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Or has Carter already forgotten the period from, say, 1963 to 1974?* Doug

No Doug! That is why he won in 76. Ask yourself Doug!

If things are not as bad as those times in the late 60's and early 70's. Than explain the 10 trillion dollars in debt and no ending sight to reduce it. A war that has rob you of your individual civil liberties, and a federal government that has lie from day 1 of 9/11 to now. The Body counts in Iraq with 3500 dead Americans and over 22 thousand wounded and most likely to raise faster than a hot day on a NACAR race track in July. A President who appears to have lost it and a congress that can't make up of it mind which way to solve this train wreck that is coming to the American people once more. The culture changes that is detroying individual morals of our children and American families and the total corruption of politics at National and State levels.

It's not a petty political Paradise that you think it is as compare to the 60's. Jimmy has one thing right! He knows evil when it appears when it appears in this present day.

Connie, you shouldn't have to be reminded of the U.S. "body count" from the Vietnam War. The point here is not that everything is fine now, but you'd have to be very forgetful or very young to think it compares to 40 years ago.

Doug, two points.

(1) I really dislike this 'body count' comparison. We save more lives now than ever before due to medical breakthroughs and combat medical assistance. Body counts do not include the number of severely brain-damaged troops that we are saving for lives that are permanently changed for the worse and their families who are taking care of them because we've cut funds for brain injury work.

(2) This country was at war between generations during the time period you mentioned. There was anger, bitterness and a societal morphing from "war is good because G-d is on our side and we're always right" of our WWII dads into "our government is wrong, the war is wrong, and G-d loves everyone" that the college-aged generation claimed. We know now that the war was never allowed to be waged to win; in a word, much of the angry younger generation's beliefs were validated.

However, although I'm no fan of former President Carter, I tend to agree that the depth of our national schism is more bitter than ever before. We can no longer talk to each other on the 'other side of the aisle' and people despise others instead of disagreeing with them. The national conversation is in more than disarray; instead, it's deteriorated into name-calling, hatred, and contempt for the other side more akin, IMO, to the Civil War national breakdown than to the Vietnam arguments and shouting.

I've over-simplified a lot above, but for you to say that today's troubles don't "measure up" is, again IMO, not even close. Today's troubles are very different, to be sure, but they are a significant danger to our national image -- both within and without our country.

The healing required now is bigger and different. I hope it begins soon, but it won't happen unless we can talk to each other as Americans without having our patriotism questioned for doing so.

but you'd have to be very forgetful or very young to think it compares to 40 years ago.*Doug

Doug! Does 2 tours in Nam get your attention for a very ole guy like me. I or We don't forget a very bad thing our government did to many innocent and young patriots who believe! I do not like bringing personal thoughts or claiming to be a something other than the typical war story fool. You should know that by now. As I said before. Paradise is merely the dreams of a Orwellian government to it's subjects.

Thanks, Sue. I appreciate the perspective although I don't agree. I think comparisons to the Civil War era, when the nation actually split and the country's bloodiest war ensued, are just far-fetched. But the Civil War discussion is out of bounds; the question is history within Jimmy Carter's lifetime. I hope our country does not divide again to the point it was in 1968. If you want to consider just one measure of division, the presidential election result, you get a pretty good idea: 43.4 percent for Nixon, 42.7 percent for Humphrey, 13.5 percent for Wallace: http://www.multied.com/elections/1968pop.html.

Very well said, Doug.

I think why people may feel more divided now is related to Marxian theory that all conflicts are class / socio-economic in the end. The haves and the have-nots.

WWII was about oil (Japan wanted Indoesian oil and Germany wanted Ukraine and Middle Eastern oil) and resulting hegemonies, but it was able to be dressed up patriotically.

Korea and Vietnam were about stopping communism.
(more obvious class warfare).

It's hard to dress-up Iraq. It's just basically. "You have oil, we need oil" Boom.
You can't dress it up. This precipitates guilt since people are dying so obviously so people can drive cars. The only thing is, the oil thing is killing us. It's played out, it's running out. It's ruining the enviornment.
We're all dependent on it but 4 dollar a gallon is killing us, bringing out more class differences, which are always the most bitter.

