The man who spoke too much

Why can't Jimmy Carter shut up? Now he's writing in the LA Times about the "revolutionary policies" that threaten American values.

[O]ur political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organizations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements — including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.

Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive war," an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes.

For a review of Carter's own record in international affairs, I give you this Noemie Emory article.

Gerald Ford may have lost the election in the one debate in which he insisted the Soviet Union no longer controlled Poland, but Carter behaved as if this were truly the case. In an address at Notre Dame on May 22, 1977, he denounced the "inordinate fear of communism" that had produced the containment theory that had kept the peace for three decades. In his first month in office he announced his intention to withdraw nuclear weapons and ground troops from South Korea, cut six billion dollars from the defense budget, cancel development of the Trident nuclear submarine, and defer construction of the neutron bomb.

All of these proposals were made unilaterally, with no effort to induce concessions by the other side. Cyrus Vance, Carter's first secretary of state, was described by Democrat Morris Abram as the closest thing to a pure pacifist since William Jennings Bryan, and by Defense Secretary Harold Brown as a man who believed the use of force was always mistaken. Paul Warnke, Carter's chief arms-control negotiator, held views described by George Will as "engagingly childlike"--believing that if we disarmed, the Soviet Union would follow us.

And then there's Carter's post-presidential exploits, like his trip to North Korea. Why is this meddling failure given space on America's op/ed pages?

McQ has the stamina to take on Carter's latest screed point-by-point.