Jimmy Carter Develops Amnesia

Buried in an article primarily about former President Jimmy Carter publishing a study bible was one of the more naive and untrue statements I have ever read in my life. I consider Carter to be a decent and well-intentioned man. He is among the more popular ex-Presidents this nation has ever had. But he's simply flat out wrong on this one. Claiming that politics needs to be cleaned up, Carter said the following:

In a phone interview from his home in Plains, he said politics is one area in need of redemption, bemoaning the influx of vitriol and money into politics.

“I always referred to incumbent President Gerald Ford as ‘my distinguished opponent’ and that’s the way he referred to me. When I later ran against Gov. [Ronald] Reagan, it was the same thing, ‘my distinguished opponent,’” Carter said of his runs for president.

Now let me first say that Carter is unquestionably correct regarding the money necessary to run for President. The entire 1976 campaign cost a little less than $67 million for BOTH candidates. Obama raised more than twice that amount in September 2008. No study has ever been done showing how raising money translates into Presidential competence, but there's no need to waste money to find that one out: it doesn't. George W. Bush raised over $100 million a year out, and nobody seriously suggests that Bush is one of the all-time great Presidents.

But it's his second claim about what he said about Ford and Reagan - and others in his Presidential campaigns - that has me shaking my head in disbelief. The following Carter attacks on people are from the standard book of the 1976 election, Marathon, by Jules Witcover. I did include all of the attacks Carter made and remember - this is just ONE source.

In the 1970 Georgia governor’s race, Carter “posed as friendly to segregationists George Wallace and Lester Maddox during his campaign and even identified himself as ‘basically a redneck.’” (Jules Witcover, Marathon, 106).

You’re going to find an incredibly common theme in Carter’s tactics as we progress.

“I don’t believe that the nation appreciates personal animosities and attacks among candidates hoping to be President of the American people…won’t hurt me, but I’m afraid it might hurt the country…One of the things that concerns the people…is the bickering, squabbling, hatred, and animosities, and blame handed back and forth in our great nation’s capital in Washington. This is not good for our country. I want to be the next President of this country. I expect to be the next President. But that doesn’t mean that I have to take my political success from personal hatred [and] attacks on the character or ability of my opponents…[The people] have got enough judgment, enough common sense, and know me well enough so that these attacks will hurt the ones who make the attacks.” (Carter at Faneuil Hall in Boston, Massachusetts, February 28, 1976, per Witcover, 247).

(This will become ironic in the next quote).

“At a press conference in Orlando (note: 4 March 1976), Carter said in effect that he had lost to Jackson in Massachusetts because Jackson had run a racist campaign. Asked why he had not spoken out against busing there, he said: ‘I’m not in favor of mandatory busing, but to run my campaign on an antibusing issue is contrary to my basic nature. If I have to win by appealing to a basically negative, emotional issue which has connotations of racism, I don’t intend to do it, myself. I don’t want to win that kind of race.’ He didn’t want his remarks interpreted as accusing Jackson of being a racist. ‘I didn’t say Senator Jackson was a racist,’ he insisted. ‘I didn’t say he wasn’t, but I don’t think he is a racist. He exploited an issue that has racist connotations.’” (Witcover, 257).

“Some of us were uneasy about the stridency of Jimmy’s attack on Jackson, but we didn’t question that there should be an attack.” (Carter advisor Greg Schneiders just prior to the 1976 Florida primary, Witcover, 259).

But it wasn’t just active opponents. Carter didn’t hesitate to label people in his own party who would not endorse him – and then he would hypocritically suggest that those he attacked wanted something in exchange for support. For example, heading into the Pennsylvania primary, Carter tore into Philadelphia Mayor Frank Rizzo:

“He (Carter) labeled Rizzo a ‘machine politician’ and ‘boss’ (compared to Pittsburgh Mayor Peter Flaherty, a Carter supporter, who was a ‘leader’) and said at one point, ‘I can’t imagine Rizzo endorsing anyone without some sort of trade or arrangement.’” (Witcover, 300).

