Time was, I wrote a lot about Jimmy Carter, usually despairingly. And then I kind of swore off him — I did this in an announcement to Impromptus readers. I mean, you can only despair over a guy so many times. But every now and then I dip back into Carterville — and I will do so again, because he has picked up an award in the Palestinian Authority (natch).
Carter made a deeply, deeply revealing statement: “I have been in love with the Palestinian people for many years.” (For a news story, go here.) Yes, he has: He has been in love. This is an emotional and ideological love. And he apparently feels something like the opposite for those on the other side of this conflict.
I would have said that Jimmy Carter was “in love” with the Palestinians, adopting all of their prejudices, beliefs, and stances. But now our 39th president has said so for himself. Amazing.
Do you remember back when right-wingers used to joke, “If a liberal Democrat is elected president, and commander-in-chief, we’ll be reading terrorists their Miranda rights”? Do you remember that? It was funny, wasn’t it?
I quote to you from the beginning of an
AP article: “Vice President Joe Biden said Sunday that ‘everyone guessed wrong’ on the impact of the economic stimulus . . .” Um, that wouldn’t be “everyone,” would it? (Perhaps everyone Vice President Biden knows, consults, or respects.)
By now, you’ve read what our director of central intelligence said about Dick Cheney: “It’s almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that’s dangerous politics.”
If a conservative Republican said that a liberal Democrat were “almost . . . wishing that this country would be attacked again,” he would be drummed out of public life, as the worst kind of McCarthyite. He would be beyond the pale. At least, I suspect that would be the case.
Almost every day, the Obama administration has attacked the previous administration for its national-security policies (and other policies). Almost alone, Dick Cheney has responded. And I can’t see where he is wrong to do so. Furthermore, he is criticizing Obama national-security policies, saying that they are dangerous for the country.
And now Panetta is saying that criticisms themselves are dangerous.
What Panetta is doing, perhaps, is declaring illegitimate any criticism of the administration where national security is concerned. And Americans of all views should reject that. People criticized Bush every day, often vitriolically, as was their right. Cheney is speaking out from deep knowledge and experience. Besides, dissent is the highest form of patriotism. Didn’t we used to hear that?
I acknowledge: I like Panetta better when he is using his position to undermine Nancy Pelosi!
Readers have asked me to comment on the State Department couple who spied for Castro’s Cuba for 30 years. I will, briefly. Let us be clear what they were doing: aiding a regime that denies people their fundamental rights and liberties; that imprisons people for dissent; that tortures them while they are in prison; that kills people who try to flee the island; that will allow no political pluralism; that squashes the very souls of people, like any other totalitarian state. We say that this couple “betrayed their country.” Sure. But they also betrayed Cubans and humanity at large.
Here is some good news — Dr. Hilda Molina has been allowed to leave the island. To leave Cuba. She is a heroic woman. I have written about her before, including in
this article, two years ago. (“The Myth of Cuban Health Care: Michael Moore gives it a powerful boost.”) I said,
Hilda Molina Morejón is another doctor-dissident — a stunning case. She was the country’s chief neurosurgeon, the founder of the International Center for Neurological Restoration. She was also a deputy in the National Assembly. In the early 1990s, however, the regime informed her that the neurological center would start concentrating on foreigners, who would bring their hard currency. She objected, resigning her positions and returning the medals that Castro had awarded her. Then came actos de repudio and all the rest of it (but not prison). [Actos de repudio are when the dictatorship sends goons to your house, and to those of your relatives and friends.] She has been forbidden to leave the island, and is banned from practicing medicine. She manages, despite the circumstances, to speak out.
Now she is in Argentina, and she made the following statement: “I have inside a wound that will never heal. I say to Mr. Fidel Castro, who has been the scourge of my family, may he have all the peace in the world. May he choose the path that the country needs. I don’t need to forgive him for anything.” (For the news article, go here.)
Yes, a heroic woman.
I thought the Netanyahu speech did everything it should — including answer President Obama on the question of Israel, and why it was founded. Obama said, or implied: the Holocaust. This is what Israel’s Arab (and Iranian, and Turkish) enemies say: Israel was established because of the Holocaust, and why should Middle Easterners have to pay for the crimes of Europeans? Indeed, in much of his speech, Obama adopted much of the “Muslim-grievance narrative,” as others have said better than I could.
Anyway, Netanyahu gave Obama some instruction that perhaps he missed from Rashid Khalidi. Good.
Let me make a point I’ve made since 2003: Iraqi political leaders are much criticized, and much maligned; but they risk a lot, when they agree to serve. I thought of this yet again when reading, “Harith al-Obeidi, leader of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, and his bodyguard were shot dead Friday as they left a Baghdad mosque after prayers.” (For the article, go here.) They were murdered by a Qaedist, it seems. Iraqi politicians no doubt screw up a lot. But they risk a lot, too. I wonder if you and I would sign up, if we were Iraqi . . .
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