Jimmy Carter: The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

It's hard not to laugh at Jimmy Carter complaining about alleged racism regarding criticism of President Obama and his health care plans.

On NBC Nightly News, Carter said:

I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African-American.

At Emory University, Carter elaborated:

When a radical fringe element of demonstrators and others begin to attack the president of the United States as an animal or as a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler or when they wave signs in the air that said we should have buried Obama with Kennedy, those kinds of things are beyond the bounds.

I think people who are guilty of that kind of personal attack against Obama have been influenced to a major degree by a belief that he should not be president because he happens to be African American.

It's a racist attitude, and my hope is and my expectation is that in the future both Democratic leaders and Republican leaders will take the initiative in condemning that kind of unprecedented attack on the president of the United States.

Undoubtedly, some of the criticism of President Obama is motivated by racism, some of it is more vociferous because of racism, and some of the opposition to his health care plans may be influenced by racism, but our nation's disgraceful health care system has been a divisive issue for more than half a century. Indeed, there is clearly far less criticism of Obama's plans than there was of the very carefully thought out proposals made by the Clinton Administration.

The irony is that Carter is an active leader of those who unfairly and attack attack Israel because it is the Jewish state, holding it to a double standard, denying it the most important obligation of any sovereign state, the protection of its citizens.

Those Israel-haters, pandering to the basest instincts of anti-semites, have no shame in falsely accusing Israel of that which its enemies are guilty. (As just one example, Carter falsely but proudly associates Israel with apartheid, despite the fact that Israel is the only state in the Middle East that actually gives equal rights to all its citizens while one of the goals of even the so-called "moderates" in the Palestinian Authority, making Judea and Samaria judenrein, is far worse than apartheid. Indeed, in his support for the removal of Jewish communities in the disputed territories, Carter himself promotes ethnic cleansing.

While racism is a minor aspect in criticism of President Obama's health care plans, anti-semitism lies at the heart of most criticism of Israel. In being on the opposite sides in these two issues, Carter is being hypocritical.