Now – remember what Carter just said about Rizzzo and prepare to be astonished at Jimmy’s chutzpah. The Carter team brought aboard Ted Kennedy speechwriter and unabashed liberal Bob Shrum to help make Carter more liberal. Remember Carter attacking Rizzo in the previous quote? After leaving the campaign Shrum relayed an incident that happened prior to the vote:

“He prepared a statement for Carter on mine health and safety that included support of legislation making miners automatically eligible for black-lung benefits after thirty years, a bill strongly backed by the United Mine Workers. Carter rejected the statement and that night on the plane, according to Shrum, told him, ‘I couldn’t endorse these things….They are too controversial and expensive. It would offend the operators. And why should I do this for Arnold Miller [president of the UMW] if he won’t come and endorse me?” (Witcover, 322).

Remember Carter’s constant invoking of the race card already documented? After this tactic, Carter went back to the familiar terrain of race. Detroit Mayor Coleman Young endorsed Carter and attacked Arizona Representative Morris Udall. Udall was a Mormon, and in 1976 the Mormon Church still refused to admit blacks. Udall was so disheartened over this that he had left the Mormon Church many years earlier. Carter, on the other hand, attended a church in Plains, Georgia that had a written policy forbidding the acceptance of black members. Note the irony: Udall left his religion because of racism, Carter opposed the resolution but remained in his church that practiced discrimination. But Coleman Young then dropped the bomb. Gathered before a large crowd of black Baptist ministers, Young said:

“I’m asking you to make a choice between a man from Georgia who fights to let you in his church, and a man from Arizona whose church won’t even let you in the back door.”

Angry at this attack, Udall called on Carter to repudiate Young. Carter not only refused he then claimed that he “would consider it…only if Udall would ‘apologize for all the misleading statements he has made against me.’” (Witcover, 338). Carter then alleged that Udall had made a religious attack on him in New Hampshire, an event that not a single reporter ever remembered happening. When Carter advisor Jody Powell was asked about it, he lamely said that Udall hadn’t said anything but some of Udall’s campaign workers had. (Ibid, 338).

Remember Carter saying he referred to his opponent as “esteemed and worthy?” Well listen to what he had to say about former two-term Governor Ronald Reagan as well as the President of the United States just prior to the 1976 Republican Convention:

“We’ve seen an almost unbelievable spectacle in Washington,” he said, “the President of the United States deeply concerned about an ex-movie actor, traveling all over the nation to get a handful of delegates here, a handful of delegates there, [while] neglecting the basic responsibilities of leadership.” (Jimmy Carter, August 1976, according to Witcover, 523).

One of the more sensitive areas for Reagan was attacks on his movie career. Carter conveniently ignored in this missive the fact that Reagan had been governor of his own state for twice as long as Carter was governor of Georgia, and his record was far more esteemed nationally.

And then Carter made yet another dogmatic statement (re: lie) that would take on a cruel irony the next time he ran for President. In 1975, President Ford had imposed a grain embargo towards the Soviet Union. This tactic hurt Ford in states heavily dependent upon agriculture like Iowa. So Carter went to Des Moines and declared that if he was elected, he would “stop grain embargoes once and for all.” (Witcover, 526). Yet then in an interview with The Des Moines Register, Carter admitted that in event of a national emergency or unforeseen circumstance, he would be willing to use an embargo. Bob Dole jumped on him and accused him of flip-flopping on issues.

Carter then went West and made another colossal mistake. He took a swipe at former Texas Governor John Connally by saying that “only George Wallace” ranked lower in the polls as untrustworthy (Witcover, 526). Carter then had to apologize to Wallace’s supporters – the very same people he had been co-opted to win Florida in the spring.

