So THAT’s why my dad calls him “that G*d-d*mn peanut farmer”

The greatest example I have witnessed as to the wisdom of parents was the fact that my father hated Jimmy Carter long before I did.

Last weekend, the last (and easily most damaging) consequence of Watergate justified the family animus in a jaw-dropping statement caught by Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal (emphasis added):

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.

Is that so, Jimmy?  So Robert Mugabe speaks for the people of Zimbabwe?  That would be news to them.  How about the Communist thugs in Beijing?  Do they speak for the people of China?  Do they also speak for the people of Tibet?  It sure doesn’t look like they do.  Did Saddam Hussein speak for the crowd in Baghdad who clamored to destroy his statue five years ago this month?

This sort of nonsense does nothing but feed the egos of bloodthirsty tyrants (like the Hamas chief with whom Carter is planning to have tea) and demoralize their victims, men and women who could be encouraged to rise up and take their countries back as Eastern Europeans did in the late 1980s.  Without their courage – and support from the Reagan Administration – the Cold War with the Soviets might never have ended.

This is just one more reason why the American people (including Dad and Mom – may she rest in peace) were so wise to bounce “that G*d-d*mn peanut farmer” in 1980.