Lawyer-Wearing-Yarmulka

Shmuley Boteach on Jimmy Carter:

Jimmy Carter is not so much anti-Semite as anti-intellectual, not so much a Jew-hater as a boor. The real explanation behind his limitless hostility to Israel is a total lack of any moral understanding.

Carter wants to do what's just. His heart's in the right place. He just can't figure out what the right is. He is, and always has been, a man of good intentions bereft of good judgment. He invariably finds himself defending tyrants and dictators at the expense of their oppressed peoples. Not because he is a bad man, but because he is a confused man.

Carter subscribes to what I call the Always Root for the Underdog school of morality. Rather than develop any real understanding of a conflict, immediately he sides with the weaker party, however wicked or immoral.

I pretty much agree. Carter has always been the man with the best of intentions. I wouldn't call him anti-intellectual, per se, as that implies someone who's incurious or hostile to intellectualism like our current president. He's simply blinded by his prejudices. It's nice to see a right-leaning (I assume) Jew admit Carter's not anti-semitic though.

I don't find it surprising that he was one of our most religious presidents. Extreme religiosity often goes hand-in-hand with a blindness to reality.

I don't find it surprising that he was one of our most religious presidents. Extreme religiosity often goes hand-in-hand with a blindness to reality.

Are you saying he's blind to reality because he's extremely religious or that a person who is blind to reality usually shares the same characteristics as someone who is extremely religious?

nephtuli:

The latter.