The author of this article, Phillip Adams, is highly respected down under especially for his role in promoting the Australian film industry, and also as a commentator on current affairs.
I find it interesting that, while being a lifetime
avowed atheist, his personal “faith” does not colour his comments.
I was especially intrigued by Carter’s comments on pro-lifers, in the last paragraph.
Over to you, guys and gals.
“When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become president; I’m beginning to believe it.” ? Clarence Darrow (US defence lawyer, 1857-1938)
“Extremism in the pursuit of the presidency is an unpardonable vice. Moderation in the affairs of a nation is the highest virtue.” ? Lyndon B. Johnson.
WE’RE deep in the dark ages of the worst presidency in US history. There have been some great fools in the oval office, but George Bush Jr has wrested the joker’s hat from their heads and, in a strutting, jaw-thrusting performance not so much reminiscent of that pugnacious Republican Theodore Roosevelt as of Benito Mussolini, he has scrapped his nation’s diplomatic traditions and cost it its international friends.
Jerry Brown, who preceded Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California, entered the presidential race in 1976. Two years later, he said: “People want a dictator these days, a man on a white horse . . . a politician can do anything as long as he manipulates the right symbols.”
Arriving on his white horse from Texas, Bush was soon the man on the grey aircraft carrier, wearing the US Air Force jumpsuit, claiming final victory in a war that had hardly begun. With the unpardonable vice defined by LBJ, he’s got everything wrong, but manipulates those right symbols ? the trinity of God, flag and power.
Now one looks back at mediocre presidencies with renewed respect. At Eisenhower, who knew enough of wars to keep the US out of them, and who left the White House warning of the dangers of America’s “military-industrial complex”. And at the hapless Jimmy Carter, who has redeemed his White House years with his ongoing role in public life.
Carter lacked Bush’s ability to do Benito impersonations on television. He lacked Bush’s skill in lying. Unlike Bush, Carter wasn’t backed by the traditional vested interests. He wasn’t bankrolled by the wealthiest corporations. He came from peanut oil, not Saudi oil, or Texaco’s. Modest and moderate, he was brought down by a single military misadventure ? an inept raid to release US hostages in Iran ? whereas Bush was re-elected despite responsibility for the greatest military folly since Vietnam, a war that has resulted in tens of thousands of American and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties.
Carter’s greatest failing? He was an unlucky politician. Devoid of Bush’s theatricality, he hadn’t the cheek, charm and charisma of another governor of another southern state. Carter was no Bill Clinton who could, like Bush, lie through his teeth. And when Clinton’s gift for deception on personal matters was no longer enough (it worked with Gennifer Flowers only to fail with Monica Lewinsky) he could talk his way out of trouble with an acting skill not even Reagan could rival. Apart from his bad luck, it was Carter’s candour that killed him.
Because of two public admissions, he was seen as a religious nutter. A Baptist, he agreed he was “born again” (quoting basic doctrine from John 3:5) and confessed to a Playboy interviewer that, yes, he had “committed adultery in [his] heart many times”, a reference to Matthew 5:28. That was about it. He’d made a decision never to bring up religion in the campaign but “had to answer reporters or be criticised for dodging the issue”.
My favourite US commentator, the Roman Catholic scholar and philosopher Garry Wills, has followed Carter’s career since 1972 and defends the man in an essay in the New York Review of Books: “His attendance at church was not announced; we reporters had to ferret that out ourselves. Carter is an old-fashioned Baptist . . . the firmest believer in the separation of church and state. Unlike most if not all modern presidents, he never had a prayer service in the White House. His problem, back then, was not that he paraded his belief but that he believed. All this can be seen as quaint now when professing religious belief is practically a political necessity, whether one believes or not. There is now an inverse proportion between religiosity and sincerity.”
Now, at a time when religion and hard-right politics are hand in claw in many a country and culture, where it’s a major issue in the US and increasingly in Australia, Carter has published Our Endangered Values: America’s Moral Crisis (Simon & Schuster). A stern admonishment to those of his faith who’ve surrendered their moral autonomy to powerful and reactionary church leaders, Carter’s book attacks a new fundamentalism that embraces self-righteousness, rigidity and compulsion ? in marked contrast to what Carter sees as the teachings of Jesus.
Carter reaches his crescendo in an analysis of the so-called “pro-life” movement, whom he sees as pro-death in their cruel policies regarding everything from AIDS in Africa to the death penalty and foreign policy. And he apportions blame to “pro-life” on abortion itself, for opposing family planning, sex education and the use of condoms. I hope to be talking to Carter in the next few days and will report back. In the meantime, dear Christians, read the book.
