John Hinderaker on Jimmy Carter: "He's on the other side"

by Jerome Armstrong, Wed Feb 16, 2005 at 10:49:31 PM EST

Powerline is one of those rightwing bloggers you see referred to a lot by the MSM. Time magazine called powerline "the blog of the year." In fact a NYT's reporter recently, when I referred to them as "conservative rightwingers" questioned that, asking if they were not "moderate", right...

Hinderaker, who posts under the alias "Hindrocket", refers to a Washington Times article that "notes that some of the most prominent critics of the administration's Iraq policy have been curiously silent since Sunday's triumphant election", notably, President Carter.

John Hinderaker then submits:"Jimmy Carter isn't just misguided or ill-informed. He's on the other side."


The MSM has called to talk to Hinderaker and his powerline collegues when it comes to their attacks on reporters making questionable statements, and has written plenty of those stories. So are they calling to speak with Hinderaker about his clarifying this remark that smaks of calling President Carter treasonous?




Tags: Republicans (all tags)

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Smears of President Carter Shameful (none / 0)

President Carter, although not our best President, was certainly not our worst. He failed the "macho" test for many right-wing American males and had bad luck to deal with an Iranian uprising in the midst of the cold war.

He had the audacity to wear a sweater and ask Americans to sacrifice. That's right, he actually suggested that Americans might want to just conserve a bit of energy to help the country.

What a weak man they group-think. Unlike Reagan who was tall, broad, and swaggering, Jimmy Carter just wasn't tough enough for many that yearn for a powerful father figure as leader to complete some need for security in their souls.

But there has not been a more sincere or truthful President in my lifetime. He is a true model of virtue. Not perfect, but more morally disciplined than most men can claim. He is good and his goodness is real.

Smearing Jimmy Carter as having anything but the greatest love for our country is ludicrous. It's foaming, ugly, idiocy.

Mr. Hinderaker should be ashamed of himself. He should be censured by his colleagues and by his employer. He should apologize, and he better mean it.

by Curt Matlock on Wed Feb 16, 2005 at 11:10:07 PM EST

Getting Carter is a neo-con must (none / 0)

Jimmy Carter is an Evangelical Christian and he's not an ultra-conservative. He's a huge threat to the neo-cons. Carter proves day-in and day-out that all the hate being spewed by the neo-cons in the name of Jay-zuz has nothing to do with Christianity.
by afs on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 09:28:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Getting Carter is a neo-con must (none / 0)

That makes sense. President Carter is a man with the political authority of an ex-President who also has a moral authority matched by very few. He lives life according to the morals he espouses. He is not a hypocrite. How frightening for those who demagogue and spew hate while they manipulate the evangelical Christian movement.
by Curt Matlock on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 10:01:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Getting Carter is a neo-con must (none / 0)

Actually, Carter's adminstration was an affront to many beliefs that the neocons cherish.

In their view he was a wimp afraid to use U.S. power. They blame him for the emasculation of the U.S.--- particularly of the intel agencies with the Church Commission. His unwillingness to equate nationalism with Communism in developing countries drove the conservatives mad. His condemnation of the human rights abuses of dictatorships serving American interests offended them.

Carter is the epitome of an anti-neocon. He must be destroyed.

by Southern Patriot on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 04:37:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Getting Carter is a neo-con must (none / 0)

Yet Carter was considerably tougher on the Soviets than either Nixon or Ford. He did a lot more than just boycott the Olympics. It was his and Brysynski's (sp?) idea to give the USSR "their own Vietnam" in Afghanistan. He backed Solidarity in Poland, which is in part why Poland was not invaded by the USSR in 1980, unlike Hungary in 1956 or Czechoslovakia in 1968. (The Communist Polish government put down the movement.)

He also wouldn't deal with terrorists, unlike Reagan.

Not one American soldier was killed in combat when Carter was President. Not one hostage was killed by the Iranians.

by wayward on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 08:57:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Getting Carter is a neo-con must (none / 0)

Carter was also a Democrat who could win in the South - and win big. Even in 1980, the partisan indices show the South to be relatively blue compared to the rest of the nation.
by wayward on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 08:48:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

"fellows of the Claremont Institute" (none / 0)

a polite way of saying they get their payola from the non-governmental/pseudo-educational wing of the Republican Noise Machine rather than the corporate wing or the governmental wing.

Why does this guy get the time of day for his crackpot ravings?

by desmoulins on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 01:31:28 AM EST

Re: "fellows of the Claremont Institute" (none / 0)

You have to wonder if this is the kind of publicity the Claremont Institute and this guys law firm really want. Of course, he hasn't really gotten any adverse publicity yet. Maybe he won't.

My general impression of law firms is that they don't particularly care for this kind of publicity. Of course, that didn't stop John O'Neil. I guess we'll find out in the next few days.