We're taking it out on Bush. Bush is oil. But oil is us. Until this changes, it's going to be a rough night.

We're taking it out on Bush. Bush is oil. But oil is us. Until this changes, it's going to be a rough night.* Skeet Club

Well Skeet! As some Religious leaders said a century ago. " If God wanted us to travel in Auto's, He would have put wheels on our butt."

Later it was found out that the Religious leaders had stolen this quote from a ancient Roman Senator who was complainting about the traffic mess in Midtown Rome by speaking on the floor of the Roman Senate. " If the Gods wanted us to travel by Ox Carts, they would have put Ox wheels on our butts."

Whereupon a Senator who was in opposition to the law, jump to the Senate floor and said " If the Gods wanted to put wheels on the Senator butt, he would created a ASS like the present Senator is."

Something witty must have been lost in the translation from Latin.

Doug:

Thank you for pointing out this tremendous exaggeration on the part of Carter. The man just has no credibility at all! How dare he suggest that today's political environment is divisive!

Doesn't he know that we are in a country that is led by a "uniter, not a divider." Why can't he accept that victory in Iraq is just around the corner with the few "dead-enders" in the insurgency going through their "death throes" (some would even already say "mission accomplished")? Thank goodness for the honesty and competence of the Bush administration and most of all for its many contributions to national unity and shared purpose.

Naysayers and prevaricators like Carter are the real source of problems in this country. Former elected officials, and especially life-long Sunday school teachers, should be held to a higher standard.

Nice touch of sarcasm, Dave. It's just off the point.

I wrote nothing to refute the assertion that the country is divided today, only the opinion that it is more divided now than at any other time during Carter's lifetime.

If you have something to say about that, please feel free.

Doug:

The quote that you seem to be referring to comes from this exchange:

Interviewer: You've noted, as many people have in our time, that our country is politically and racially polarized, that that seems to be getting worse. And I wonder if you how you think about the spiritual underpinnings of that?

Mr. Carter: I think our country is probably more divided now than it has been at any time of my lifetime. It obviously is not as divided as it was during the War Between the States, you know, when hundreds of thousands of people were killed in a war. But I think we are divided pretty deeply now because of various factors. I noticed that the blue states and the red states, in 2004, were identical with the red and blue states in the year 2000, which shows that there was a four-year perpetuation of those political differences.

For the question, Carter was asked specifically about political and racial polarization, not about the Iraq war. He qualified his answer with the term "probably" and with a subsequent reference to the Civil War (the statement in your column makes his out to be much more definitive). In the same answer he describes the country as being "pretty deeply" divided. Again, something of a hedged modifier. Finally, the evidence that he provides relates to the distribution of "red" and "blue" states, suggesting that he had a much narrower definition of political division in mind.

This just doesn't seem like the kind of statement that merits "a serious disagreement," certainly not a several paragraph rejoinder about historical levels of division.

Dave, the Civil War didn't occur during Jimmy Carter's lifetime, so that's excluded from the debate. Let's grant his use of the qualifier "probably." I don't agree that the country is more divided politically and racially now than it was during the period I cited. I referred to the result of the 1968 election. That's a stark division when the winner claims only 43 percent of the popular vote. Racial divisions? Race relations are far from perfect now, but I suggest they are far better than 40 years ago when there was violent resistence to civil rights in the South and when Northern cities erupted in riots claiming scores of lives.

I've stated my opinion as clearly as I can. You're nitpicking at the edges but still haven't addressed the question. Do you agree with Carter that the country is more divided now than at any time in his life, or with me that it was more divided during the period 1963-74, or do you have another position?

Doug:

Carter made an incorrect (albeit qualified) statement during an off-the-cuff verbal answer to a reporter's question during an hour long interview. You don't think that taking that one statement and twisting it out of context doesn't constitute "nitpicking?"

Clearly Carter's statement is incorrect. Although your assessment also overlooks earlier periods of violence, especially against blacks, union members and the homeless during the 1930s. Far more people were killed and wounded in those earlier incidents than were killed during domestic incidents during the 1960s and 70s.

