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Jimmy Carter, the Nobel Prize and Pixie Dust
By Doug Patton
December 11, 2002

It is a testimony to the mettle of the Republic that it can, from time to time, suffer fools at its helm. It has endured the drunkenness of a Ulysses S. Grant, the socialism of a Franklin D. Roosevelt, the constitutional violations of a Richard Nixon and the alley-cat morality of a Warren G. Harding, a John F. Kennedy and a Bill Clinton.

We have managed to survive even the naivete of Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer who proved "The Peter Principle" by rising to his level of incompetence and remaining there from 1977 to 1981.

His post-White House years began well. Seeing him build those Habitat for Humanity houses was certainly preferable to watching him embarrass himself repeatedly as president ("I asked Amy what she thought of nuclear proliferation...").

But then Carter decided to create his own little unofficial State Department, setting off on private foreign policy missions, meeting with foreign ministers, dictators and potentates. His efforts rarely accomplished much. In fact, more often than not, he simply got in the way.

Jimmy's meddling mattered very little during the nineties, since he could hardly do much damage to the disjointed foreign policy of the Clinton-Albright State Department; but now that the United States actually has a coherent foreign policy again, Carter's meddling has become more than simply an annoyance. It has become fodder for the rhetoric of America's enemies.

As Carter landed in Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, he opined on how Saddam Hussein is cooperating with U.N. inspectors.

"I think that if Iraq does continue to comply completely then I see no reason for the war and I think it's a good step forward," he said with a straight face.

Yeah, Jimmy, and maybe the deserts of Iraq are made of pixie dust.

Is it just me, or is there a surreal sort of sense that the emperor has on nary a stitch? How many times does the butcher of Baghdad have to prove his willingness to lie, cheat, steal and slaughter anyone who gets in his way? How many of his own people does he need to murder? How many times must he undermine the stability of the Middle East by funding and supplying terrorists intent on destroying Israel and the United States?

But Jimmy Carter - who is starting to look like Neville Chamberlain with a toothy grin - believes Saddam is cooperating. Isn't that nice?

Carter's globetrotting on behalf of feel-good diplomacy has endeared him to the national media and to the Nobel committee, which just presented him with a check for a cool one million dollars and declared him one of the wisest peacemakers of our time. Of course, to the Nobel Committee, awarding the Peace Prize to Jimmy Carter was meant as a deliberate slap in the face of the Bush Administration.

Carter will take his accolades and his million and jet off to some other troubled part of the world to meet with the enemies of America, while the real president deals with the problem of a deceitful madman who just might set off World War III.

Saddam Hussein now says he is sorry for his rude little incursion into Kuwait in 1990. I'm sure our 39th president believes that one, too.