Will the media contact his law firm for comment? Isn't that standard procedure? I can see this kind of comment going over bigger in Texas, where O'Neil was based, than in Minneapolis.

by Gary Boatwright on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 03:17:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: "fellows of the Claremont Institute" (none / 0)

That depends on the kind of law firm it is; they might make most of their money preventing unionization or lobbying state government for more lax environmental regulation.  Law firms, in my (admittedly limited) experience, tend to have fairly consistent politics within the firm.  Hinderaker is probably fairly close to his firm's politics.
by paperwight on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 10:01:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Brilliant (none / 0)

I love the new "I'm not gonna take it anymore" netroots post-Gannon. Not only does the Daily Show do perhaps the best, most astute, and uttely briliant piece about the netroots )Stephan Colbert--I mean Ted Hitler), but now we aren't afriad to point out their hyporcrosy anymore. Taking down Powerline would be great. Of course, you can't really take down a blogger, because their audience is so hard-corse, but you can reduce the degree to which they are given credit even by jokers like Fox.

this is a battle we can win every time, because they have been so eager to punish liberals who step out of line,but have never checked themselves. Seriously, they are in for it now.

by Chris Bowers on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 01:44:42 AM EST

Re: Brilliant (none / 0)

I don't know Chris. What is going to happen? It looks to me like it is impossible for any story of a conservative outrage to get picked up by the media. For some reason, they just don't care. I'm still reading about this strange Churchill fake Indian dude, and as far as I can tell, he has absolutely no supporters or defenders anywhere on the left. He is a genuine whack job who for some reason got hired as a professor.

Why is that a more important story than Gannon/Guluck? Why should this be any more of a none story than Gannon/Guluck?  I remember when I used to watch Scarborough, one of his favorite sayings was "They just don't get it." Well I really don't get it now. How do they get away with this crap?

One of the last Faux News shows I watched was the one where Hastert told Chris Wallace that George Soros got his money from running a drug cartel. Absolutly no reaction. Has any speaker of the House ever said anything like that before? I really don't get it.

by Gary Boatwright on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 02:41:21 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Brilliant (none / 0)

I just had another thought Chris. The MSM seems to be anxious to take the bloggers down a peg or two. This character seems to be challenging them straight up. He's doing their "defining our own reality" thing and daring anyone in the MSM to do a story about it.

Over at Atrios he mentioned that yawa site that was putting his picture up on gay dating web services. Is this some sort of demented marketing strategy?

by Gary Boatwright on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 02:45:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Brilliant (none / 0)

It looks to me like it is impossible for any story of a conservative outrage to get picked up by the media.

It won't happen overnight, but eventually our message will get through. Remember, the right wing has at least a 10 year start on this.

What's the alternative? To continue to allow the Right to control the argument and set the agenda?

I think Chris is right -- we're seeing the start of something new here: both the Right and the "media" being challenged.

by cscs on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 10:04:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

The real Jimmy Carter (none / 0)

Their response is to say treason isn't going far enough and post up a reference from a book called "The real Jimmy Carter," a polemic of Ann Coulter proportions. It's written by a "colleague" from the Claremont institute. The brief information they provide seems to be a set of right wing fantasies, but alas they don't back up any of the the propositions from the book. Has anyone seen a "real" review of the book. The only websites I find that have reviewed the book are right wing sites. Does anyone know if there's a real review of the trash, or a takedown? I'm sure like all right wing trash its inferences can't be backed up, but alas I don't have the time or the interest to read the trash.
by Kombiz Lavasany on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 01:46:12 AM EST

Giving lawyers a bad name (none / 0)

Just when you thought lawyers could not possibly sink any lower, along comes this clown. This is symptomatic of the mental disease that has infected what passes for conservative thought these days. These creatures can genuinely be called pod people whose consciousness has been taken over by malevolent aliens.

Could this possibly be some sort of organized assault that was planned in the bowels of the right wing think tanks? They seem to be trying to take Coulterism and Malkinism mainstream. Are they trying to prove how genuinely depraved you can conduct yourself, before the American people are repulsed by your behavior and speech?

Governor Enron recently said the Democratic party was the "source of evil." Almost no response from the media. Maybe they are intentionally testing the limits of despicable speech to prepare for the next political campaign. Look at the examples Chris had on his diary the other day. Maybe there are no longer any limits to acceptable political discourse.

I think they are intentionally testing the boundaries of moral outrage. Perhaps Bill Bennet was right. The American people are beyond outrage. There are no longer any limits on what you can say about any political figure.

by Gary Boatwright on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 02:18:24 AM EST

Re: Giving lawyers a bad name (none / 0)

Easy on the lawyers, there, big dog.  Thousands volunteered with the Democratic Party and Election Protection in November 2004.

As for the rest of the post, I don't think it's that they're deliberately testing what the mainstream will bear.  They just always said this stuff among themselves and now that they've got some power, they think it legitimizes their entire paranoid, despicable worldview.

by paperwight on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 10:04:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Giving lawyers a bad name (none / 0)

Sorry.It was a reflexive response. I know there are many good and decent lawyers. Their image problem is similiar to cops. The bad eggs get all the press. I'm pretty amazed that Hindraker's law firm would approve of this kind of activity.

