or a stalking horse?
It is possible that Carter is a senile fool doddering into anti-semitic fantasies of the blameless peace-loving Palestinians victimized by heartless Israelis. But it ain't likely. It is possible, if one were sufficiently suspicious, to imagine Carter's book as a trial balloon and Carter a stalking horse. Is it possible that the Democrats are testing the waters to see if they can get away with running against Israel in 2008 for lack of any other foreign policy plank whatsoever?
By 2008 US troops will likely be out of Iraq. The Iraqi militias will have given up any pretense that their objective is anything other than mutual slaughter and partition. Power in Baghdad will be either in the hands of anti-US pro-Iranian Shi'ite government or of a virulently anti-US Sunni jihadi one. The Democrats will have set themselves up for taking the blame for the consequences of the withdrawal in the November election. The Republicans will be shameless and aggressive in holding the Democrats and not themselves accountable for the defeat. "Who Lost Iraq?" they will ask. I think the Democrats see this coming.
The way to energize their own leftist base and to blame someone else for the Middle East is to blame Israel. Historically this has been a loser because the facts just aren't there to support the position, but politics has its own facts. The facts are that the left, the Muslims, and the African-Americans viscerally dislike Israel and that Arab money can be had in large amounts in support of an anti-Israel position.
So Jimmy is out there venting his own cracker antisemitism, but he may also be testing the waters to see if Europeanization of the Democratic Party's foreign policy can help them in 2008.
Jimmy Carter reminds me of Willie Mays when he was playing for the Mets in his final year. His legs were gone, he couldn't come around on a fast ball, but he was Willie Mays. You had to respect him. They put him in the final game of the world series as a pinch runner on first to give him one last ovation from the crowd. He promptly got pick off, fruitlessly diving back. The last thing he did was pick himself up off the dirt and walk back to the dugout with the whole world feeling sorry for him.
ReplyDeleteWillie was an athlete that lost it. Carter was an intellectual that lost it. Sad.