Ok, did anyone else just see Jimmy Carter on Jay Leno? His new book sounds amazing. Because I'm lazy, here's what I told Andrew about it via IM:
Me: jimmy carter was just on jay leno. amazing. don't agree on his anti- roe v wade stance, but he's very acutely written a book about how most the values america supposedly espouses have been chipped away at over the last few years
Andrew (clearly distracted in his search for a tortoise-sitter): yeah i bet he's a pretty smart guy
Me: it was great, to hear a prominent politician just come out and say all the things I've been bitching about
Andrew (getting up to speed): i've been listening to NPR here whenever i'm in the car, and they're so liberal it's funny
Me: well carter is fairly moderate, doesn't take much to lean toward liberal these days, as the right is SO far right
Andrew: today they were talking about the media and how stupid it is that they hold back big stories if it's like right before election time (like some investigation about going to iraq)
Andrew: yeah you're right
Me: carter went ahead and said that he believes before "the supreme court said bush was president," high ups in the party had already decided to go to war against iraq
Me: that they were looking for an excuse, and that the evidence was at best false, and at worst concocted explicitly
Andrew (vaguely): wow
Me: that's pretty strong coming from an ex president
Andrew (he's totally done with listening to me on politics, as you can see): well i think i'm gonna have tea and read some hw reading
FIN
Just had to share -- now it's time for the Eurythmics (very old school tonight on Jay Leno)
2 comments:
Eh, actually Carter is really liberal. It is a shame the way he shows no respect to the president of the United States, especially in foreign countries. And in actuality, he would have no idea whether or not the administration had planned the war before Bush became president, seeing as he had nothing to do with them. Carter's presidency was one of the worst this country saw. Talk about double digit inflation, staggering unemployment, Iranian hostages...yup, Jimmy Carter should keep his mouth shut.
I wouldn't call Carter incredibly liberal, he's anti-abortion and actually tried to limit it as much as possible while he was president. He just believed in social programs like WIC to help women feel financially able to bring those pregnancies to term, rather than outright outlawing it. And he is also quite openly religious, which I think many more extreme liberals shy away from. He just believes in a strict separation of church and state. Also, as he defended his presidency on the show (although both he and Leno spoke of his being a better ex-president than president), he pointed out that it was a term of peace time. And I really don't think anyone should have to 'keep their mouth shut' just because they disagree with the politics that are chipping away at many social programs and environmental protection laws. Not to mention getting this country into a war that we now see was completely unfounded. As Carter was pointing out, this war is what is a shame (and these are his ideas, not mine): we had global support after 9/11 for a war on terror, but now w/ Iraq the administration has set up a precedent that allows the US to invade a country just because we don't like its leader.
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