the Carter thing is weird. I had not heard of it until I read your blog.

I can't imagine what got into him. What does he have to lose? Seems to me he could spit on Bush at this point and no-one would say boo with any meaningful effect.

I suspect the right-wing pro-israel constituents weakened his resolution with their all-out war on his most recent book. That'd be enough to give anyone pause.

Truth is, when our current whack-job Prez is out of office, it would do everyone a lot of good if the next President hung out the laundry and made it absolutely clear who was to blame for a long list of disasterous messes our new Prez will have to deal with. I know were *I* elected Prez after Bush, I would air out EVERY piece of dirty laundry I could find, and make it completely clear who dirtied it. And how. And why.

By the time I was through, there'd be nowhere for Bush and Cheney to hide. I'd be talking about their crimes every day for the next year, and as Prez, I'd have the bully pulpit to make their days deservedly miserable. I know it won't happen in real life, but wouldn't it be nice if it did? Good for our country too. Fact, after fact, after fact. Inarguable facts that even the RWNM wouldn't be able to counter. Oh, it'd be a beautiful thing, believe me.

This idiotic tradition of not criticizing past Presidents is ridiculous. It's just a form of ruling-class back-scratching and it's contemptible.

the Carter Center (Phone:(404) 420-5100 or (800) 550-3560; E-mail: carterweb@emory.edu) and, for what it might be worth, left an impassioned plea for President Carter to continue to speak out the truth about what is happening to our republic under this maladministration and to STOP apologizing! 70%plus of the country is with you on this, Mr. Carter, and the rest of the world besides.

My brain did a little flip inside my head when I heard he'd taken it back, too. What in the hell is going on?

It just makes me sick.

Leading off, our number Five story tonight: Jimmy Carter and President Bush don't get along. Boring, non-story.

And be sure and stay tuned for lots of Brittany Spears followed by an entire segment on the FOX channel's American Idol. Question: Does FOX pay Keith Olbermann to have a whole segment devoted to a crappy FOX show each and every goddamned night on Countdown?

Oh and (tee hee hee) here's today's top three soundbites, 1. Somebody says something stupid. (Tee hee hee). 2. Somebody says something dumb. (Tee hee hee). 3. Somebody says some other boring thing that fills up the air time between commercials. Blah.

Let's not forget WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD. Oh yes, here we go: Time to show O'Reilly's face and quote him again. Question, does Keith Olbermann get paid by FOX or O'Rielly to get his face and a quote on MSNBC's Countdown almost every fucking night? Limbaugh? Does he pay Olbermann something?

I was a real fan of Olbermann's Countdown until it became apparent that the show was never going to be anything but a sort-of left-leaning comedy hour. Olbermann rips and reads maybe two headline stories that have been running all day on MSNBC, writes a little copy to set them up, then runs the same recycled clips and interviews that have been running all day.

You can tune it out after the first ten minutes and you won't miss any real news. The next fifty minutes are just commercials wrapped around a lot of infotainment nonsense.

Ptttht!

If Bill Clinton had made the remarks Carter did about President Bush, he might have been castigated by the press for failing to adhere to the rules of civility that seem to govern former presidents. But he wouldn't have made me snort my Cheerios.

The problem with Carter's statement is that, in the triumvirate of worst-ever presidents (those responsible for the most serious damage to the safety and security of this country), he would be neck-to-neck with President Bush and James Buchanan. Fury over the war in Iraq has caused many of us to forget that Buchanan actually allowed his vice president to strip US military installations of weapons and supplies in order to facilitate armed rebellion. Buchanan's incompetence did not cause the Civil War, but it certainly caused the deaths of more American soldiers than President Bush or Governor Carter have. Hate Bush if you want, but admit that it has been worse.

For second place, though, Carter's failure to act was as dangerous as Bush's action. Carter was out of his depth in foreign policy, although he still seems to believe both that he showed competence as a president and that he shows competence now. Yet his wrongheaded support of Saddam Hussein cost more Iranian and Iraqi lives than our current military action there. Perhaps Carter believes that the purity of his motivations acquits him of responsibility for this failure, but when the Iran-Iraq war is believed to have caused over one million casualties, his sanctimonious lecturing is out of place.

Perhaps Carter may be excused, however. Given his record, he must be very excited that there is another candidate for the worst president of the last century.

Maybe he was right to be angry, but to this man, anger itself is never right. People I don't think have ever really gotten Carter. He's probably as close to a saint as we've had in recent history in office. It's why he didn't get reelected. He apologized for mentally lusting after other women for Pete's sake!! This is the man who did more for our country after being President than most Presidents do while being President. Arguably, it was his insistance on human rights issues that gave us the moral high ground against the Soviet Union and ultimately led to the end of the Cold War... Don't think less of him for being the same person today he has always been. Good, decent, and willing to apologize to help someone else save face even if he is right.