Carter then made another mistake by attacking the Republican Party in some rather juvenile terms. FBI Director Clarence Kelley had received some illegal carpentry work totaling $335 at taxpayer expense. Ford learned of it and simply told Kelley to pay for it out of pocket. Kelley would not have to resign. Carter, however, took out after Kelley and pulling the old “I’m not saying, but…” routine, Carter said that while he didn’t blame the Republicans for all the increase in the crime rate, “there’s been a great contribution to the crime rate in this country because of Watergate, because of the CIA revelations, and because of the disgraceful actions in the FBI.” (Witcover, 547).

Amazingly enough, Carter got even worse later that day in Philadelphia (home of “machine politician” and “boss” Frank Rizzo - who now was solidly in Carter's corner): “When people throughout the country, particularly young people, see Richard Nixon cheating, lying, and leaving the highest office in disgrace, when they see the previous Attorney General violating the law and admitting it, when you see the head of the FBI break a little law and stay there, it gives everybody the sense that crime must be okay. If the big shots in Washington can get away with it, well, so can I.” (Witcover, 548).

The defining moment of the 1976 Presidential campaign occurred when Gerald Ford declared that Poland was not under Soviet domination. Given that he trailed by 33 points in August and lost by less than 10,000 votes (if rightly proportioned), Ford’s mistake could be said to cost him the election. Carter continued boring in on Ford over the mistake – to the point he pressed too hard. In 1967, Michigan Governor George Romney (father of Mitt) had imploded after telling a reporter he had been “brainwashed” by generals in Vietnam. That word has become code for “stupid” in political discussions. So what did Carter do? Given the opening on Eastern Europe, Carter tore into Ford by saying:

“Apparently when Mr. Ford went to Poland as happened to Mr. Romney last time, he was brainwashed.” (Jimmy Carter in Albuquerque, New Mexico, October 13, 1976, per Witcover, 604).

The next comment came not from Carter but from his running mate, Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota. Now remember – Carter is alleging politics was a whole lot cleaner back in his day. As we have seen, that is nowhere close to being true. So during the Vice-Presidential debate between Mondale and Kansas Senator Bob Dole, Mondale said:

“I think that Senator Dole has richly earned his reputationas a hatchet man tonight.”

Note that Mondale (unlike Carter) was willing to basically say, “Bob Dole is a hatchet man.”

And by the way….guess who Carter hired in October 1976 to do his commercials? It was Tony Schwarz “a New York advertising expert known for negative advertising (the famous little girl-with-a-daisy anti-Goldwater ad in 1964).” (Witcover, 617).

Now ask yourself a question – why would a guy not running a negative campaign need an expert in negative campaigning? Only one was used, but why hire a man whose entire reputation is based on negativism?

I will have more about Jimmy Carter's instinct for gut punching. Make no mistake - Carter is still well thought of and respected for his morality as President. But Jimmy Carter was every bit the hard-hitting politician who attacked his opponents as anyone else who ever ran for office. There is not some "good old days" when everybody held hands and sang, "Kum Ba Ya."

Newt Gingrich Complains About The BCS....(Not Really)

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Don't you just love when somebody reminds you that you're dumb for not thinking they're as smart as they think they are? (Did you get all that?). Also, don't you just love people who get into games with twisted rules and then complain about it despite the fact they knew those rules when they got into it? You know, like all those people whining about Alabama in the BCS title game.


"We are at the edge of such extraordinary opportunities and it is so hard to get this party to understand it,” the former House speaker told more than 500 Republicans assembled in a ballroom here for the Northwest Suburban Republican Lincoln Day Dinner. “We’re at the edge of extraordinary opportunities. We can provide for the American people such a dramatically better future that it’s almost unimaginable.”

Newt is so fat that he now refers to himself as "we."

“And our political system is so methodically and deliberately stupid – and I use that word deliberately, the willful avoidance of knowledge -- that it’s astonishing,” he added.

