Republicans are right- Jimmy Carter is just an awful person:
A rare tropical disease called Guinea worm is closer to being eradicated, according to former President Jimmy Carter and other experts.
There are now only 542 known cases of Guinea worm left worldwide, as of 2012, representing a 48% decrease from 2011, officials said Thursday at a news conference.
“We cannot rest until we get and contain the very last case,” said Dr. Donald R. Hopkins, affiliated with the Carter Center in Atlanta, which has been instrumental in the effort to wipe out Guinea worm.
The World Health Organization this week said in a report that Guinea worm, also called dracunculiasis, has a global eradication target for the year 2015.
So far, only one disease has reached the status of worldwide eradication since 1980: smallpox.
They hate Carter, and loved Bush. That really says everything, doesn’t it?
TooManyJens
That’s the thing. It’s rare now, but it wasn’t always:
LanceThruster
That makes me sad.
ranchandsyrup
Still trying to cure malaises. I’m gonna have some peanuts in his honor.
redshirt
I love Jimmy Carter. Loved him back in the day too.
Relatedly, I read an article recently which detailed how close we are to wiping out polio, but it’s also possible – due to political reasons – that we may fail. Pakistan is the prime example, and due to the belief the US government is embedding spies amongst the health workers, there’s been several mass murders of folks simply trying to inoculate kids against polio.
Terrible.
General Stuck
Bush also cured a lot of people of what ailed them.
Comrade Dread
But you know, Jimmy is going to hell because he’s a liberal and a Democrat.
At least that’s how some of my former friends on Facebook feel about us.
TenguPhule
@General Stuck:
Life is normally not considered a disease.
Make7
Isn’t he the guy that built all those houses before the housing bubble burst? Why aren’t House Republicans looking into his role in the financial collapse?
Villago Delenda Est
Carter cares for and saves brown people.
Bush kills them.
Who do you think these assholes will love?
LanceThruster
@Make7:
xD
It would be irresponsible *not* to speculate.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
Carter is a great ex-POTUS, and I think he’s one of the few who have transcended what could be called shortcomings.
Chief among them was; he was linked in to everything. He was a hands-on kind of guy, and no one can do the job autonomously. Just look at how past presidents age quickly over a short span of time. Not getting a second term probably saved him 10-15 years on his life expectancy
El Cid
These people could have saved themselves without all this big goverment / big charity soshullism if they had only had enough guns and bullets to shoot all them worms first.
Petorado
Heck of a track record for Democratic ex-Presidents and making demonstrable positive changes for the world. Imagine what the Black Jimmy Carter will do.
Any day expecting to hear about all the great stuff W’s been doing since he left office. He did a heck of a job ridding the world of that pesky US budget surplus, though.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
@TooManyJens:
How dare you defend History’s Greatest Monster by untruthfully claiming that guinea worm “wasn’t always [rare]. Of course it was always rare. I almost never heard about it, and I have friends who have never heard of it. And if anecdotal evidence from ignorant tools like me and those like me isn’t ironclad proof, I don’t know what is. Clearly, Jimmy Carter has been wasting money on “wiping out” a disease that has only 542 cases worldwide. Also, I’m pretty sure all or almost all cases were poor people in Africa, so who cares. right? He could have been giving money to cure real problems, like cancer, or, more urgently, erect¡le dysfunct¡on, also called impotence. But, oh, nooooo, he had to cure a disease right-thinking, decent, real Christian Republicans don’t care about. Have you no decency? At long last, have you left no decency?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You don’t specify, but I’m gonna go ahead and irresponsibly speculate that your “they” doesn’t begin to cover the number of people it should. Hell, the ‘wingers have disappeared Bush from their records. The VSPs probably regard him with more fondness with than the 27%– Cheney’s their boy. Cokie and the ghosts of David and Tim probably don’t hate Carter, they even admire those… things he does in… those places. But he never really did fit in. Joe Klein no doubt has a glowing memorial column ready to go for the old man, but Carter’s not the sort of fellow one would consider for dinner invitation.
General Stuck
@TenguPhule:
No, but death can be seen as the cure/neocon.
LanceThruster
@Petorado:
Mission accomplished!
JoyfulA
@Comrade Dread: When your former Facebook friends have taught Sunday school as long as he has—
liberal
@Comrade Dread:
No. He’s going to hell because he’s critical of Israel.
Hillary Rettig
>They hate Carter, and loved Bush. That really says everything, doesn’t it?
Yes, it does.
Let’s not forget that Carter presciently put solar panels on the White House, and one of Reagan’s first presidential acts (after colluding with Iranian terrorists) was to take them down.
karen
What I never understood about the right wing hate for Jimmy Carter is that the man is very religious. Very Christian. How can they be against that?
PJ
@redshirt: This is because the CIA did, in fact, use spies as health care workers in Pakistan in their attempt to locate Bin Laden:
LanceThruster
@liberal:
Speaking truth to power always brings down the wrath of Isra-hell.
Tokyokie
@karen: Because he demonstrates his faith through his deeds and not just his words?
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
@Hillary Rettig:
Nixon filled in the swimming pool and made it a dungeon for the Press.
High Dudgeon, indeed.
Suffern ACE
@karen: He’s Christian in all the wrong ways. In ways that make you feel guilty for sitting on your butt all day in an office and claiming that you are to tired to help those less fortunate people who deserve what they get.
