Surprise! Mika Brzezinski, far from criticizing Jimmy Carter's excoriation of the Bush adminstration, applauds it . . .
View video here.
In a free-swinging democracy such as ours, rare are the restraints on political speech by our elected representatives. One exception are rules of decorum, such as those governing the House of Representatives that prohibit members from speaking in negative personal terms about their colleagues and other officials.
There is a similar, unwritten rule by which former presidents do not criticize their successors. And while the occasional lapse has occurred over the history of the republic, no president has so thoroughly trashed the tradition as Jimmy Carter, who has made stinging criticism of the Bush administration a virtual art form. Earlier this year, for example, Carter publicly labelled the Bush administration "the worst in history."
The Kvetcher-in-Chief is back at it again.
The latest tirade from the man who brought us the "Desert One" disaster is directed at Vice-President Cheney, whom he called a "disaster," and "a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military."
Surely no MSM newsreader would defend Carter's breach of comity, would she? As it turns out, at least one would. There was Mika Brzezinski on today's "Morning Joe," staunchly standing up for both the form and substance of the remarks by the former president for whom her father Zbigniew served as National Security Advisor.
Carter will be a guest on "Morning Joe" tomorrow.
WILLIE GEIST: He was talking to the BBC yesterday, and we only hope he opens up like this for us tomorrow. He called Dick Cheney, quote, "a disaster" and "a militant who avoided military service himself" but who has no problem inflicting our military on the world. He also said, in a negative way, that Cheney was overly persuasive on Bush, and that he has often prevailed in foreign policy decisions.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Well, I've heard echoes of that before, for sure, so he's just saying what a lot of people are thinking.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: A lot of people around your household, Mika, but the rest of us . . .
BRZEZINSKI: Hey, hey, hey: that's not necessarily true. Don't paint my household.
"Not necessarily" true? It either is or it isn't. Is Mika professing ignorance of what's being said in her own home? But let's give Bubbles the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps in speaking of what "a lot of people are thinking" in terms of blasting the Bush administration, she had the MSNBC newsroom in mind. But back to the exchange.
SCARBOROUGH: What do you think of the rule that former presidents don't say bad things about current presidents? Do you think that's a good idea?BRZEZINSKI: No I don't. I think people should speak their minds and act on their convictions. If something is wrong in your mind, you speak it.
And a bit later.
BRZEZINSKI: I just think if you, in your gut, think that our country is fundamentally going in the wrong direction, and you're a former president, perhaps you have a responsibility to say something.
SCARBOROUGH: You know what, perhaps there are other ways you can do it.
BRZEZINSKI: Perhaps.
Scarborough later predicted that the same people who today applaud Carter's candor will condemn Pres. Bush for criticizing a future President Hillary Clinton. Let's hope Mika never has the chance to prove Joe right.
Bonus Coverage -- Mika Gushes Over New Carter Book: Earlier [see beginning of video], Mika sung the praises of Carter's latest thumb-sucker, "Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease and Building Hope.” Even the New York Times labelled it "something of a valentine to himself; his wife, Rosalynn; and his colleagues at the Carter Center in Atlanta." But Mika gushed that it was "a great book" that "makes you realize what one can do with one's life."
—Mark Finkelstein is a NewsBusters contributing editor and host of Right Angle. Contact him at mark@gunhill.net.





















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Brzezinski is yet another
October 11, 2007 - 08:26 ET by Gat New YorkBrzezinski is yet another political plant in MSNBC to masquerade as a journalist.
I cannot wait to see how her daddy's old boss is handled in tomorrow's edition of "Morning Joke."
Another Idiot
October 11, 2007 - 08:27 ET by philhoeyKeep it up and you can have a job next to Dan Rather.. The ‘main stream’ news is loosing any creditability it ever had.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” – Marcus Aurelius
If something is wrong in
October 11, 2007 - 08:27 ET by drillanwrIf something is wrong in your mind, you speak it.
Okay, Mika ... You're an ignorant idiot who doesn't have the mental capacity to stock shelves at your local Walmart ...
Yeah! I feel better! Thanks, Mika!
.
October 11, 2007 - 08:56 ET by dervishWell, she's half right. I'd say there's definitely something wrong in Carter's mind.
Dude... don't go insulting
October 11, 2007 - 09:12 ET by PeskyDaneDude... don't go insulting the clerks at WalMart by comparing them to this oxygen thief. They're out there producing something useful.
You're right ... A 1000
October 11, 2007 - 09:15 ET by drillanwrYou're right ... A 1000 pardons to store clerks everywhere ...
}}---> Store clerks
October 11, 2007 - 09:19 ET by Cool ArrowYeah, that was a little over the top, but what about that kid who got run over sweeping the street in "The Last Picture Show"?
