By Ross Balano, Midwest Voices Columnist 2008

Jimmy Carter is in the Middle East making nice with Hamas despite requests from the State Department and his own Democratic Party not to. He reminds me once again why he is considered by many as the worst president of the 20th century.

Let’s take a little trip down memory lane with Jimmy who was president from 1977 to 1981. Some memories from those years include:

1) Lines at the gas pump.

2) Interest rates approaching 17%.

3) Boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games.

4) General depression of the American People that was so bad Carter himself acknowledged it in his “malaise speech.”

5) Unemployment reaching 7.8% in August of 1980.

6) The Iranians took 52 American Diplomats hostage and held them for 444 days.

7) Under Carter, the American military had become so impotent that a rescue mission failed when helicopters crashed in the desert.

Citing human rights abuses, Carter withdrew American support for the Shah of Iran and in fact demanded that he step down.

Carter ordered the Pentagon to advise the Shah’s military not to oppose Ayatollah Khomeini who was returning from exile. Khomeini’s Islamic revolution was the result, and most of the top military people were executed as one of the first acts of the new government.

Carter’s refusal to send our military into Iran when they took the embassy and our people hostage was his worst mistake in my opinion. Had Carter acted then he would have stopped Khomeini and his radicals in their tracks. By not doing so Carter allowed militant Islam and terrorism to become the threat it is today.

Once again, now, Carter again seems to be siding with terrorists. By placing a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat, Carter is paying homage to one of history’s worst terrorists.

I think we should buy Jimmy Carter a new pair of overalls and a new hammer and send him permanently back to Habitat for Humanity. Let him try to build houses instead of tear down America.