Since President Obama took office in 2009 with his big government domestic agenda and lead from behind foreign policy, many who lived through the days of President Jimmy Carter feel like they've been taken back to the mid 1970s and early 1980s. But the good news is, although President Obama has built his legacy on the same failed policies as Carter, he isn't reaching out to him directly for advice.
Former president Jimmy Carter says President Barack Obama does not reach out to him for advice, citing tension over his nonprofit organization’s vocal support for Palestinians in the Middle East.
“Unfortunately, the answer is no,” Carter said when asked by NBC’S Andrea Mitchell in an exclusive interview whether the current inhabitant of the White House calls him, adding that former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan asked for his help with diplomacy when dealing with “unsavory characters.”
Saying that it is difficult to explain “with complete candor” why the two men don’t have a closer relationship, he noted that the nonprofit Carter Center’s positions on the Middle East may be the source of the tension.
“I think the problem was that -- in dealing with the issue of peace in between Israel and Egypt -- the Carter Center has taken a very strong and public position of equal treatment between the Palestinians and the Israelis. And I think this was a sensitive area in which the president didn't want to be involved,” he said.
Although Obama has distanced himself from Carter publicly, his policies toward Israel are not too far from the ones Carter promotes through his support of the Palestinians. Obama staying away from Carter isn't a matter of disagreeing on policy, but rather Obama keeping his distance from an unpopular president in history. Lets not forget President Obama's call in 2011 for the Jewish State to give up their current borders for the indefensible ones they had in 1967. His "suggestion" for the Israeli's to give up more land to the Palestinians, whose President Mahmoud Abbas represents the terror group Hamas as a political party, was swiftly rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.