OK, maybe not. How about "Dude, Where's my Car"
I know I'm gettin' close
~LYDSEXICS UNTIE!~
}}---> Mika, Sbignew, and Jimmah
October 11, 2007 - 08:27 ET by Cool ArrowShocking she wouldn't speak ill of the god of her father.
~LYDSEXICS UNTIE!~
Morning Joesph
October 11, 2007 - 08:34 ET by taterI saw this exchange this morning and I can at least applaud Joe for not being completely brainwashed.
Can't say the same for Bubbles...her mind must go boo anything a republican or conservative says...praise anything a democrat or liberal says.
}}---> Tater
October 11, 2007 - 08:41 ET by Cool ArrowHer Dad, Zbignew, was Carter's foreign policy advisor. Not that it's germane to her politics.
~LYDSEXICS UNTIE!~
Father
October 11, 2007 - 08:47 ET by taterThat's probably true...but most people should be able to think and decide politics for themselves (espically a journalist). My grandfather is a staunch Democrat, my father is a Republican, I weigh the issues between two parties and pick the lesser of two evils.
}}---> Daddy Zbig
October 11, 2007 - 08:51 ET by Cool ArrowSo she strikes you as a particularly astute analyst?
~LYDSEXICS UNTIE!~
No
October 11, 2007 - 09:38 ET by taterI don't think she's that cunning or clever how she analyzes things. It's pretty clear how she feels.
A list of Zbig & Jimmy's accomplishments..
October 11, 2007 - 12:59 ET by the_red_stateI had almost forgotten about that. Let's recall what happened on his and Carter's watch:
1. Gave away the Panama Canal.
2. Let the Russians march right into Afghanistan.
3. Allowed the Iranians to tkae over the embassy and hold our people for 444 days.
4. Allowed the Sandinistas to take over Nicaraugua.
Have I left out anything?
And it's more than criticism of policy - he is demonizing
October 11, 2007 - 08:37 ET by Dee BunkHe's demonizing people who were elected into office and are not using the military to take over and change the Constitution so that they can remain in power. Oh, that's right - Carter likes the leaders who do that. Using torture and deadly force to control political expression in your own country is A okay as far as Carter is concerned.
It's only the use of deadly force against a foreign threat to Democracy that is evil.
Let's reflect, shall we....
October 11, 2007 - 08:41 ET by Sua Sponte 75Wow, spending your entire life trying to deflect on how inept you were:
In Cambodia, Jimmy Carter and his national security aide, Zbigniew Brzezinski made an “untiring effort to find peaceful solutions” by initiating a joint U.S.-Thai operation in 1979 known as Task Force 80 which, for ten years, propped up the notorious Khmer Rouge under the all-purpose banner of anti-Communism.
In order “to advance democracy and human rights,” we have East Timor. This former Portuguese colony was the target of a relentless and murderous assault by Indonesia since December 7, 1975‹an assault made possible through the sale of U.S. arms to its loyal client-state, the silent complicity of the American press, and then-Ambassador Daniel Patrick Moynihan¹s skill at keeping the United Nations uninvolved. Upon relieving Gerald Ford (but strategically retaining the skills of fellow Nobel peacenik Henry Kissinger), Carter authorized increased military aid to Indonesia in 1977 as the death toll approached 100,000. In short order, over one-third of the East Timorese population (more than 200,000 humans) lost their lives due to war-related starvation, disease, massacres, or atrocities.
After the Nobel Committee announced that he would be the 2002 recipient for the Nobel Peace Prize, North Korea announced that it had cheated on an agreement - one which had been negotiated by the former president.
When Carter took office in 1977, he received a moderately growing economy in which inflation was 5.4 percent and interest rates were around 8 percent. When he left office, the Soviets were entrenched in Afghanistan, Iranian students had been holding US State Department personnel and US Marines hostage for 444 days, the American military had been gutted by the administration's post-Vietnam cutbacks, American prestige was in tatters abroad and inflation was in the double digits and interest rates were so high it was impossible for Americans to finance large purchases like homes and cars. Carter's administration is without a doubt the worst in modern American history, yet Carter himself blamed his failures on a "national malaise" (i.e. Americas fault) and a 21% inflation rate.
President Carter's crowning achievement was the Camp David Accords which returned the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for the end of a state of war between Israel and Egypt. While the accords ended a shooting war between the two countries, it is worth noting that the agreement was not even negotiated by the Americans. Carter's true achievement was to shift Egyptian attacks from direct conventional military strikes to direct support of unconventional attacks - a legacy which Israel still grapples with today.
He also ignored the deliberate starvation of millions of Koreans by the same dictator he'd brown nosed shortly before. Oh yes: he ignored the deliberate starvation in the Soviet Union, Rhodesia, Uganda, Ethiopia and several other world dictatorships, not to mention that the Koreans that he loves, were deliberately starving literally millions of "his friends", the innocent and disarmed common Korean peasant.
