Jimmy Carter: Bad President, Bad Man

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It is, of course undeniable that Jimmy Carter is a legend. Few Presidents have failed so monumentally as he. He brought us the first of the modern Islamofascist regimes when he ushered in the Ayotollah Khomeini in Iran. He devestated the American economy with faux oil shortages, he made accusations of American malaise (when the only malaise the American people felt was caused by his being in office), he brought 12% rate of inflation, 20% interest rates, a hostage crisis and on and on and on.

His post-Presidency has been equally illustrious and author Steven F. Hayward documented all the damage Carter has done both during and after his term in office in "The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry"

When it comes to the belligerence of North Korea, Carter's past involvement has done considerable damage. In the early 1990s, Carter traveled to North Korea on another of his "peacekeeping missions" and brokered a deal with dictator Kim Il Sung. He did so without the blessing of the Clinton administration, although, at the behest of then-Vice President Al Gore, President Clinton later agreed to adopt Carter's deal. The United States ended up providing aid, oil and, incredibly, material for building light-water nuclear reactors to the North Koreans in exchange for their abandoning their nuclear weapons program. The problem is they didn't abandon their nuclear weapons program; they just said they did. And in 2002, they admitted as much. Still, to this day, Carter claims that his approach was a success and that it was President Bush's inclusion of North Korea in the famous "axis of evil" speech that led to current leader Kim Jong Il's hostility toward America.

The fruits of Carter's history with Iran are even more rotten. Carter's abandonment of the shah in 1977-78 helped lead to the Islamic revolution (and the murder or imprisonment of many of the Iranian leftists who had supported overthrowing the shah), the emboldening of the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan and the rise of radical Islam worldwide. His botched approach to the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 inspired Islamic terrorists all over the world, culminating in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The threat of nuclear war emanating from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can be seen as another offshoot of Carter's ineffective policies. Predictably, Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski, his former national security adviser, are now pushing for "direct talks" with Iran. But considering the abject failure of U.N.-brokered negotiations (supported by the Bush administration) thus far, it is difficult to imagine how U.S.-led negotiations would fare any better.

Wherever U.S. interests have been imperiled and a temporary "peace" could be bought at the expense of long-term security, Carter has always been on board. The late Democratic Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan summed it up when he said of Carter in 1980, "Unable to distinguish between our friends and our enemies, he has essentially adopted our enemies' view of the world."

Not satisfied with this level of disgraceful behavior Carter has pushed on to new heights of awfulness. His anti-semitism, which hitherto managed to elude most of the mainstream media during his Presidency (His Secretary of State once famously said that if Carter had had a second term, he would have "sold Israel down the river." ) has lately taken center stage. His recent book, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid raised such a furor with what many considered to be its blatant anti-Semitism that fourteen members of his own Carter Center resigned in protest.

So it is not surprising that today this news comes:

JERUSALEM – The Hamas terrorist organization has confirmed to WND plans are in the works for former President Jimmy Carter to meet the chief of Hamas on a trip this month to Syria.

Sources in the Gaza Strip office of Ismail Haniyeh, the deposed prime minister of the Hamas-led Palestinian government, confirmed Hamas is in talks with Carter's representatives about setting up a meeting during his trip, scheduled for later this month.

The Hamas sources said no concrete date has been set but that Carter has expressed interest in meeting Hamas chieftain Khaled Meshaal, who resides in Syria.

In a statement to Fox News today, Carter's press secretary, Deanna Congileo, did not deny the former president was slated to meet Meshaal.

"President Carter is planning a trip to the Mideast next week; however, we are still confirming details of the trip and will issue a press release by the end of this week," Congileo said. "I cannot confirm any specific meetings at this point in time."

Earlier, Ahmed Yousuf, Hamas' top political adviser in the Gaza Strip, claimed to WND he wasn't aware of any Carter-Meshaal meeting.

"I don't know anything about any such meeting," said Yousuf, who advises Haniyeh.

Israeli security officials say Meshaal is responsible for coordinating all elements of Hamas and for calling for many of its major terror attacks.

Hamas is listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization. The group is responsible for scores of deadly suicide bombings, and thousands of shooting attacks and rocket firings against civilian population centers.

Just today, Hamas-allied gunmen took part in the deadly shooting of two Israeli civilians near the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

FoxNews.com quoted a State Department spokesman in Washington stating the U.S. government is concerned about Carter's unsanctioned trip to Syria, which the Bush administration has been trying to isolate.

"The State Department has expressed our concerns and advised President Carter that past engagement with the Syrian regime has not produced positive results," the spokesman said.

If the meeting with Hamas takes place, Carter would be the highest-level American to meet with Hamas.

The evidence is in. The jury is back. The verdict is certain: Jimmy Carter wasn't just a bad President. He's a bad man.