It takes some chutzpah to announce to the world that President Bush is something akin to the worst president ever and to accuse out-going Prime Minister Tony Blair of being Bush's lapdog.
For shame Jimmy Carter. The man who told people that all that is left is a downward spiral of malaise and to wear a sweater while the oil crisis deepened to say this? The man who negotiated away the Panama Canal so now we find the People's Republic of China, via a proxy, administering the canal. Who's idea of being forceful in the face of Soviet aggression in Afghanistan was to keep the US Olympic team home. The 'statesman' who talked the Shah of Iran to leave quietly so Ayatollah Khomeini could turn Iran into a radical Islamic state. The 'humanitarian' who allowed the now exiled Shah into the US for medical treatment that triggered the seizing of the American embassy in Tehran. The 'resolute' President who, after much dithering, ordered a downsized Pentagon to launch an audacious rescue mission of the hostages that failed because it was too complex and riven with intra-service rivalries.
I had thought the former president named Carter had reached his nadir with the comments virulently against Israel and his blind affirmation of Hugo Chavez seizing dictatorial power over the formerly democratic Venezuela. Alas I was wrong. With these words Carter has crossed the Rubicon and reached his Dixie Chick moment. He should heed General Douglas MacArthur's words of 'old soldiers never die, they just fade away,' instead of the narcissistic politician's mantra of 'any press coverage is good coverage.'
4 comments:
You missed a passage or two in Genesis I am afraid.
Ch. 16 verses 10-12.
10 I will make your descendants so numerous," added the Lord's messenger, "that they will be too many to count. 11 Besides," the Lord's messenger said to her: "You are now pregnant and shall bear a son; you shall name him Ishmael, For the Lord has heard you, God has answered you. 12 He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him; In opposition to all his kin shall he encamp."
In Chapter 17 verse 8. 8 I will give to you and to your descendants the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God.
Chapter 17 verses 18-20. 18 Then Abraham said to God, "Let but Ishmael live on by your favor!" 19 God replied: "Nevertheless, your wife Sarah will bear a son, and you shall call him Isaac. I will maintain my covenant with him as an everlasting pact, to be his God and the God of his descendants after him. 20 As for Ishmael, I am heeding you: I hereby bless him. I will make him fertile and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve chieftains, and I will make of him a great nation.
So we see God promising to each son a different inheritence. The problem arises from the children of Ishmael, as the Prophet Mohammed claims the Arabs are, coveting the inheritence of Isaac.
Chapter 22 of Genesis when Abraham is told to sacrifice his son. 'your only one' could mean the son that Abraham especially loved. Lets look at verse 12 "Do not lay your hand on the boy," said the messenger. "Do not do the least thing to him. I now know how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son." Here we see Isaac referred as a boy and as beloved son. We shall see this later with Joseph, of being the beloved son and his older brothers being jealous of this attention. Or earlier in Genesis of Cain and Abel. So it seems Isaac is the intended sacrifice and not Ishmael.
Of course Genesis and the Koran disagree on much. As in where Hagar with her child Ishmael wandered. Mohammed places them in Mecca while Genesis places them as you point out in Beer-Sheba. Which is correct? Genesis which was codified centuries before the Koran from three different sources - Yehovah, Priestly, and Eloist. Or the Koran which was put together and edited in the century following the Prophet's death by his followers from recollections of Mohammed's oral recitations? Or the rewriting of Noah's landing the Ark upon Arrarat so instead the Ark gounded upon Mount Judi.
What interesting faiths have arisen out of the Arabian desert. Some of Judism is based upon Yehovah, a volcano deity and others upon Allah who is a lunar deity.
I will agree with Mangasarian to some extent when he states The Messiah of the Jew, as well as of the Chrisitian, is come. It is Rationalism. And what is Rationalism? The authority of Reason. But whereas Mangasarian distrusted everything that is in the Bible and only saw the liberation of all humanity via its divorce from the Bible, I see the fufillment of what the Bible is supposed to be about in a faith that is tempered with rational thought and wisdom.
Sources:
The Neglected Book or The Bible Unveiled. M.M. Mangasarian. 1926. New York:The Truth Seeker Company.
Egyptian Legends and Stories. M.V. Seton-Williams. 1999. Barnes and Nobles Books.
The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology. Joseph Campbell. 1976. Penguin Books.
The Catholic Bible - Personal Study Edition. 1995. Oxford University Press.
Seems you got a bit off topic here...
Anyway, traditionally we owe former Presidents a measure of respect once they leave office. But that respect is predicated on their behavior. Carter has tossed away any sense he may have once had and I don't have any respect for him at all.
I was trying to figure out why he would say these things. Then it hit me: Blair probably stopped taking his calls to complain a few years ago and Carter is p o'd that no one listens, or cares, what he has to say.
Nor should they.
"...the narcissistic politician's mantra of 'any press coverage is good coverage.'"
That definitely describes Jimmy Carter. His words have surpassed a Dixie chick moment to the place of him being a full fledged traitor. Anyone who supports bloodthirsty dictators over the President of their own country is pretty screwed up.
Yes Mike, we got far afield but I felt I owed them oafter their exceedingly long cut&paste to answer them to the best of my ability. Seems they never came back for an answer. Their loss.
I agree completely Dee, Carter is a very small petty bitter man who hates that he has been relegatd to a footnote as the worse President of the 20th century.
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