So last night I was watching Anderson Cooper when he announced some breaking news. An old man named Jimmy Carter had implied on NBC that some Republican who called President Obama a liar was a racist. Apparently Carter knew this because he lived in the South, and there was a lot of racism in the South, even today. And, presumably, as this Republican is from the South, then there was probably a hint of racism in what he said. But that’s not all — according to Carter there is also a lot of racism in the criticism of Obama we hear in general. Because Obama’s black and Carter comes from the South, and there’s a lot of racism in the South — or something like that.
Now never mind that this is a rather sweeping, clumsy form of racial profiling. In the end we all get old and mumble to ourselves as we soil our adult diapers — unless we die young, of course. What I didn’t get was why this old man with a fleshy face was mumbling away on my TV and why anybody bothered to report it. I mean, who is he, this ‘Jimmy Carter’? They said that he was a president, but they didn’t specify what he was the president of. The president of the AARP? Of a toy company? Of his local amateur dramatics society? I’ve no idea — and yet he must be somebody big because even the White House felt compelled to respond. Robert Gibbs, Obama’s spokesman, told CNN: “I don’t think the president believes that people are upset because of the colour of his skin.”
Now I know there was a president a long, long time ago called Jimmy Carter, but by all accounts he was totally crap at his job. I mean, I’ve never once heard anybody say anything good about him, other than that he was a nice sort of man, a kindly soul, a good neighbor no doubt- but totally naïve and utterly useless under pressure. Apparently this Carter made a total balls-up of the Iran hostage crisis, and the effects of his mishandling of that affair resonate today. He was also feeble on the economy, or so I’m told. So I know that this old duffer I saw on TV last night can’t have been that Carter because surely he’s off pottering away in his garden, out of harm’s way. I mean, nobody would take seriously a man with that kind of record.
So I ask again: who’s Jimmy Carter?
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