PJ
@PJ: Let me try that link again: humanosphere.org/2013/01/a-renewed-push-to-ban-spies-from-overeas-health-and-aid-work/
ruemara
I don’t care. I’ve always adored Jimmy Carter. When I was a kid, he struck me as more trustworthy. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when the obviously lying guy beat him during the election. Made no sense, couldn’t people see how fake he was? And 30 years later, I still don’t get how people don’t see it as more obviously lying guys run for elections.
Gravenstone
@Petorado: W signed his name to a ghost written book. That’s likely the extent of his ambition for the rest of his misbegotten days.
bemused
@karen:
Because Carter is a Christian and they are Christianists.
NotMax
@karen
In short, because he thinks things through and has the standing and courage to directly challenge ingrained wrongs.The truth is that male religious leaders have had – and still have – an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. Source
redshirt
@Gravenstone: Good memoirs. Not great, but good.
Oops. Wrong Bush.
NotMax
@Not Max
Re-formatted for clarity.
In short, because he thinks things through and has the standing and courage to directly challenge ingrained wrongs.
Spaghetti Lee
This is really very impressive. Guinea Worm’s a horrible parasite. It won’t be missed.
Just Some Fuckhead
love jimmy carter. i’ll never forgive him for introducing the whole born-again litmus test into presidential politics but i guess it woulda happened anyway.
what a humble, towering figure of humanity.
Villago Delenda Est
@karen:
He doesn’t worship Mammon, like they do. REAL “Christians” worship Mammon.
proterozoic
For all the rest of his record, Bush did a lot for anti-AIDS efforts. Just sayin’.
Chris
@ruemara:
Like someone else here once said: Reagan made white people comfortable with their prejudices again, and they loved him for it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chris: Apologies if I’m overcorrecting your understatement, but that quote originated, I believe, with Rosalyn Carter. I know that because one of the very rare instances when I listened to Limbaugh for more than 8 seconds, he was having a tantrum about it, and the Carters in general.
Roger Moore
@karen:
They believe that Christianity is their brand and they get to define what a real Christian looks like. For somebody else to behave differently and be obviously closer to what Christ would want (to anyone who has actually read the Gospels, at least) undermines their attempts to control the public face of Christianity.
Roger Moore
@ruemara:
They judge liars differently from the way you do. You judge liars by whether the things they say agree with objective facts. They measure whether somebody is a liar by whether their statements agree with what the listener wants to hear.
PeakVT
@karen: What bemused said. Carter and other real Christians take the whole Bible to heart, not just Leviticus.
redshirt
@Roger Moore: Agreed. 100% probability the wingnuts would viciously attack a Christian Saint if he was also a Democrat.
These people aren’t Christians – it’s just a merit badge for the Repuglican Tribe.
LanceThruster
@bemused:
I like the term Christian-ette, too (like ‘Chinet’ is to real china).
Or maybe, “Christian-ish” (like the joke, “I’m not a Jew, I’m Jewish.”
LanceThruster
@redshirt:
And they’d even consider Republican Jeebus a RINO.
bemused
@PeakVT:
Great graphic thing I saw not long ago,
Jesus to a crowd:
Okay, here’s an idea. You love them like I love you.
Feed them, clothe them and shelter them, and
let me deal with judging them”
Guy in crowd:
But what if they’re gay or worship other gods?
Jesus:
Did I stutter?
Greg
Just blathering, but have *any* republican ex-presidents in modern times done anything commendable after leaving office?
bemused
@LanceThruster:
I like both better than Christianist…I think I will use Christianish from now on.
Roger Moore
@Greg:
ISTR that Bush Sr. has done a fair amount of stumping for disaster relief. And Nixon was something of an elder statesman for the Republican Party, though whether his influence was positive is another question. Still, Republican presidents don’t seem to have had very impressive retirements.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Greg:
They died, eventually.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
lolz
there is something to be said for not being able to do further harm
Comrade Carter
I have ALWAYS been a strong supporter of Jimmy Carter, despite the fact the I am an Atheist and he is… not.
mai naem
@Greg: This. I always point to this. Clinton and Carter. HW Bush, as far as I’ve seen, his involvement is minimal in disaster relief and my guess is that he does it because he’s good buddies with Clinton.
I admire and respect Carter. How could one not? Look at his background and look at what he’s been doing. Doesn’t sit on corporate boards. Takes commercial air flights. His income is his pension and his book earnings. His peanut farm was mismanaged because it was in a true blind trust so he had to make money to straighten that out. I cannot see the Reagans, Bushes or even the Clintons letting that happen. His background in nuclear subs. Rickover’s influence on him because Rickover was such a hard ass about not having accidents. His work with Habitat for Humanity. His observing of god knows how many elections all over the world. The missions that presidents have sent him on. His is an incredible life to be proud of.
Petorado
@Greg:
Boiled down to its essence, Democratic ex-Presidents pay back after they leave office, Republicans cash-in.
Mike G
The only worms Bush has eradicated in his retirement are at the bottom of tequila bottles.
LanceThruster
@bemused:
All good choices. As an atheist, I’ve always been fond of the term “religionist” too.
Debbie(Aussie)
@NotMax:
Thank you NotMax. That was great. Am a person of no faith myself , but we need ‘elders’ such as he to push this view forward.
Debs
Fort Geek
One of my favorite Carter accomplishments is that in 1986, he said that Falwell could go to hell–and didn’t back down from it.
Took Falwell another couple of decades, but he did comply.