The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry [Hardcover]

Steven F. Hayward (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 19, 2004

This book reveals a man who has been given a dangerously free pass by historians, but who in reality is not only a failed ex-president, but as vindictive as he is egotitical, and a self-righteous busybody who leaves diaster in his wake.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Jimmy Carter: America's best ex-president? Only if you're not bothered by the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism (which started on his watch), the shamefaced foreign policy of Bill Clinton and John Kerry (ditto), and think that ex-presidents should travel the world coddling dictators and bad-mouthing America à la Jesse Jackson. Jimmy Carter has been given a free ride from the liberal media, liberal historians, and even the American people, who excuse his political delinquencies and disasters on the grounds that he is a "good" man. But as bank robber Willie Sutton said of Carter: "I've never seen a bigger confidence man in my life, and I've been around some of the best in the business." It's time to set the record straight. Finally, an honest historian-Steven F. Hayward, author of The Age of Reagan-demolishes the myth of "Saint" Jimmy and exposes how he created today's leftist Democratic party of John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Jimmy Carter's laundry list of failures aren't just accidents of history: They're rooted in Carter's deeply flawed character and ideology-a smugly pious arrogance matched with a profound distrust of America. The Real Jimmy Carter reveals: • Carter as meddling ex-president: Why a Time magazine columnist wrote that some of Carter's "Lone Ranger work has taken him dangerously close to the neighborhood of what we used to call treason" • How Carter befriended North Korea during the Clinton administration, appeasing the communist regime and giving it cover for its nuclear weapons program • How Carter made direct contacts with Soviet officials to try to subvert President Reagan's anti-communist policies • The shocking extent of Carter's clandestine efforts to sabotage the first Gulf War in 1990 and how he used Gulf War II to publicly question the Christian faith of America's commander in chief • How Carter befriended Yasir Arafat-making himself an enemy of Israel • Carter as politician: a vicious campaigner-and even race-baiter • The Carter White House during the disasters of the Sandinista takeover of Nicaragua, the energy crisis and stagflation, the Iranian revolution and hostage crisis, and the invasion of Afghanistan • How Carter, the failed president, remade himself as Carter the humanitarian and freelance foreign policy critic of America • How a Nobel official inadvertently revealed that Carter's Nobel Prize was actually meant as a slap at America The Real Jimmy Carter is a shocker, showing why the peanut president should never have left his farm.

About the Author

Steven F. Hayward is F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Senior Fellow at the Pacific Research Institute. He is the author of The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964-1980 and Churchill on Leadership. A frequent speaker and journalist, he has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Baltimore Sun, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Reason, Policy Review, and National Review. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from the Claremont Graduate School and divides his time between Washington, D.C. and California.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing; 1St Edition edition (March 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895260905
• ISBN-13: 978-0895260901
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (108 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #807,721 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #41 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( C ) > Carter, Jimmy

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

87 of 126 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Please, what I notice about some is that they DON'T read, May 12, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry (Hardcover)

...the book, but attack the messenger. For those who have problems with the book, please stick to facts, not `Flying Monkeys'.

The thing I notice a lot is that people who obviously don't read the book but dislike the premise of the author, love writing negative reviews.

I used to really like Jimmy, but when he goes to Cuba and slobbers on Fidel, I started rethinking the president whom I always considered `nice, but incompetent'.

In retrospect, I think Jimmy is what changed me as a lifelong Democrat to start seeing the other side of the argument. Certainly if he is one of our best presidents, we need to reconsider the party's stand.

His similarities to Kerry, who has said he might appoint JC to a State Department level position, are sobering.

57 of 83 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Truth We Knew In Print, May 12, 2007

By 

Living the Dream "Living The Dream" (Orange, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry (Hardcover)

Having been directly affected by Mr. Jimmy Carter as President I think that Steven Hayward has done a great job of letting this country know what to expect when the protege's of Mr. Carter next sit in the White House and have control of Congress.

I serve (quite naively) in Mr. Carter's Army (1976-1980) and saw his disdain for the military in action. When provoked in Korea only 17 of our 55 tanks could move because we had no parts. We froze in the cold temperatures of March because our Commander declared it was spring so the heating oil was siphoned out of our heaters.

We can thank Mr. Carter for the rise of radical Islam with his lack of support for The Shah of Iran. And for those who think he was bad, Kohmeini killed more people in the first year of the Islamic Revolution than the Shah had in 25 years. The war on Terror? It started with Jimmy Carter.

When Saddam invaded Kuwait, Carter said the solution was for Israel to give up the West Bank and that would be it. When Kim Il Sun in North Korea wanted to move his nuclear development forward Carter, with the support of Al Gore and Clinton gave him light water for development in their aggrements. Carter said the PLO was like the United Way taking care of the people. Giving away the Panama Canal was Carter's way of apologizing to Panama, what did they need an apology for?

The only thing missing in this book is Carter's impact on the Federal Judiciary. His activist judges took God out of schools, turned criminals out to the streets, and changed our culture.

His Carter Center is funded largely by Arab money of questionable origins. His objective there is to try to carry on the policies that ruined his presidency. Why? Because Jimmy Carter wants to be America's Ghandi. Its all about Jimmy.... nothing more.

A good read for those who want to know why the Clintons and the next generation of Democrats are who they are, its Jimmy Carter.

46 of 68 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Smug pious arrogance", May 17, 2007

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry (Hardcover)

Hayward gives a detailed account of Carter's failures as President, and perhaps even more tellingly, as ex-President.
One must always be wary of preachers of morality, and Carter's 'smug pious arrogance' is especially irritating when one considers the large donations he has pocketed from the Saudis while peddling and supporting their ideas on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Carter has attacked American policy and Presidents with indiscretion and unfairness.
This is a thoroughly researched and largely convincing work.