To reiterate: I was once a huge fan of Jimmy Carter.

Over time, I grew to understand, and see ever more clearly, that he was utterly incompetant as president, but I still respected his other activities, and thought he was basicly a good guy with a good conscience. "One of the worst presidents ever, one of the best ex-presidents ever" pretty much summed up my view.

Then he started getting involved in international politics again. I thought: Isn't he aware of how incompetant almost everyone -- even his supporters -- thinks he is in this area? For instance: the North Korea thing: did he really think tyrants kept their word? Didn't he understand this was definitely not one of his core competencies?

So my estimate of his self-awareness and common sense dropped a bit more, but not his intentions or integrity. He was misguided, but well-meaning.

Yet, for some reason I can't quite understand, I'm shocked and very disappointed at the continued unveiling of the total moral wasteland that James Earl Carter appears now to be. Was it really that much of a surprise? Didn't I see it coming, given his recent behavior regarding Castro, etc.? And why does learning all this depress me so? Why did I expect more of him?

But somehow, I did. And I'm not alone.

For example, I was utterly appalled to learn Carter had actually justified terrorism in his most recent book, Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, writing:

It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel.

This is a total inversion of the past stance of the civilized world, which asserted clearly that terrorism (by which I mean the deliberate targeting of noncombatants) was completely unacceptable -- and that eschewing terrorism was always understood to be an important precondition to negotiations in good faith, much less concessions.

Now Carter has turned the tables: terrorism is acceptable until you get what you want.

And he apparently says the same on Al-Jazeera: "I don't really consider... I wasn't equating the Palestinian missiles with terrorism." [1] No, of course not.

And then there was the recent revelation that the State Department -- and thus undoubtedly Carter also -- knew full well that Arafat had masterminded and directed Black September's seizure of our embassy and subsequent killing of our diplomats.

And yet despite that, we've now also learned, Carter wrote speeches for this character -- polished him up, gave him legitimacy, apparently gave him advice, and presented him as a legitimate "partner in peace" to the Israelis!

Understandably, Dershowitz -- a decent man of the left, whom I respect and value -- now suspects it was actually Carter who suggested Arafat walk away from the Clinton-Barak offer of statehood.

“There was no possibility that any Palestinian leader could accept such terms and survive,” he claims in his book. The world should know whether Carter actually gave Arafat that advice.... The irony, of course, is that if Arafat had accepted the Clinton-Barak offer, or come back with a counter-offer, there would have been no intifada and no “apartheid”; better yet, there would have been peace and a Palestinian state. [2]

Either way, it increasingly appears that Carter may be the single human being on this planet who bears the most responsibility for the present mess in the mideast. We should have viewed Arafat as a serial killer -- back when we still cared enough to revile terrorists -- not a statesman. (And the promotion of Arafat is also partially responsible for the present blurring of that distinction.)

That brings me quite a lot of pain to say, as I once thought of Carter as quite the hero for the Camp David accords. But even there: it now seems it was Sadat who initiated the meetings. Carter simply served as host, and gave cover to Sadat's "betrayal" -- as other Arab leaders surely would, and did, see it.

And none of this begins to touch on my sadness at learning Carter's many ventures were funded by terrorism supporters. Dershowitz again says it well:

Recent disclosures of Carter’s extensive financial connections to Arab oil money, particularly from Saudi Arabia, had deeply shaken my belief in his integrity. When I was first told that he received a monetary reward in the name of Shiekh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahayan, and kept the money, even after Harvard returned money from the same source because of its anti-Semitic history, I simply did not believe it. How could a man of such apparent integrity enrich himself with dirty money from so dirty a source? ....

If money determines political and public views — as Carter insists “Jewish money” does — then Carter’s views on the Middle East must be deemed to have been influenced by the vast sums of Arab money he has received. If he who pays the piper calls the tune, then Carter’s off-key tunes have been called by his Saudi Arabian paymasters. It pains me to say this, but I now believe that there is no person in American public life today who has a lower ratio of real to apparent integrity than Jimmy Carter. [3]

So why do I care? (It's all about me, isn't it? Why yes it is, since I'm the one writing here.) Why has this actually depressed for the last week?

For one thing, it seems like the death of an ideal: of the principled opponent. It isn't of course: there are people like Dershowitz with whom I disagree and also respect. But Carter was one of the first people of whom I learned to say: "I don't agree with him, I think his ideas are harmful, but he's a decent guy."

For another, it comes on the heels of another dear Democrat friend of mine admitting that, on certain key topics, she is absolutely not interested in considering what policies help the poor, if it might mean having to change her mind about any of her "leftist" beliefs.

I grew up with both. And both are now not what they seemed at all. And perhaps, it increasingly appears, never were.

UPDATE: Carter has apologized for the "when" passage cited above, saying, it was "worded in a completely improper and stupid way" and saying he has "apologized to many audiences" for it. Dershowitz notes: what about the Al-Jazeera statement? And, I'd ask, what "many audiences" are these? It's a good start, but it still leaves a lot of ground uncovered, a lot of questions unanswered.