Jimmy Carter on how not to apologize
It’s being widely described as an aplogy to Israel, and I suppose technically it’s true that Jimmy Carter has offered something of the sort, whether to enhance his grandson’s Atlanta election bid, or as a reflection of that old-fashioned Christmas spirit.
But as apologies go, it’s almost a primer in how not to ask for forgiveness. Look at the text itself. About three hundred words long, it is devoted to a Rodney-Kinglike wish that everyone could get along and be nice to each other, treating each side as equally bad or good in the usual morally relativistic fashion. Of course, considering Carter’s past history of excoriation of Israel, that’s a step up. But here’s the only apologetic part:
…[W]e must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel…I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.
A classic way of seeming to apologize without really doing so in any meaningful way. In other words, a cop-out.
It’s that tiny little three-letter word “may” that somehow snuck in there. It indicates that Carter can’t truly acknowledge that many of his words did stigmatize Israel. And he knows just what words they “might” have been. He needs to list a few.
Dennis Prager did not find any meaning in the apology and offered advice to Carter on how the apology would have meaning.
The advice basically referred to Jimmy Carter’s book comparing Israel to South Africa with the use of the word Apartheid and in the apology Jimmy Carter would have to plead for forgiveness for making that comparison or suggesting that Israel in their struggle for security is guilty of apartheid.
I’m sure I mangled it but Dennis Prager is a Jewish person who I find has extreme clarity on most issues including Israel.
It’s crap:
“I’m sorry if you may have been offended by my accusation jews use the blood of gentile children in pastries and have horns and a tail.”
I don’t understand any of it: how the heck does a guy from Plains, Georgia end up with a big axe to grind against Jews? I don’t get it. How have “Jews” in any was affected Jimmy Carter’s life?
It’s just another strange manifestation of the mental illness that displays itself publicly as antisemitism.
I know a few guys, leftists, who have raging cases of antisemitism. They are tedious, pedantic and obsessed. I love to wind them up and watch them start snarling over “those Jews!”–with little flecks of spit in the corners of their mouths. Wow. I suspect Carter is succombing to that as he gets senile.
Y’know–furthermore, it certainly gives lie to the claim: “Criticising Israel is not antisemitic.”. Why does he bother to “appologize” to Jews if he was merely engaging in fair criticism of Israeli policies as he claimed?
Jew hating has got to be some kind of symptom of a particular mental illness; like that cat shit fever that causes schizophrenic symptoms….
This reminds me of Jane Fonda’s apology..”.if you took anything I said the wrong way and it hurt you,I’m sorry.”(Like riding on a N Vietnamese tank ,aiming for the sky…or turning in a POW who asked for help…)
Humbug on both of them.
I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so.
Offer a what?
I’ve noticed that’s another favorite of crazed jew-haters–to pepper their rants with Hebraic or Yiddish terms to show they speekadalingo of “The Tribe” as they usually call Jews. Ugh, tedious….
Y’know, I think I’m on to something:
I think rabid jew-hating is a manifestation in men of the same illness that causes “crazy old cat lady”.
Carter has embraced extreme leftist multi-culturalism/decolonialism as penance for his racist record in Georgia politics.
Under this “decolonialism” theory, the problem with the Israelis is not that they are Jews, but that they are European colonizers on “Arab land.” Simple, really.
If you want to go after Carter, you need to go after “decolonialism.” The same theory is the key to Obama’s worldview, I believe, and the reason behind his Apology Tours and bowing to Asian heads of state.
I think you are correct about Obama, but for Carter, it’s just more of the same racism.
I think “Grrrrr! Jews!!!!” is separate and distinct from anti-western decolonialism.
In fact, I’ve heard “jewish moneymen” and “mercantilists” blamed for the failure of the third-world as a defense of European colonialism.
What a tiny, tiny man Pres. Carter is. A tiny, tiny man. Tiny.
“how the heck does a guy from Plains, Georgia end up with a big axe to grind against Jews?”
Well, he may have gotten antisemitism with his mama’s milk but I think the real reason was the loss in the 1980 presidential election that ended his political career.
Antisemitism is not about Jews, it is about antisemites. They are losers who can’t own up to their own shortcomings and failures so they blame everything on da Joooos. Carter lost that election for a million reasons, most of them relating to his ineptitude as President. But he can’t face up to it so he blames it (and everything else) on Jews.
Ah – the blame-the-victim apology: may have done so.
OK, I shot a gun, and the victim was shot, but thousands of bullets are fired every day And while it may have been my bullet which struck the victim the spot the bullet hit was not the exact spot I was aiming at.
Hey, Jimmy! How’s that Iranian thing working out, getting rid of the Shah and letting Khomeini in? We need more of that foreign policy expertise.
Napolitano: “The system worked” Fire the incompetent!
According to news reports, bombs in shoes are not as powerful as the one the Nigerian terrorist had up his pants. Are we about to do away with taking our shoes off, and start instead, dropping our pants at airport’s check-ins?