Dave, I didn't twist anything out of context. I took Carter's one statement as an interesting discussion point and ran with it.

Your reference to the 1930s is worth considering. That was indeed a very dangerous time for the country. I would answer that we were fortunate to have a president, after FDR's election in 1932, who was a uniter rather than a divider. During the era I cited the landslide elections of 1964 and 1972 created more the appearance of political consensus than the reality. In both cases, it didn't last long.

Let me add a note explaining where I'm coming from on this. I'm not a historian, although I read quite a bit of history. It bothers me when people make statements that reveal a lack of historical perspective.

For example: Some people say President George W. Bush has restricted civil liberties more than any other president. I don't believe that's true, although I'll acknowledge that an argument can be made for the proposition. However, that argument should not be made without knowledge of civil-liberties restrictions imposed during the administrations of other presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Abraham Lincoln and John Adams. So I didn't want to let Carter's statement pass unchallenged. People who believe he's correct can argue for his position, but I hope no one would do so without at least some awareness of earlier events.

Doug:

You said that he made a definitive statement when his actual statement was prefaced with "I think" and "probably." If we "ran with" every bit of hyperbole or with every misstatement that people made, we wouldn't get very far.

My guess (and this is only a guess) is that Carter would have immediately retracted the statement if it had been pointed out to him.

With respect to divisiveness, I cannot recall an administration that has purposefully sought this level of political discord. The Rove strategy has been to charge as hard to the right as possible, because there were just enough votes there to maintain power. Every administration that I can recall has tried to make some accommodation with the middle.

Something witty must have been lost in the translation from Latin.*Doug

Okay Doug let's take nitwit out of it and try this?

"Well Skeet! As some Religious leaders said a century ago. " If God wanted us to Smoke in Auto's, He would have put wheels on our butt and made our head ass tray"

Later it was found out that the Religious leaders had stolen this quote from a ancient Roman Senator who was complainting about the traffic mess and sudden villa fires in Midtown Rome by speaking on the floor of the Roman Senate. " If the Gods wanted us to travel by Ox Carts, they would have put Ox wheels on our butts and made our mouths ass trays"

Whereupon a Senator who was in opposition to the law, jump to the Senate floor and said " If the Gods wanted to put wheels on the Senator butt and set his head on fire, they would created a ASS like the present Senator is and move him to Pompia"

*Note for classic Latin lovers like Doug! Pompia had big mountian next to it at one time in ancient history.

Yeah, if Carter had said Bush is the most divisive president of his lifetime, I would not have made a counterargument. But he said what he said, and the prefaces don't change it. I wish the interviewer had challenged him, but she didn't.

My candidate for most divisive president ever would be Lincoln -- which doesn't mean he was wrong or that it was his fault. But a civil war was divisive. He had to destroy the South before he could save the Union.

Doug:

Did you pause at all to consider the irony of gainsaying Carter's statement about excessive divisiveness in politics today?

Reading what you and David are saying about brother jimmy is interesting. However, let's take a tough guy from the same generation of Jimmy and see what he thinks now and the past. I am sorry for doing the whole thing and taking up space, but the link from where it came from was not working on the computer?????

Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

From Chapter 1: Had Enough?

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have.

My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to -- as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

WHO ARE THESE GUYS, ANYWAY?

Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them -- or at least some of us did. But I'll tell you what we didn't do. We didn't agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn't agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that's a dictatorship, not a democracy.

And don't tell me it's all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument, and it's part of the reason we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

THE TEST OF A LEADER

I've never been Commander in Chief, but I've been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the top. I've figured out nine points -- not ten (I don't want people accusing me of thinking I'm Moses). I call them the "Nine Cs of Leadership." They're not fancy or complicated. Just clear, obvious qualities that every true leader should have. We should look at how the current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this crew is going to be around until January 2009. Maybe we can learn something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let's be sure we use the leadership test to screen the candidates who say they want to run the country. It's up to us to choose wisely.

