Jimmy Carter's New Book

I'm at home in a situation not conducive to work, so I thought I would float some thoughts that don't require my brain to work too hard.

Jimmy Carter has a new book out. I can't remember what it's called, but it sounds interesting. Carter was on Larry King and (I think) Hardball, and I caught a few lines as I drifted into Netherland.

The main thought I had was that I like this man. I don't agree with everything he thinks, but I agreed with most of what he said. I don't know how effective a president he made, but I wonder if he is the most Christ-like president we've ever had. Almost everything he said, he said in relation to his faith, and questioning his honesty seems about as silly as questioning Mr. Rodger's honesty (in fact, I wonder if he really is Mr. Rodgers).

For example, I am far more sympathetic to the death penalty than Carter is, but he put it this way: "I can't see Jesus being in favor of the death penalty." In other words, he formulated his arguments by way of WWJD.

He does think formal religion and politics should be completely separate, using the old "Render to Caesar" argument. I largely but not totally agree with him on that. I don't think it's a straight separation of church and state. But he clearly believes that there is a place for morality in law. And I agree with him that the more specifically religion gets involved in the state, the more likely the situation is to go sour.

He believed that late term abortions should be outlawed and that there were many ways even with R v W to diminish abortions drastically. He mentioned how much lower abortions were proportionately under his administration than today because his administration addressed the reason 2/3 of women have abortions--the inability to support another child. I could be wrong, but I've heard that there have been far more abortions during the current Bush's tenure than there were under Clinton.

On the whole, the word "character" was what kept coming to mind. This man has character, even if you disagree with him. The second word that came to mind was "intelligence." Here is a man whose degree was in nuclear physics. Again, I may not agree with him on every subject, but somehow the current Bush seems rather small next to him in every category.

But I do want to commend the current Bush on his recent initiative to stockpile flu vaccine. He's getting some flack on the money part, but I think it's something that needs to be done. The same people who are criticizing for this particular expenditure were roasting him a couple weeks ago for not planning ahead enough on the same subject. And you can be sure that those who are criticizing him now for getting it would have absolutely fried him if he hadn't and a pandemic had arisen.

I think this expenditure is a good expenditure. The problem I find with Bush's spending habits is the money we've spent in Iraq that we shouldn't have spent. Oops to the tune of endless billions.