precident that the US is continuing in Iraq today. And we see how well it is working. If anything the occupiers are failing. The circle of hate and violence has spun out of control. The one President who has ever had the guts to admit that is called crazy, anti-semitic, senile---I'm waiting for someone to say UnAmerican.
Doesn't all this circle back onto what the public expects from a President? Carter's use of the word Apartheid together with Israel is brazen and shocking because the US is neck deep in a "war on terror." NPR can criticize George W. Bush all it wants, everyone is doing that, but what Israel has is somehow working. Somehow they're seen to be the stabilizing force in the region. To deny that in the interest of peace is just too much, even for the "liberal" media.
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Thanks for your insightful and erudite blog. Thanks, too, for linking to our website - www.christianzionism.org. Appreciate the support.
Your comment about the NPR interview with former president Carter was right on - that on this question the entire media is in the "don't ask questions about Israeli policy" camp. And not only the media. There is a long history of unquestioning support for Israeli policy among the left in America. One reason I will have trouble voting for Hilary Clinton is because on this issue she and Pat
Robertson are pretty much in agreement. The only difference is that Clinton has no theology to back her up. But policy wise she stands with the Christian right.
J Hubers
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