[CubaNews] NYT: When Former Presidents Assail the Chief

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(âThis is really nothing new,â Mr. Updegrove said, citing criticism
Mr. Carter levied against the current administration during a trip to
Cuba. âItâs funny what Carter has gotten away with in some respects,â
he said, speaking of the Cuba trip. âWhen the Dixie Chicks did
something like that, they were burning their CDs.â (O.K., so the 
Dixie Chicks have never lived in the White House.)
======================================================================

THE NEW YORK TIMES
May 22, 2007
Political Memo
When Former Presidents Assail the Chief
By MARK LEIBOVICH

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/22/washington/22carter.htm

WASHINGTON, May 21 â Nothing rattles Washington quite like a good violation of unwritten rules, especially when the violator and the violated are both presidents (past and present, respectively).

Former President Jimmy Carter was cited for a doozy over the weekend when he called the Bush administration âthe worst in historyâ for its impact around the world. Though Mr. Carter tried to take it back on Monday, saying on the âTodayâ show that his remarks were âcareless or misinterpretedâ and that he was ânot talking personally about any president,â he has still incited a tsk-tsking tsunami in the capital.

His offense: failing to observe the protocol that former presidents should speak respectfully of their successors, or at least with some measure of restraint.

âHis language was much sharper than what youâd normally hearâ from an ex-president, said the presidential historian Michael Beschloss. But he and other presidential scholars roll their eyes at the notion that former presidents do not speak ill of current ones.

âI love how because of our short memories, we come up with these eternal rules that donât really apply,â said the historian Tim Naftali, the director-designate of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum.

Indeed, there have been several instances of âwhen ex-presidents attackâ over the years. As recently as a few months ago, former President Gerald R. Ford criticized Mr. Bushâs Iraq policy, albeit from the grave. In an article in The Washington Post, Bob Woodward quoted from an interview he conducted with Mr. Ford with the understanding that he could only publish Mr. Fordâs remarks after he died.

Eisenhower was critical of John F. Kennedyâs domestic policies, the first President Bush pounded on Bill Clinton, now his pal, for his Haiti policy, and Nixon chided the first President Bush (for comparing himself to Harry Truman in his 1992 re-election campaign).

Theodore Roosevelt was brutal in his assaults on Taft and Woodrow Wilson, said Patricia OâToole, author of âWhen Trumpets Call,â a book about Roosevelt in the years after he left office. She pointed out, however, that Roosevelt would run for president again, putting him in something of a different category than Mr. Carter (who by all accounts will not).

Still, Mr. Carter did not call President Bush a âpuzzlewitâ and a âfatheadâ as Roosevelt did Taft, according to âWhen Trumpets Call.â

But âworst in historyâ was certainly enough to get a rise from the protocol police, to say nothing of the White House. While Mr. Bush shrugged off Mr. Carterâs remarks, his spokesman Tony Fratto on Sunday called the attack âsadâ and ârecklessâ and took it as evidence that Mr. Carter was âincreasingly irrelevant.â

Reached Monday, Mr. Carterâs former communications aide, Gerald Rafshoon, declared of his former boss, âIâve never been prouder of him.â

In the gentlemenâs club of former presidents, Mr. Carter has been something of an outlaw, said Mark K. Updegrove, author of âSecond Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House.â He recalled a conversation he had with former President Bush last year in which Mr. Bush was particularly exercised over Mr. Carterâs treatment of the current President Bush at the funeral of Coretta Scott King.

âThis is really nothing new,â Mr. Updegrove said, citing criticism Mr. Carter levied against the current administration during a trip to Cuba. âItâs funny what Carter has gotten away with in some respects,â he said, speaking of the Cuba trip. âWhen the Dixie Chicks did something like that, they were burning their CDs.â (O.K., so the Dixie Chicks have never lived in the White House.)

In his âTodayâ appearance on NBC, Mr. Carter explained that his comments â made in an interview to The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette â had come in response to a question asking him to compare Mr. Bushâs foreign policy with that of Nixon.

Mr. Rafshoon said of Mr. Carter, âI think he felt really badly that his comments were construed as personal against Bush.â

By Monday morning, the presidential slapfight was showing signs of abating, at least for the time being. âI think it just highlights the importance of being careful in choosing your words,â Mr. Fratto said when asked about Mr. Carterâs apparent pullback on the âTodayâ show.

âIâll just leave it at that.â


=============================
WALTER LIPPMANN
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
writer - photographer - activist
http://www.walterlippmann.com
=============================


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