The American Spectator

br> Austin, Texas /p>

Americans and the world apparently, have very short memories of former President Carter’s failed Mideast policies during his tenure as president. This is the very same man who threw the Shah of Iran a long-time loyal ally of the United States, under the bus of terrorism. President Carter’s policies are directly responsible for allowing the explosive growth of terrorist states as Iran, Syria and these states proxies of Hamas.

As if President Carter hasn’t meddled enough in a sitting president’s foreign policy, the peanut farmer is now going to become the laughing stock of the Mideast and the civilized world with his misguided dreams of rewriting his failed legacy.

p>Iran has portrayed President Carter as a bumbling inept president once; now it appears that Iran is going to do so again. Some people are just gluttons for punishment, I guess. br> — Melvin Leppla br> Jacksonville, North Carolina /p>

It’s become a rite of passage from winter to the balmier months. Every year just about this time former President Jimmy Carter says or does something to embarrass the U.S. This year he’s on spring break in the Middle East, lending credibility to the terrorist organization Hamas.

Last year he launched a tirade against President Bush, stating that the Bush administration was the worst in history in international relations. In the same interview he excoriated British Prime Minister Tony Blair for supporting President Bush. “Abominable, loyal, blind, apparently subservient” were the terms he applied to Blair.

In 2004 he assailed Bush and Blair for “waging an unnecessary war in Iraq based on lies and misinterpretations.”

Skipping back a few years, Carter actually seemed to believe we were meddling in the internal affairs of the former Soviet Union when, during an appearance in Berlin, President Reagan said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

I spent many years as a federal employee and had first hand experience with Jimmy Carter’s style. Overall, he tried to run the federal government as if it were a county courthouse in rural Georgia. Worse, he surrounded himself with fellow amateurs.

He and his cohorts emasculated the IRS’s criminal investigation division and the IRS’ tax collection efforts. “Intelligence Division” seemed too sinister a term so it was renamed the Criminal Investigation Division. Automatic part payment agreements were offered to all first time tax delinquents. This was a decision that flew in the face of the part payment characteristics of the income tax withholding system. The result? Federal tax delinquencies soared.