Carter's Latest Disgrace

Jimmy Carter, arguably one of the worst presidents in American history, notorious for sucking up to dictators and terrorists, has surfaced again with a new book entitled, "Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid". He was blithely signing books at a Costco in Glenview last week. Maybe Borat could lead these sheep in song:

Carter was able to negotiate peace between Israel and Egypt and remains in touch with key players in the Middle East since he left the White House in 1980. That kind of experience gives him the stature to write about the subject, said Debbie DePalma Youssef of Northbrook, who is married to an Egyptian.

Carter "is a wonderful statesman and he's in such a unique position to be able to explain to Americans what some of the issues are. He's so respected and a wonderful negotiator," she said.

Presumably she hadn't read the book. According to some who have, it is blatantly anti-Semitic and full of falsehoods. The Middle East Fellow, and founding director of the Carter Center has resigned in outrage. Washington Post:

Kenneth W. Stein, a professor at Emory University, accused Carter of factual errors, omissions and plagiarism in the book.

"Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information," Stein wrote in a harshly worded e-mail to friends and colleagues explaining his resignation as the center's Middle East fellow.

Here's Powerline, via RCP, with the full text of the email, which contains this:

President Carter's book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments. Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook.

Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz has also termed the book "indecent".

Jimmy Carter is a disgrace to this country.