So, here's my C list:

A leader has to show CURIOSITY. He has to listen to people outside of the "Yes, sir" crowd in his inner circle. He has to read voraciously, because the world is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. "I just scan the headlines," he says. Am I hearing this right? He's the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter." Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he's ready to go.

If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to hear different ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn't put his beliefs to the test, how does he know he's right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance. It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don't care. Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he didn't listen to the polls. Yeah, that's what they all say when the polls stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a "thumping" on election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn't listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of convincing everyone he was right.

A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There's a disturbingly messianic fervor to his certainty. Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President -- the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. "The President was serene," Joe recalled. "He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well. 'Mr. President,' I finally said, 'how can you be so sure when you don't yet know all the facts?'" Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe's shoulder. "My instincts," he said. "My instincts." Joe was flabbergasted. He told Bush, "Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough." Joe Biden sure didn't think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn't.

Leadership is all about managing change -- whether you're leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt. Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at Harvard Business School.

A leader has to COMMUNICATE. I'm not talking about running off at the mouth or spouting sound bites. I'm talking about facing reality and telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk straight anymore. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem. I don't know if it's denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while. Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it's painful. The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn't cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we've stopped listening to him.

A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, "If you want to test a man's character, give him power." George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths -- for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he's tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.

A leader must have COURAGE. I'm talking about balls. (That even goes for female leaders.) Swagger isn't courage. Tough talk isn't courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn't mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk.

If you're a politician, courage means taking a position even when you know it will cost you votes. Bush can't even make a public appearance unless the audience has been handpicked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.

To be a leader you've got to have CONVICTION -- a fire in your belly. You've got to have passion. You've got to really want to get something done. How do you measure fire in the belly? Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President -- four hundred and counting. He'd rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake.

It's no better on Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That's eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that's not leadership.

A leader should have CHARISMA. I'm not talking about being flashy. Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It's the ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That's my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn't look very presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don't go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.

A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems obvious, doesn't it? You've got to know what you're doing. More important than that, you've got to surround yourself with people who know what they're doing. Bush brags about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well, let's see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we've got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we've run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that's just for starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner.

You can't be a leader if you don't have COMMON SENSE. I call this Charlie Beacham's rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford's zone manager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel. Charlie used to tell me, "Remember, Lee, the only thing you've got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don't know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you'll never make it." George Bush doesn't have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites. You know -- Mr.they'll-welcome-us-as-liberators -no-child-left-behind-heck-of-a-job -Brownie-mission-accomplished Bush.

Former President Bill Clinton once said, "I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world -- and I like it here."

I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while.

THE BIGGEST C IS CRISIS

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It's all on tape. You can see it for yourself. Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn't safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day -- and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.

That was George Bush's moment of truth, and he was paralyzed. And what did he do when he'd regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq -- a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn't listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn't scare the crap out of you, I don't know what will.

A HELL OF A MESS

So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when "the Big Three" referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen -- and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?

HAD ENOUGH?

Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises -- the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11. If I've learned one thing, it's this: You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the horseshit and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough.

Copyright © 2007 by Lee Iacocca & Associates, Inc., a California Corporation

Irony, Dave? There's no irony in comparing today's circumstances to periods of similar or greater divisiveness in American history. I am kind of puzzled as to why you're so mightily offended by this discussion. Is it politically incorrect in your view to question anything Jimmy Carter says?

Doug:

You must be losing your sense of humor if you don't see the irony in finding "serious disagreement" with someone who is arguing that there is too much divisiveness.

You have pointed out that a single, qualified sentence that Carter uttered in an hour-long interview was either a mistake or an out-and-out exaggeration. His single statement seemed important enough to you to write a several paragraph column (even though you admit that you only heard part of the interview). That seems like nitpicking (and somewhat small-minded), no?

Was your intention really to make a bigger historical point? Why then mention that Carter was denied a second term? What historical argument is advanced by that statement. Also, why disingenuously say that "you don't understand why he overlooks" history when you've already intimated that outlook is "colored" by his animosity toward the current President's policies. These things suggest something other than advancing historical accuracy motivated you to write the column.