Our political system is stupid. It allows a neophyte without a day's experience to get elected President, permits someone to run for the office solely because her husband once had the job or because she's a pretty hot looking chick for an Alaska governor...and it allows a dumb bell who once shut down the government over his seating arrangement and hasn't held office in 14 years to be "one of the frontrunners" for a nomination.

The political system is stupid. Then again, so are many of the people who win (or lose) offices within that system.

Mississippi, Muslims, and the Morons In The Media (Obama Poll)

Just before hitting the hay last night, my I phone popped up a site that made me none too happy. Seems folks in Mississippi are stupid. As an alleged victim of a Mississippi public school education at both high school and college levels, I have quite a bit to say about that. Read on.

The mainstream media is having a good time with a poll that demonstrates quite simply that polls are not for people who use their brains. Several sources are beside themselves with glee in reporting this "fact." They include:

Hispanic Business

The LA Times

The San Franciso Chronicle

These results were also passed on by that bastion of impartiality, Ed Schultz, who then proceeded to (get ready for it) blame the entire thing on Sarah Palin.

Now a few points are in order here. First, as MSNBC's Chuck Todd has stated, the very polling methodology used to determine these results was so fatally flawed as to be useless. Note what Todd said:

Well, there's a couple of things. One, it's an automatic – it's a robo-survey, so you get an auto phone call and you press a button to answer the question, one if he's a Christian, two if he's a Muslim. But you introduce it – the way the question was asked, I think it just was designed to get a higher number. Because there are some Republicans who may not believe the President – who may believe the President is a – may not believe he's a Muslim, but like saying it because it's a way to attack him. It's sort of a way to needle him.

So, I think this question was designed to get a higher percentage in the answer than maybe what's actually true. And it's certainly created a buzz among liberals who are trying to create a stereotype among base conservative voters
So in other words, we now have a political guy at NBC News directly contradicting the results of a poll his own network (or its sibling anyway) published and used to bash an entire state. But given the polling methodology, I have what I think ought to be another obvious question: if this is all robo-call then please tell me how in the world you know you were ONLY calling REPUBLICANS? Hmm? How would you know that? Let me answer that for you - YOU DON'T!!! Not only that but having lived there I know that there are MANY Mississippians who are still registered Democrats because at the local level that is still the dominant party. Many of these would fit more on the Rick Santorum side of the aisle than the Barack Obama one. Yet this is touted as some big find. However, it was Joe Garofoli's snide comments that I'm going to address. Let's deal simply with his opening spin:

As you prepare to review the results Tuesday from the Mississippi and Alabama primaries, keep this stat in mind: More than half of the Republican voters in Mississippi think President Obama is a Muslim. Feel free to go ahead and start filling up the comments queue now, Birther Nation, if you’ve read this far. If you haven’t, we repeat that no, Obama is not Muslim, say numerous nonpartisan fact-checkers.

Now let's go over this with a fine tooth comb. First of all, we already noted that the polling data was obtained by robo-calling and is consquently useless. However, let's consider Garofoli's second claim - "no, Obama is not a Muslim." Let me ask what any good Magnolia State resident would in a common sense discussion of this issue - "How would you know?" Now let's do a simple "reasoning through what we do know" scenario and see what you conclude:

EVIDENCE OBAMA IS A CHRISTIAN
1) He says so.
2) He had Osama Bin Laden killed.

EVIDENCE OBAMA MIGHT NOT BE A CHRISTIAN
1) His position on homosexuality (most certainly) is at odds with his Bible.
2) His position on abortion (almost certainly) is at odds with his Bible.
3) He didn't develop a very charitable heart until after he suddenly decided he
wanted to be President. (In 2004 - before he became a Senator, Obama made over
$240,000 and gave a whopping $1500 to charity)
4) He attends a church of a pastor who hates this nation yet somehow wasn't there
often enough to hear this same pastor bashing the nation.
5) While running for President in San Francisco in 2008, he bashed small-town America
as "clinging" to "guns and religion," a suggestion that maybe his own "religion" is not
all it's cracked up to be.
6) He once said his individual salvation depends upon the "collective salvation" of his people - a view at strong variance with orthdox Christianity, which sees NT salvation as an individual responsibility by FAITH as opposed to by WORKS.
7) He had Osama Bin Laden killed.

