Goober Gooder

An article in the Jerusalem Post calls out Jimmy Carter for what he really is: a dupe.

Jimmy Carter is not so much anti-Semite as anti-intellectual, not so much a Jew-hater as a boor. The real explanation behind his limitless hostility to Israel is a total lack of any moral understanding.

Carter wants to do what's just. His heart's in the right place. He just can't figure out what the right is. He is, and always has been, a man of good intentions bereft of good judgment. He invariably finds himself defending tyrants and dictators at the expense of their oppressed peoples. Not because he is a bad man, but because he is a confused man.

Carter subscribes to what I call the Always Root for the Underdog school of morality. Rather than develop any real understanding of a conflict, immediately he sides with the weaker party, however wicked or immoral.

Carter's obsession with the unrighteous underdog has embarrassed him many times before. [Fidel] Castro runs a tiny island in the shadow of the world's superpower. He must therefore perforce be a victim of American bullying, even if he is a brutal dictator and tyrant.

Championing the unrighteous underdog also led Carter to praise the murderous North Korean tyrant Kim Il Sung with these words: "I find him to be vigorous, intelligent... and in charge of the decisions about this country." Carter added, "I don't see that [the North Koreans] are an outlaw nation."

He also hailed Marshal Joseph Tito as "a man who believes in human rights," and said of the murderous Romanian dictator Ceausescu: "Our goals are the same: to have a just system of economics and politics... We believe in enhancing human rights."

There exist many occupations where a decision-making process based upon empathy is functional and even admirable. In a President, however, it invites disaster.