Carter says comments were ‘careless’
39th president had blasted Bush administration as ‘worst in history’
NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 9:09 a.m. ET May 21, 2007
Former President Jimmy Carter on Monday said his comments over the weekend about the Bush administration were “careless.”
Carter was quoted Saturday as saying “I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history.”
The Georgia Democrat said Bush had overseen an “overt reversal of America’s basic values” as expressed by previous administrations, including that of his own father, former President George H.W. Bush.
Interviewed on the TODAY Show about the comments, Carter said, "They were maybe careless or misinterpreted." He said he “certainly was not talking personally about any president.”
When pressed by NBC’s Meredith Vieira as to whether he was saying his remarks were careless or reckless, the former president said, “I think they were, yes, because they were interpreted as comparing this whole administration to all other administrations."
Carter said he was answering a question about the foreign policy of former President Richard Nixon, as compared with that of the current administration. He said he wasn't comparing the Bush administration with all those through American history. But in comparison to Nixon's, the Bush administration's foreign policy "was much worse," Carter said.
On Sunday, in a biting rebuke, the White House dismissed Carter as “increasingly irrelevant."
“I think it’s sad that President Carter’s reckless personal criticism is out there,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto responded Sunday from Crawford, where Bush spent the weekend.
“I think it’s unfortunate,” Fratto said. “And I think he is proving to be increasingly irrelevant with these kinds of comments.”
Carter made the comments to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a story that appeared in the newspaper’s Saturday editions.
Past critic
Carter has been an outspoken critic of Bush, but the White House has largely refrained from attacking him in return. Sunday’s sharp response marks a departure from the deference that sitting presidents traditionally have shown their predecessors.
In the newspaper interview, Carter said Bush had taken a ”radical departure from all previous administration policies” with the Iraq war.
“We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered,” Carter said.
In a separate BBC interview, Carter also denounced the close relationship between Bush and outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
“Abominable. Loyal, blind, apparently subservient,” Carter said when asked how he would characterize Blair’s relationship with Bush.
“I think that the almost undeviating support by Great Britain for the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq have been a major tragedy for the world,” Carter said.
Carter, who was president from 1977 to 1981 and won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his charitable work, was an outspoken opponent of the invasion of Iraq before it was launched in 2003.
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