EVIDENCE OBAMA MIGHT POSSIBLY BE A MUSLIM
1) He has a Muslim name
2) He spent several years growing up in Indonesia (not Kenya, Governor Huckabee),
a nation that is overwhelmingly Muslim
3) He has no problem with an Islamic mosque in the shadow of Ground Zero
4) He has called for a return of Israel to pre-1967 borders
5) His response to burning the Koran in Afghanistan is to apologize for it - a defensible political act to be sure, but not something we suspect he would do if it was the New Testament.

Now take a look at the reasons listed above and then tell me how anyone anywhere would be WRONG to at least suspect he might NOT be a Christian. The ONLY evidence is he says so. Then again Newt Gingrich says he's a devout Catholic, and I'd be willing to bet you that if you interviewed most Catholics (except Santorum, who I'm sure would bite his lip) they would disagree that a man married three times is very devout at all. And by the way - most of those same Mississippians consider Mormonism a cult, too.

And note that this is NOT merely a Mississippi thing. I would hope anyone who went to any school anywhere has developed his thinking enough to ask critical questions such as those. People then make deductions based upon what they do know. The most humble answer is to say, "I don't know" if one truly does not know. But people are also suspicious for one reason - Barack Obama is a politician. Politicians - even the better ones - lie all the time.

Unfortunately, a media that has people who have never set foot in the state (the notable exception being Ole Miss graduate Shepherd Smith of Fox News) have once again opted to blame a state for something that proves only that the method of questioning is flawed. Maybe if some of these folks quit looking down their noses and set aside their own assumptions of reality for a moment they would learn something. In fact, I'm going to use my Mississippi public education to give a lesson in flawed logic by Mr. Garofoli right now. It concerns his comment at the end of his article:

For a little perspective, the “Obama’s a Muslim”-believing quotient in Mississippi is more than twice as high as it is nationally according to a 2010 Pew poll.

OK, now let's talk about all that's wrong here.

1) You cannot compare a 2010 poll with a 2012 poll in something as volatile and rapidly changing as politics. The 2010 poll does not have the public's response to either the killing of Bin Laden, Obama's call for pre-1967 borders, or his apology to the Muslims just last week.

2) Unless both of these polls used the SAME methodology, comparison between them is utterly meaningless. But the most colossal flop of all is next.

3) Garofoli apparently is not smart enough with his (whever he got it) education to know that his comparison is a classic apples vs oranges comparison. In the current poll, he cites 52% of Republicans in Mississippi think Obama is a Muslim. Then he cites the 2010 poll and says that this is twice as high as nationally. But the problem is twofold: 1) his numbers are wrong because he cites the number of ALL Americans versus the number of REPUBLICAN respondents (I'm simply assuming they were all Republicans for the sake of argument); and 2) the 52% of Republicans in Mississippi who think he's a Muslim is NOT more than twice 34% of the national Republicans - unless, of course, Garofoli works for budget deficit reduction in the current administration.

I hope someone forwards this to Mr Garofoli, and I also hope he comments. After all, it must feel realy bad to be more stupid that someone (or several someones) who was the "victim" of a Mississippi public school education. This transplant "near" Mississippian will tell you two things: 1) the guy cannot do basic math; and 2) he can't reason very well, either.

Newt Gingrich - Combat Or Not Combat?

