RUSH: While in the Middle East this week, the former worst president of the United States in our lifetimes and maybe ever, Jimmy Carter, has generated some press for his efforts to befriend Hamas. For those of you in Rio Linda, Hamas is an Islamic terrorist group. Israel said, ‘Please don’t do this.’ The United States said, ‘Mr. Carter, please don’t do this.’ Jimmy Carter is playing the role of communicator, as he calls it, gathering information from Hamas and Syrian leaders to then relay to the leaders of the United States. In essence, he has appointed himself a one-man State Department that nobody asked for, that nobody wants, and that nobody is going to listen to besides these terrorist leaders. The whole world knows what Hamas wants. They’ve said so. They want the destruction of Israel. Hamas has not changed that view, which is why they’re outcasts in the civilized world. Now, adding insult to stupidity, Carter did something that no American head of state has ever done. He was in Ramallah. He paid a visit to the grave of Yasser Arafat, and he laid a wreath of red roses at the grave of Yasser Arafat.
Now, Jimmy Carter was perhaps the most inept president of the twentieth century, a man whose failures in the Middle East led to his political downfall. It haunts us to this day. His tribute to Arafat, whose name will be forever associated with terrorism, is a fitting reminder of Jimmy Carter’s misguided, irresponsible liberal leadership, and it’s also timely, as two equally inept liberals, Hillary and Obama, fight it out to step into his shoes. Elections matter, they really do, folks, we say this a lot. We elected Jimmy Carter 32 years ago. Stop and think, 32 years ago, and he’s still causing trouble! He’s still causing havoc. He’d have been better off if he was still hammering nails at Habitat for Humanity. But you know why he’s not? I’ll tell you why he’s not. It was the Richard Nixon funeral. I’ll never forget the Richard Nixon funeral, little white house where Nixon was born and grew up was in the background of every shot of the podium at the funeral during the eulogies. Bill Clinton flew in. Henry Kissinger was there. Ronald Reagan was there, didn’t speak. Gerald Ford, prominent US government officials, ex-presidents. They all stood up. Carter did not speak, by the way.
They all stood up, and at the end of that funeral, you would have thought that Richard Nixon was George Washington and Abraham Lincoln combined. They had camera shots of Jimmy Carter and the lovely and gracious Rosalynn Carter sitting next to him with the looks of utter shock on their face as they’re listening to all this, because, to them, and most Democrats, Richard Nixon was the devil. He was Satan. He was Beelzebub, he was the worst thing that ever happened. Here he was being lionized as one of the greatest presidents ever, he opened China, he did so many great things, and you could just see Rosalynn sitting there fuming because she’s sitting next to this schlub who’s pounding nails and he’s doing nothing else.
He’s an ex-president, and she’s elbowing, (doing Rosalynn Carter impression) ‘See, this is what happens when you’re pounding nails. You gotta get out there and you gotta make something of yourself. You gotta go around the world, hammer nails around the world, hate this country, do whatever and they’ll love you, but I can’t believe they’re saying these things about Nixon.’ That didn’t happen at the funeral but I know when they left, when they got back to their hotel room, you just know that Rosalynn unloaded. She’s as active as Carter is. She just doesn’t do it publicly. She is no shrinking violet. She was no housewife. She was right in there with the cattle prod behind Carter, nobody could see it, but I’m telling you, so she’s sitting there, she’s jabbing, (doing Rosalynn Carter impression) ‘Look, Jimmy, do you believe what we just saw? Richard Nixon, the scum of the earth, had been lionized as one of the greatest presidents. How do you think they’re looking at you, pounding nails.’ So that started Carter down the path that he’s now on.
Thirty-two years ago we elected this guy, and we are still paying the price. He was asked about going to see Hamas and these other little dictatorships that he visits. He actually said, ‘When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person, and that’s the dictator, because he speaks for all the people.’ (laughing) Can you imagine somebody thinking a dictator speaks for all the people? President Carter, in a dictatorship, the people don’t have a voice other than screaming for their lives, other than yelps of pain when they’re beaten by thug police. The dictator speaks for all the people? So Carter thinks it’s much more efficient to go talk to dictators. He said, ‘But in a democracy like Israel, there is a wide range of opinions and that counterbalances the disappointment that I have in not meeting with the people shaping Israeli power now in the government.’ He says, ‘I can’t say that [Hamas] will be amenable to any suggestions, but at least after I meet with them I can go back and relay what they say, as just a communicator, to the leaders of the United States.’
Jimmy, nobody sent you, and nobody’s going to listen when you come back because we already know what Hamas believes. In fact, if anything, they’re going to lie to Jimmy Carter, and he’s going to believe the lie. He’s gonna come back and say, ‘Hey, I got great news, these guys want to make peace,’ another version of Neville Chamberlain except this guy is a renegade and off the reservation. Ed Koch today in a syndicated column: ‘I came to know Carter well. When he ran for reelection, he asked me to campaign for him in 1980 — I was by then Mayor of New York City — and I said that I would vote for him, but not campaign for him because he was then engaging in hostile acts towards Israel. I was popular with the Jewish community and when I would not campaign for him unless he changed his position, he called me to his hotel in New York when attending a fundraiser and said, ‘You have done me more damage than any man in America.’ I felt proud then, and even more today, since we now know what a miserable president he was then and the miserable human being he is now as he prepares to meet with Hamas.’ Ed Koch yesterday.