Rug Being Pulled From Under Jimmy Carter

A second charge in two days has been levelled against Jimmy Carter's new book Palestine: Peace not Apartheid. Yesterday Professor Kenneth Stein, the first director of the Carter Center, terminated his association with the organization. The entire letter of resignation can be found at Powerline Blog. While Stein's association with the center has waned, his letter makes clear that the shortcomings in Carter's new book was the deciding factor. He states:

President Carter's book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments. Aside from the one-sided nature of the book, meant to provoke, there are recollections cited from meetings where I was the third person in the room, and my notes of those meetings show little similarity to points claimed in the book. Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information or to unpack it with cuts, deftly slanted to provide a particular outlook. Having little access to Arabic and Hebrew sources, I believe, clearly handicapped his understanding and analyses of how history has unfolded over the last decade. Falsehoods, if repeated often enough become meta-truths, and they then can become the erroneous baseline for shaping and reinforcing attitudes and for policy-making. The history and interpretation of the Arab-Israeli conflict is already drowning in half-truths, suppositions, and self-serving myths; more are not necessary. In due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins.

Now tell us what you really think of the book Professor Stein. Wow. Of course nobody should be surprised to read that Carter has a warped view of the world, historical and present. It can be found clearly in who he chooses to criticize and who he chooses to embrace. The embraced list tends to lean toward dictators and enemies of the U.S.

Today a second person has stepped up to cry foul that Carter used maps in the book without authorization. According to FoxNews:

Ambassador Dennis Ross, a former Mideast envoy and FOX News foreign affairs analyst, claims maps commissioned and published by him were improperly republished in Carter's book.

"I think there should be a correction and an attribution," Ross said. "These were maps that never existed, I created them."

After Ross saw the maps in Carter's book, he told his publisher he wanted a correction.

When asked if the former president ripped him off, Ross replied: “it sure looks that way.”

So on top of the charges undermining the content of the book, it appears Carter committed plagiarism by using the maps without permission. It will be interesting to see how Carter reacts to these charges. In spite of the media's attempt to build up Carter, he continues to embarrass himself. Such is the caliber of Nobel Prize winners these days.