Newt Gingrich, a thrice-married champion of family values who was fooling around with his current wife while married to his prior one, has decided to whack former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum regarding combat. What makes this amusing are that while Gingrich boasts of his upbringing as an "Army brat," he never spent a day in the military and - in fact - received student deferments from the Vietnam War. But when it comes to the current Army he's too old to serve in , Gingrich has some pretty strong words for Santorum:

“The fact is, if you're serving in uniform in Iraq or Afghanistan, or any place in modern warfare, you are in combat. Whatever your technical assignment, whether you’re a truck driver or you’re working with logistics or a military police person, you’re in combat,” Gingrich said after touring the World Ag Expo. “And I think that Rick completely misunderstands the nature of modern warfare by his comments.”

Sounds good, right? Newt is taking up for the women here. Oops, unfortunately, he's not exactly got all that good a memory, either. In 1995, Gingrich said the following:

 While teaching a history class at Reinhardt College in Georgia in early January, Gingrich explained why women are unfit for combat duty, saying: “If combat means being in a ditch, females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections, and they don’t have upper body strength.” Men, on the other hand, “are basically little piglets; you drop them in the ditch, they roll around in it.”

Gas Price Hypocrisy - Michigan Governor Exhibit

CNN reports our fearless leader is having problems:

Gas prices are up, and the president's poll numbers are down.
Way down.
A full 50% of Americans now strongly disapprove of how President Obama is handling the economy, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. That's the highest level of his presidency, and a 9-point jump from the previous month. Another 9% of Americans somewhat disapprove, while only 38% say they approve.
It would appear that rising gas prices are at least partly to blame.
Only 26% approve of how Obama is handling gas prices, while almost two-thirds disapprove -- and 52% say their disapproval is strong. Almost 90% of respondents say they are concerned about rising prices, while 63% say paying more for gas has caused financial hardship. Almost one in two think prices will go up -- and stay there.

Apparently, CNN didn't get the memo because just two weeks ago we have former Clinton advisor George Stephanopolous (Democrat) telling us former Michigan Democratic Governor Granholm telling us this:

As gas prices rise to record levels for this time of the year, former Democratic Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said it is “totally ridiculous” to blame President Obama for the spike.
“I think blaming the president for high gas prices is like blaming Rudy Giuliani for 9/11,” Granholm said today on the “This Week” roundtable. “It’s totally ridiculous.”

Unfortunately, Jennifer Granholm doesn't have a good enough memory to be a very good liar. After all, when George W. Bush was President, Governor Granholm had NO PROBLEM blaming Bush for high gas prices - doing it not once, not twice, but THREE separate times!!! (Oops - actually four).

In 2006, she wrote:
“Michigan drivers may soon be paying an average of $3 or more for a gallon of gas, and it’s time for President Bush and the leadership in Washington to start protecting us from the skyrocketing cost of gasoline,” Granholm said. “It's just not right that oil companies should be allowed to hold customers hostage to outrageously expensive gas while they rake in billions of dollars in record-setting profits.

“If you agree with me that we need relief at the pump now, please join me in signing an online petition calling on the President to cap excessive gasoline profits,” Granholm said.

Granholm noted that oil prices have increased 240 percent since President Bush’s inauguration in January 2001, and the average price for unleaded gasoline is 64 cents higher than this time last year.

Later in 2006, she wrote:
.
“Two years after you assured Americans that a federal energy bill would help lower gas prices, oil companies are making record profits while consumers are emptying their wallets at the pump,” Granholm wrote in a letter to the White House. “Even worse, despite oil companies’ rhetoric that they are reinvesting profits to improve supply, we now know that at least one company has put off critical pipeline maintenance, leaving our economy even more dependent on unstable foreign governments.”
One year after urging the passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the president’s energy policies have failed to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and have failed to relieve consumers from record high gas prices.

Apparently, Grahnolm believes a President can do something overnight about gas prices - except, of course, when that President is a Democrat.

That's Not What They Were Saying Before!!

The purpose of this blog is to expose nonsense wherever it occurs. Enter at your own risk.