Koch on Carter = Knave

John Hinderaker of the excellent Power Line blog recently posed the question if former President Jimmy Carter is more a fool or a knave. Mr. Hinderaker's opinion was that

"...in this instance, with everyone from the Secretary of State to Israel's Prime Minister pointing out the folly of his mission, the balance tilts toward "knave."

Today, over at Real Clear Politics, Ed Koch, the former Mayor of new York City, weighs in with his memories of the seven Presidents with whom he has worked over his professional career. As one might suspect with a lifelong Democrat, he is forgiving of Lyndon Johnson, but his opinion of Jimmy Carter is one that makes for very interesting reading. Writes Koch of Carter,

I came to know Carter well.

When he ran for reelection, he asked me to campaign for him in 1980 - I was by then Mayor of New York City -- and I said that I would vote for him, but not campaign for him because he was then engaging in hostile acts towards Israel. I was popular with the Jewish community and when I would not campaign for him unless he changed his position, he called me to his hotel in New York when attending a fundraiser and said, "You have done me more damage than any man in America." I felt proud then, and even more today, since we now know what a miserable president he was then and the miserable human being he is now as he prepares to meet with Hamas.

Some Democrats do understand just how low Jimmy Carter has sunk in the years since he left the White House. And his comments on George W. Bush are equally interesting. Regarding the current President, Mr. Koch wrote,

Now we come to the last president on this list, George W. Bush. I campaigned for his reelection and have no regrets. I believe that history will treat him more kindly than current public opinion polls indicate. He and Tony Blair recognized the danger of Islamic terrorism to the Western world when most world leaders did not. In addition, he is a very nice guy.

Mr. Koch may be a Democrat, but he is clearly a man of honor and believes that 'American' trumps 'Democrat' or 'Republican' identity. And he is able to recognize the good qualities George W. Bush has as a human being- not the portraits so popular in the media, where 'Bushitler' alternates with 'Village Idiot'. Would that the majority of the American media and the Democratic Party could cease their partisan warfare long enough to appreciate that simple fact. If so, we would be a better country and I believe a stronger one.