When
Will Obama Throw
Jimmy Carter Under The Bus?
By Jerry D. Rose
03 June,
2008
Countercurrents.org
A string of Barack Obama's
supporters, advisers or long time associates have been cut loose by
Obama or his presidential campaign because they were embarassments
in one way or another to his candidacy. Think Samantha (Hillary's
a monster) Power, Alan (psst, he's not really serious about NAFTA)
Goolsbee, Jeremiah (crazy old uncle) Wright, and folks from the Illinois
Combine like Tony Rezko and Nadhmi Auchi for whom it was "Tony
I hardly knew ye."
Now comes a true friend of Obama, America's best former President,
Jimmy Carter, who in fact has called for Hillary Clinton to hang it
up because the party's over so far as the presidential nomination
is concerned. The problem is, he bookended these remarks with a speech
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19985.htm
in the Welsh town of Hay in which he said some things that promise
to be acutely embarassing to Obama, whose electoral prospects depend
on his ability to balance his talk about negotiation with America's
Designated Enemies and a drawdown of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan
with a belligerent stance in which foreign policy must be "anything
Israel," including tough stances toward Hamas, Iran and Iraq.
Given the delicate balance Obama is trying to maintain, what does
his "friend" Jimmy Carter do? Perhaps like another "crazy
uncle," he goes off on his own and does a personal peacemaking
mission to the Middle East, talks to Hamas leaders and gets condemned
for so doing (though Israel itself is doing the same thing through
back channels) by both President Bush and candidate Obama. Then he
goes to Hay and in one speech he manages to say four things that create
a whole hornet's nest of problems for Obama.
1. He says the three entities (UN, EU, Russia) who, with the United
States, constitute a Quartet of powers self-appointed as the world's
rulers should abandon their "supine" tendency to follow
the U.S. lead in supporting Israel's position on the death-dealing
sanctions against Gaza.
2. He says that Israel has 150 fully-armed nuclear weapons, a bold
statement of what has been "generally known," that the U.S.
and Israel are in blatant violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty with Israeli weapons furnished courtesy the U.S.: enough munitions
for Israel itself to "obliterate" Iran or any other enemy
without world assistance; this at a time when Israel is pressuing
the U.S. to take action against Iran for the mere threat of developing
such weapons.
3. He says that the Fatah political faction in Palestine, to which
Israel, the U.S. and the rest of the Quartet have hitched their diplomatic
stars, should share power with the duly-elected (in what the Carter
Center certified as a clean election) Hamas as the country's government;
rather than joining these other forces in excluding Hamas from the
peace process.
4. He says that the U.S. should withdraw immediately and fully its
occupation force in Iraq, never mind the "we'll do it when the
Iraqis stand up for their own security" stance that will keep
U.S. forces there indefinitely, whether the next President happens
to have a D or an R after his/her name.
Question of the hour: what does Barack Obama do with this other "crazy
old uncle?" Use him as a sounding board toward a general liberalization
of American imperialism, as he might have used Jeremiah Wright's "liberation
theology" pronouncements as a harbinger of an administration
in which the grievances of blacks in the society would actively (not
just rhetorically) be addressed? To ask this question and refer to
the Wright parallel is virtually to answer it. The answer: fat chance!
To borrow from George W. Bush's (false) characterization of himself
as a "uniter not a divider:" to take any stance that would
satisfy the superb writers of the Black Agenda Report, he would "alienate"
all those non-black Americans who want so fervently to believe that
we have moved "beyond race," that blacks have already moved
90% of the way down the path of racial equality. To take Jimmy Carter's
stance would alienate not only the Jewish money on which Democratic
campaigns so heavily depend, but all those good folks of all religions
and ethnicities who have recently been through another Memorial Day
orgy of "celebration" of the sacrifices of our military
men and women and our legendary dedication to complete a mission (win
a victory) in order to ensure that "these dead shall not have
died in vain." To do any less would cede the toughness ground
to the Republicans and their war hero nominee, and election defeat
would be the sure result.
No, Obama cannot agree to any of Jimmy Carter's four totally reasonable
positions on U.S. foreign policy, and the ex-President must go under
the bus with the rest of the crowd. How and when this will happen
will await the vicissitudes of a campaign. It probably will follow
Carter's endorsement, when he will join the crowd of other Obama supporters
with a pious hope that the candidate of hope and change will change
his positions as he (hopefully) assumes the presidency. But it will
happen because Obama, if he has proven anything at all, has proven
himself the consummate compromiser who can be "all things to
all people" because he can unite people around a rhetorical consensus
of good intentions devoid of any substantive content.
So move over, Samantha, Alan, Jeremiah, Tony, Nadhmi...gotta make
room under that bus for James Earl Carter.
Jerry D. Rose is a retired professor of sociology
from State University of New York at Fredonia, now living in Gainesville
Florida and operating a progressive website: http://www.sunstateactivist.org/
He may be contacted at: [email protected].
