When a President dies, do we not review all of his work, the good and the bad? And at what point is the mentioning of the bad considered "hammering"?
“Nobody wants to talk about the Panama Canal now,” he said. “It’s inappropriate, I guess, because it’s a bad part of the Carter legacy.”
The president-elect offered some measured praise for the 39th president, calling him “a good man” and “a very fine person.” Not to let his point be forgotten, however, Trump reminded again that “giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake.”...
Is that hammering? To speak of hammering before the body is in the ground creates a violent mental image. I find that disrespectful.
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Shocker! The hard left propaganda outlet The Daily Beast publishes hard left propaganda. I'm going to faint.
Considering lefties were cheering the assassination attempts on Trump, I recall respect is a two way street.
That said, I’m annoyed by the modern trend of headline writing that users hyperbolic words to describe a rather mild event. I’ve seen headlines that so and so “destroyed” somebody when they simply wrote a snarky comment. The same press will soon write stories about how divided America has become with no sense of their role in it.
Also, giving away the Panama Canal was a dumb idea, but I didn’t know it was Carters.
"The president-elect offered some measured praise for the 39th president, calling him “a good man” and “a very fine person.”"
There it is again - fine people on both sides!
JSM
Strictly speaking, it probably wasn't Carter's idea.
But he thought it was a damned good one, and would endear us to oppressed peoples around the globe.
Typical Leftist thinking.
Trump said that our Navy ships and cargo ships are charged more. He also said that Panama wants $3b to fix the canal.
Did any “news” organization check that? How about a graphic showing the prices? How hard is that? And why did Trump have to break this news?
So the left must now reject Carter, as Trump put him in the same category as the old-south Confederacy apologists?!?! Will there be Walmart Tiki torches at Carter's funeral!?!
Trump spoke of Carter's ignorance and incompetence, which is what he is remembered for, leaving out his malevolence and vindictiveness, which people tend to overlook.
When Nixon died, his body was flown across country a few times between DC and CA. Imus asked how we know he's actually in the box, on the DC visit. It would seem wasteful to put him in the box for no purpose. Of course GA is closer so maybe less of a cost saving.
I see a giant rabbit with stirrups turned backwards.
Well, since the writer seems to not respect Trump, that is a reasonable conclusion. Should he outlive our next President, I would be interested in how respectful his offerings will be at Trump's demise if I respected his opinion. I'm not saving his name.
Meh. It's the Daily Beast. They have as much in common with journalism as Rolling Stone, Huffingting Post, etc.
They can't help it can they? Trump's comments were very mild and respectful to Carter. His criticism about the Panama Canal decision was directed at the decision itself as unwise, which it was and still is. Trump isn't the only one "ticked off" about that decision.
The headline is not only petty, it's inaccurate.
I come not to bury Carter, but to praise him. And when I say "praise," I'll do my best, OK? You can't get blood from a stone, even if Carter thought he could.
In foreign policy, Carter meant well. Unfortunately, he gave some support to the idea that America is always wrong, and it is time to give the power to someone else. He would fall in love with an underdog, or a group that seemed to be on the side of history, or someone who prayed a lot as he did. The Ayatollah Khomeini.
Bill Buckley, who supported Carter on this issue used to say, imagine Napoleon had excluded the Mississippi River and a zone on both sides from the Louisiana Purchase. For how long would Americans have put up with that state of affairs?
Trump is still the enemy of the cabal that has been running things for many years.
I want to fact check this statement:
“Nobody wants to talk about the Panama Canal now,” he said. “It’s inappropriate, I guess, because it’s a bad part of the Carter legacy.”
[Read the headline above] Yep, Trump is right. Can’t talk about the bad part of Carter’s legacy now because it is inappropriate.
The Daily Beast continues to hammer Trump.
That’s a reprehensible headline.
We should set aside vital national interests if those interests conflict with praising someone the left loves.
