Jimmy Carter Derangement Syndrome

The enduring mystery of Jimmy Carter Derangement Syndrome...

Right Wing News asked "more than a hundred bloggers" who they thought were the worst people in American history. Predictably, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama and FDR headed the list - way ahead of Timothy McVeigh, John Wilkes Booth and John Hinckley Jr. (Despite trying to kill the Gipper, Hinckley didn't even make the list).

You could ponder for hours whether the respondents intended irony or sarcasm... conservatives have a difficult relationship with humor so it's often hard to know whether they're joking or being genuinely psychotic. But WTF is it that they have against Jimmy Carter anyway? Why do they hate him so passionately?

Sure, the Carter presidency was smirched by stagflation, gas shortages and the Iran hostage crisis. But these disasters were not of Carter's making and he struggled fairly successfully to deal with them. Rational people accept this and public polls - even Rasmussen - consistently place Carter in the top twenty best Presidents list. So why do wingnuts keep pushing the lie that he's universally regarded as the worst president ever when, shock, it ain't true?

I guess he's just the wrong type of evangelical Christian. A little too "love thy neighbor" and not enough "discriminate against thy neighbor" maybe? And all that peace making (Camp David Accords, SALT Treaty, etc.) and post-presidential charity work... but could so much do-gooding really make you worse than Timothy McVeigh for America's crazy right?

Nope. The real reason wingnuts hate Carter is because they view his criticism of Israel's expansionist policies and his relatively impartial approach to tamping down mid-East conflicts as treason. The American RW pledges allegiance to Israel first and America second... Israel can do no wrong and not even US presidents are allowed to view American, let alone Palestinian interests, as of equal importance to those of Israel. That's why Carter is hated so much.