Carter: Obama will be one tough hombre in next two years

Carter: Obama will be one tough hombre in next two years
posted at 12:55 pm on November 30, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

Of course, this statement is relative. Coming from the man who kissed Leonid Brezhnev’s cheek, insisted we had nothing to fear from Communism, and watched the Iranians take over our embassy and seize our diplomatic personnel in Tehran, this could mean that Carter expects Obama to issue a couple of strongly worded memos. That’s not the only laughable point our former President makes in this CBS interview out today:

“In the next two years President Obama will be much more independent in fighting hard to prevail and not trying to reach out, which turned out to be fruitlessly, to get two or three Republican votes for this and that,” Mr. Carter said in an interview for CBSNews.com’s “Washington Unplugged.” “I think he’ll be a much more tough proponent of what he stands for in the future, giving up on Republicans support and taking his case to the American public.”

“Republicans so far have been totally irresponsible,” Mr. Carter went on. “Now that they’ve taken control of the House of Representatives, they’ll be responsible for a major element of the U.S. government.”

The one-term Democratic president told CBS News’ senior White House correspondent Bill Plante many of the issues he faced in the White House as “top priorities” are “still on the Oval Office desk,” including energy, health care, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and the Koreas. “Those things just carry on from one administration to another,” Mr. Carter said.

“I was blessed when I was president by a very encouraging and almost incredible degree of bipartisan support,” Mr. Carter said. “It was quite unlike… what is present here with President Obama since he has practically zero Republican support in the House or Senate.”

The reason Carter was so successful earlier in his presidency was because his party had a 149-seat majority in the House, which dropped to a mere 114-seat majority after the midterms. In the Senate, Democrats had a 61-38 advantage in the 95th Session and a 58-41 advantage in the 96th. Republicans weren’t cooperative; they were irrelevant. Carter blames his failures once again on Ted Kennedy, whom he accuses of conspiring to make him look weak by denying Carter the support of his own party. It’s not the first time Carter has leveled this charge, but — in keeping with his own sense of toughness — he only made once Kennedy was safely below six feet of dirt.

Without a doubt, Carter wins the award for worst former President in American history.