Furthermore the canal fell in the hands of chinese companies like hutchison whampoa
“All politics is local” Tip O’Neill, House Speaker and Boston political machine disciple, played Jimmy Carter like a harp, (or was it a banjo?) Yes, President Peanut was a good man, I guess, in his heart. But only God knows for sure. Post presidency Mr. Carter was a meddler in world politics, acting more like a biblical minor prophet no one wanted to listen to. He must have been honest, in his fashion, because he never became a rich man like Clinton, Obama and Biden after he left office. That says a lot for a former democrat president. It’s like the party was saying, ”Shut up, go away and keep hammering in those nails on your habitat houses!” Once he’s buried, Jimmy’s usefulness will be as flat as Billy’s Beer!
While the Canal Zone as it was, as American sovereign territory, was becoming untenable due to Panamanian opposition, the US should have insisted on permanent joint ownership and operation of the Canal. While the Canal was not possible without Panama, the simple fact is the Panamanians never had the resources to build it. Panamanian sovereignty and joint operation with a limited US military presence would have been the best compromise.
The Peanut King gave away the store.
"STOP THE HAMMERING!!!"
If you’re going to hammer the old fossil, it’s best to do it while he’s on this side of the turf.
don't clods of clay clobber the coffin at cemetery
Carter seems to have thought that he could trust Panamanian leadership. Maybe he could, but leadership changes.
The difficulty in building the Panama Canal and it's strategic importance make the decision to give it away, a big mistake. A much better deal could have been made.
Caparisoned.
I guess that could depend upon who built the Mississippi river.
Those seem more like jabs.
"When a President dies, do we not review all of his work, the good and the bad?"
Dershowitz said this as well, adding that no one would pay attention if the critics waited a few months. Now is the time to criticize, and criticize he did.
I think selling the canal was a good thing. Its in their country. Whether we've negotiated "Good deals" with Panama and are being overchaged is another matter entirely.
As for Carter, he was better than most Presidents. Vindictive and controlling, maybe, but a sweetheart compared to FDR, LBJ or Biden. Incompetent? Maybe. But compared to Bush I and Bush II or Ford, a genius. Carter didn't get us into a no-win war, didnt give us watergate, and didn't prosecute his political opponents or pardon corrupt criminals relatives on his way out.
He also prevented us from getting President Ted Kennedy.
As for the MSM, their tiresome lying and partisanship is to be expected. "Trump bad" has to be part of every story. Thus it is, and thus it shall be, forever.
So Trump is the man of "a man, a plan, a canal - panama!"
Great debate between Buckley and Reagan back when. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZO1bFaRNtk
Touche', Aggie.
Carter (and Clinton later) weren't good negotiators. It wasn't so much giving Panama the canal that was the problem, it was the failure to take a harder line on negotiations. Maybe, if we'd been firmer, we could have kept a base or two there. Maybe we could have negotiated a better deal on the rates.
Carter came to the negotiating table with the idea that we were the big, powerful country that had done an injustice to a smaller one. He was acting out of guilt. He wasn't trying to negotiate a good deal for the US. Trump is trying to rectify that now. But, no, we won't be getting the canal back.
"Trusting the Panamanians" -- was that a problem? An enormous US flag was flying on a hill overlooking the Canal Zone. Now it's an enormous Panamanian flag. Getting rid of the US shadow over the country was always Panama's goal. We should have recognized that early on and gotten what we needed in writing and not had any illusions about supposed good will.
Well sure if you're going to trawl through the headlines of Left Media Complex publications. Dead president shouldn't be lionized like this. They're not popes or kings or saints. Just as judges are but lawyers in black robes dead Presidents are merely politicians whose terms are over and whose hearts have stopped beating.
Perhaps it's time to seek alternatives to Panama. I'm sure, for 3 bn$, we can find another place to dig a trench. In fact. It may be more economical to simply build a road and put the ships on giant carts and drag them to water.
Given how long he postponed dying, hammering a stake seems only prudent.
Rusty said...
“Perhaps it's time to seek alternatives to Panama. I'm sure, for 3 bn$, we can find another place to dig a trench. In fact. It may be more economical to simply build a road and put the ships on giant carts and drag them to water.”
A canal through Nicaragua was considered before the site thru Panama was chosen.