I don't know much about the Claremont Institute. I would think even a right wing think tank would be concerned enough about their image to distance themself from this kind of attack on a respected former President.

This kind of nonsense diminishes the office of the Presidency itself. It may even splatter some mud on Bush's authority. Is the media going to ask for a response from the WH about this?

by Gary Boatwright on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 11:39:01 AM EST
[ Parent ]

silence = treason (none / 0)

That's fuct.

If Hinderacker [insert joke about Hinderaker being German for reach-around, while mimicking Jon Stewart's motions of this evening] was so concerned about Jimmy not saying anything, maybe he should have contacted him.

Or, he should have watched Jimmy on Fox or CNN or MSNBC.  Oh, right.  None of them had him on.  He might have said something more damaging about the perception-fraud-management of the Bush admin, a lot more damaging than any Vanity Fair reporter commenting on the inaugaration.

by bartkid on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 02:27:44 AM EST

Carter (none / 0)

The defining moment of Carter's presidency was, of course, Iran and the American hostages.

What the wingers seem to forget is that Carter's presidency was completely undermined by Candidate Reagan -- the latter made a deal with the hostage-takers:

 

On Oct. 21, Iran publicly shifted its position in the negotiations with the Carter Administration, disclaiming any further interest in receiving military equipment. From my position at the N.S.C., I learned that Cyrus Hashemi and another Iranian arms dealer secretly had reported to State Department officials that Iran had decided to hold the hostages until after the elections.

Between Oct. 21 and Oct. 23, Israel sent a planeload of F-4 fighter aircraft tires to Iran in contravention of the U.S. boycott and without informing Washington. Cyrus Hashemi, using his own contacts began privately organizing military shipments to Iran. On Oct. 22, the hostages were suddenly dispersed to different locations. And a series of delaying tactics in late October by the Iranian Parliament stymied all attempts by the Carter Administration to act on the hostage question until only hours before Election Day.

After the election, the lame-duck Carter Administration resumed hostage negotiations through Algerian intermediaries, but the talks stalled. On Jan. 15, Iran did an about-face, offering a series of startling concessions that reignited the talks and resulted in a final agreement in the last few hours of Jimmy Carter's Presidency. The hostages were released on Jan. 21, 1981, minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President.

But Carter's a traitor?

I guess Carter -- a visionary who knew the two important issues of the future would be Middle East peace and energy -- isn't the kind of guy the Right can support.

They like tough guys. You know, like Jeff Gannon.

by cscs on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 08:05:01 AM EST

Re: Carter (none / 0)

Carter NEVER made any deals with terrorists, even though dealing in 1980 may have saved his Presidency.

Reagan did several times, most notably in Lebanon and Iran-Contra.

And they have the nerve...

by wayward on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 08:45:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Charge!! (none / 0)

Lets go after this S.O.B. just like Gannon. I'm sure theres someone with a repressed memory out there. So lets get to work on HinderaketGate. Yea!
by eddieb on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 09:14:46 AM EST

TCF Bank (none / 0)

is also a Powerline "sponsor": Scott W. Johnson is an attorney and senior vice president of TCF National Bank in Minneapolis.

He can be reached by phone at (612) 661-8879.

I suggest you contact TCF Bank, close your accounts, or call this Senior VP directly on his office phone number he so conveniently posts on the internets. (what a thoughtful guy!)

by zappatero on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 09:15:43 AM EST

Re: TCF Bank (none / 0)

This is good. Attacking a former President is not considered good form by broad segments of the business community. This could be a weak link that Hindraker had not considered.
by Gary Boatwright on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 11:40:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Carter commented on the Iraqi elections on 2/10 (none / 0)

in an interview with CNN, according to the Washington Times.

Recently I visited Powerline to comment on the Gannon affair and discovered that they deliberately don't allow comments. Their FAQ says that it's because they'd have to monitor offensive posts.

More to the point, when have you seen a two-way megaphone?

by Southern Patriot on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 12:26:19 PM EST

"hindrocket?" (none / 0)

as in a fart?

he may wish to change his nom de plume. :)

by JoshInNYC on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 04:01:26 PM EST

Our unluckiest President. (none / 0)

Carter had terrible luck, inheriting a military and international reputation that had been damaged by Vietnam, a Government that had been damaged by Watergate, and an economy that had been damaged by financing the Vietnam War and the gross mishandling of the Nixon/Ford Adminstrations.

Most of Carter's economic woes were inherited from Nixon and Ford. To avoid a recession hitting around the 1972 election, Nixon told the Fed to basically keep printing money while he enacted price controls. (Watergate was one of the LEAST of the slimy things Nixon did.) Sooner or later there would be hell to pay in the form of rapid inflation. Ford couldn't fix it. In fact, Carter was much more a part of the solution than part of the problem, however the effects would not be felt until after he left office (which is why Reagan got credit for them.)

Basically, Carter was as unfortunate as Clinton was fortunate.

by wayward on Thu Feb 17, 2005 at 08:59:58 PM EST


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