INAPPROPRIATE!

Carter steps to the podium at Coretta Scott King's funeral service.


Jimmy Carter needs some instruction. Apparently, he could use a refresher course on integrity, manners, and decency.

Carter is so classless and clueless. He doesn't appear to know how to behave as a former President of the United States. He often seems incapable of behaving appropriately as a dignified human being, let alone the one time leader of the Free World.

Carter's presidency was an absolute disaster. Even his supporters have to recognize that things just didn't work out. He was a miserable failure.

Nonetheless, for a while in his early post-presidential years, I thought Carter managed to redeem himself. I truly had a great deal of respect for him then.

His humanitarian work, his Habitat for Humanity projects, and his books were all indicative of a good man. Yes, he was a terrible President; but he maintained his integrity. Carter had an aura of decency about him.

Then, in the late 90s, he started to make some comments that were inconsistent with the way he had conducted himself in the first decade after he left office. I don't know what precipitated the change, but his demeanor wasn't the same. Perhaps it stemmed from bitterness over years of being deemed an awful leader. Perhaps it was an outgrowth of his advancing age. Who knows?

What is certain is that the Carter of recent years has managed to make the Carter of the White House years look wise and steady in comparison -- a remarkable feat, given how unwise and weak he was as President.

The latest of Carter's long list of disgraces happened at the funeral service for Coretta Scott King on Tuesday.

The Financial Times reports on Carter's decision to sully his comments at the service with cheap politics rather than pay tribute to Mrs. King in a dignified fashion, with the respect and honor she deserved.

In an apparent swipe at the domestic eavesdropping programme authorised by Mr Bush as part of the war against terror, Mr Carter recalled how Mrs King and her husband had been the targets of secret government wiretapping.

"It was difficult for them personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated, and they became the targets of secret government wiretapping and other surveillance," he said.

Mr Carter also referred to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as evidence that the struggle for civil rights was not complete. "We only have to recall the colour of the faces of those in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi who are most devastated by Katrina to know that there are not yet equal opportunities for all Americans," he said.

You have to wonder if Carter is starting to show signs of senility.

Of course, he's been going around trying to get the media's attention by calling the NSA'a terrorist surveillance program illegal. So, he couldn't control himself. He just had to use his time in front of the cameras at Mrs. King's televised service to give President Bush a slap. Carter was shameless.

It was completely out of line, very sleazy.

The guy is so confused that he criticized the Bush Administration's tactics to keep the homeland safe by bringing up a REAL instance of domestic spying.

When the Kings were under surveillance, it wasn't because the country was at war with a shadowy enemy living among us. They were being harassed by the government. Attorney General Robert Kennedy was in charge of their civil liberties being violated.

Why would Carter call attention to the sins of a Dem icon in an effort to take shots at President Bush? It was pure idiocy, not to mention horribly inappropriate to play politics at Mrs. King's funeral service.

It was no suprise that Carter mentioned Hurricane Katrina. These Dems love to bring that up to berate the Bush Administration. They act as if history began on January 20, 2001, when Bush 43 was inaugurated.

What about the eight years prior to that? What did the first black President, Bill Clinton, do to provide opportunities for minorities? This "savior" had eight years to solve domestic problems. He didn't.

Carter had his chance when he was in office. He directed the country for four years. What did he do, (besides send the country spiraling downward)?

Bottom line, Carter is a total embarrassment. He's no great elder statesman. He's a bitter partisan hack and becoming increasingly extreme and reckless in his rhetoric. His conduct is not befitting a past occupant of the Oval Office.

I think Carter could really benefit from a self-help book, a Former Presidents for Dummies. He has a lot to learn about behaving in a respectable and honorable fashion.

A great woman's funeral service was neither the time nor the place for Carter to stand at the podium before thousands of people, millions including the television audience, and criticize the President, as he sat only a few feet away on the same stage, forced to listen to such trash without being in a position to defend himself.

It was a cheap, dirty, disrepectful stunt. Unfortunately, that sort of thing is typical of what Jimmy Carter has recently offered the country.

Mrs. King deserved better.
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Carter wasn't the only one to politicize the gathering.

More from the Financial Times:

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin recalled how Mrs Scott hadspoken out against "the senselessness of war" with a voice that was heard "from the tin rooftops of Soweto to the bomb shelters of Baghdad."

From Reuters:

[Rev. Joseph] Lowery, former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which Martin Luther King helped found in 1957, gave a playful reading of a poem in eulogy of Mrs. King and made a none-too-veiled reference to the Iraq war launched by Bush.

"We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there / But Coretta knew and we knew that there are weapons of misdirection right down here / Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor," Lowery said.

The mourners responded with a standing ovation. Bush's immediate reaction could not be seen on television, but after Lowery finished speaking, the president shook his hand and laughed.


Lowery disgraces himself.

It's unfortunate that these political opportunists grabbed the headlines. Rather than having the focus solely on Coretta Scott King, the media are highlighting the political sniping at Bush.

Unfortunate. Very unfortunate.

President Bush deliverd a beautiful tribute. His words should be noted.

(Excerpt)

The God of Moses was not neutral about their captivity. The God of Isaiah and the prophets was still impatient with injustice. And they knew that the Son of God would never leave them or forsake them.

But some had to leave before their time -- and Dr. King left behind a grieving widow and little children. Rarely has so much been asked of a pastor's wife, and rarely has so much been taken away. Years later, Mrs. King recalled, "I would wake up in the morning, have my cry, then go in to them. The children saw me going forward." Martin Luther King, Jr. had preached that unmerited suffering could have redemptive power.

Little did he know that this great truth would be proven in the life of the person he loved the most. Others could cause her sorrow, but no one could make her bitter. By going forward with a strong and forgiving heart, Coretta Scott King not only secured her husband's legacy, she built her own. Having loved a leader, she became a leader. And when she spoke, America listened closely, because her voice carried the wisdom and goodness of a life well lived.

In that life, Coretta Scott King knew danger. She knew injustice. She knew sudden and terrible grief. She also knew that her Redeemer lives. She trusted in the name above every name. And today we trust that our sister Coretta is on the other shore -- at peace, at rest, at home.