And people have always looked at a map of the Americas and noticed the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico is pretty narrow. Mexico is spending $3 billion on Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (CIIT) as a rail corridor between ports on either side of the Isthmus.
I'm all for the Greenland acquisition, but I'm having second thoughts about the Panama Canal. Too costly to maintain. Militarily indefensible. And why stay with 19th century trade infrastructure that's so slow and expensive?
I'm surprised that Musk hasn't posed a totally disruptive 21st century solution using his Boring Company. Namely, forget canals and instead build a transcontinental US hyperloop tunnel network strictly for container distribution at bullet train speeds or better. AI-based distribution of containers to select regional distribution centers, pretty much like FedEx or Amazon consumer goods, but as fast as the ships can unload the containers. It would revolutionize commerce.
Somebody call DOGE.
Carter lived so long more than half those born in the US have no memory of him as president. I was only 8 when Reagan trounced him. I remember the Iran Hostage Crisis and his southern accent and his toothy grin. He seemed like an old guy to me at the time. A bit younger than my grandparents but way older than my parents. Herbert Hoover outlived JFK. He died 31 years after he was president. He was the second president who lived to be 90. John Adams was the first. Ford, Reagan, and HW Bush all lived into their 90s. Carter is the first centenarian ex-president. And we’re on our soon to be second octogenarian president. Trump remembers well the Carter presidency because he was 34 when Reagan trounced Carter. But JD Vance doesn’t even temper when Reagan was president. In the next 30 years some president will have to attend the funeral and say some kind words about an ex-president he doesn’t even remember as president.
"Carter didn't get us into a no-win war"
More than offset by his undermining of the Shah of Iran, turning a country that had been a strong American ally into a hostile enemy that has made the entire Middle East even more volatile than it had been. That book is not closed yet, and if Iran gets nuclear weapons (facilitated by Biden), the consequences will be dire, and not just for Israel.
Like most lefties in public service Carter was unable to distinguish between his personal sense of fair play and the best interests of his constituency.
Reminder that the French and British insisted on keeping the Suez Canal until the Egyptians seized it. Then they foolishly tried to retake it until Ike put a stop to that back in 1956. Carter had some of Ike's wisdom.
I would care more about the insistence to not speak ill of the dead if it were coming from people who had been willing to speak ill of him when he was alive.
Just for fun, I looked up what The Daily Beast published about Rush Limbaugh when he died. I can't read the article because I'm not a subscriber, but "Rush Limbaugh, the Human Megaphone Who Hijacked the GOP, Dead at 70" does not sound like a headline for an article that only has nice things to say.
Readering: "Reminder that the French and British insisted on keeping the Suez Canal until the Egyptians seized it. Then they foolishly tried to retake it...."
Egypt is a massive local power with a nine-digit population, armed with Soviet weapons at the time. The Brit and Frog empires were well on the downslope. Ike was indeed wise to tell them to go home.
Panama is a tiny country created for the purpose of having a US puppet give up the Canal land. It has no ethnic or historic reason to exist as a separate country. Its armed forces were always and only used to repress its population. In 1979, colonialism was on the rise in Latin America. Soviet colonialism, that is. Giving up our total control of the Canal Zone hobbled our ability to fight communist insurgencies and dangled a juicy steak in front of the Bear.
Carter shared none of Ike's wisdom.
JSM
We could test how these rules apply. We know that right now, today, every major media outlet has an obituary of Trump in draft form sitting in the files. Maybe they could release them to see if they intend to speak about Trump in the same way their rules suggest we should speak of Carter.
He sabotaged Middle East peace talks. He pardoned a child molestor and worse. His activities as an ex-President are far more harmful than helpful. I have no sympathy for efforts to whitewash his record. May God have mercy on his soul, for I cannot find any.
This post should have the "civility b.s." tag.
Oh, the truth hurts sensitive ears. I remember Jimmy Carter's administration, and remember that nobody liked Jimmy, except perhaps for Rosalind. Even his kids seemed very unhappy with him.
Great debate! Buckley won. I just read a book by WFB about sailing across the Atlantic. It was very good.
Hire the Boring Company
The country we did injustice to was Colombia. Panama did not exist until we made it exist.
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