He responsible for the fall of the Shah of Iran to the Ayatola and the establishment of that Muslim dictatorship. He thought he solved it when he cut off the U.S. from their oil. He left it to become the terrorist capital without so much as a whimper. Jimmy Carter did more to aid the cause of radical fundamentalist Islam than any other president, first by not helping the Shah of Iran when Khomeni deposed him; second by doing nothing during the hostage crisis.
Of course, he wouldn’t want you to remember that he caused the skyrocketing price of gas. Remember gas lines blocks long while he was president? Another stupid, ignorant decision by Carter was to stop research and implementation of the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. The entire rest of the world does this and has been doing it safely for 30 years. But Carter, who incidentally lied about being a Nuclear Sub, only spent a few months on a training mission, bowed to the enviro-wackos of his time. The result, 30,000 tons of unused spent nuclear fuel. This decision by him was one of the most idiotic of all times and haunts us to this day. Now we have to consider the reprocessing of all of that or burying it for tens of thousands of years. It would have never been a problem if it was reprocessed into new fuel and been burned until the radiation was negligible.
He personally waged international financial war against South Africa and helped establish a regime with Nelson Mandela, a socialist who was a buddy of Libya's terrorist head of state, Muhmmar Quadafi, that has destroyed the economy there. South Africa now is the rape and murder capitol of the world thanks to him. His use of trumped up charges and "apartheid" destroyed the jobs of the Africans he thought needed "Liberation". You can read the results of his insane war on civilization in the article “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer”. His destruction of the only free capitalist society on the African continent is now resulting in the starvation of millions.
Pardoned ALL draft dodgers from Vietnam, nice slap in the face to those who did serve.
Gave away the Panama Canal.
And finally took a swing at a killer rabbit….you go boy.
"You're either part of the solution or part of the problem"
}}---> Memory lane with Sponte
October 11, 2007 - 08:47 ET by Cool ArrowI just ate, and you have to bring this up.
What a disgusting litany of accomplishments.
~LYDSEXICS UNTIE!~
There was more.....
October 11, 2007 - 08:53 ET by Sua Sponte 75But I just wanted to stop the dry heaves......
"You're either part of the solution or part of the problem"
SS, that was spectacular.
October 11, 2007 - 10:47 ET by fosstenSS, that was spectacular. I hope you don't mind, I'm going to quote you.
Forget 911, I dial 9MM.
I would be honored..
October 11, 2007 - 11:50 ET by Sua Sponte 75Much appreciated, don't mind at all..
"You're either part of the solution or part of the problem"
Bubbles, undermining foreign policy is never correct
October 11, 2007 - 08:52 ET by RJBRZEZINSKI: No I don't. I think people should speak their minds and act on their convictions.
Can you really be that stupid? It's ok with you that a former President of the United States deliberately undermines American foreign policy?
...and I'm talking actual, deliberate attempts to derail specific policies, not a few uncomplimentary words...that's what your hero, Jimmy Carter, has done on numerous occasions, Bubbles.
Following your "philosophy", how could any President govern effectively if multiple ex-Presidents are acting as independent rogue agents?
Mika, you've made numerous vacuous statements that have earned you the nickname "Bubbles", but this is even more empty-headed, and probably comes from blind, emotional, ideological loyalty. As an American citizen, you're as disgraceful as ex-President Carter.
}}---> Thank God
October 11, 2007 - 09:08 ET by Cool ArrowGod, Country, and Family can be proclaimed on Flag certificates.
Let Pelosi and the architect eat sulphur.
~LYDSEXICS UNTIE!~
Mika is still attempting to
October 11, 2007 - 09:19 ET by bigtimerMika is still attempting to defend her daddy's old boss, she just got done with two talking heads from each party making excuses for the crude rude POS Carter...
Who spews this not only here in the USA but other countries like he just got doing on the BBC...this during a time of war...(that as far as I am concerned he helped foster in the long run of it all)..
Mika just put down Mrs. Cheney inferring that she is a hypocrite and calling it a cheap shot that Lynne made about Carter just saying these things to sell his book, that he does this every-time he has a new book out it seems...
Well Mika, why didn't you have the guts to speak out with this opinion while Mrs. Cheney was in your studio via phone...you gutless wonder.
I can just hear it tomorrow, maybe they should have the smelling salts near--by for Mika, she may not be able to contain loathsome leftist herself.
msnbc really is pathetic....
It was under JC that gas,
October 11, 2007 - 09:43 ET by bassndudeIt was under JC that gas, for the first time ever, reached $1.00 a gallon, in some areas of the US, when he took office is was about .32 cents here. Within 18 months it was up to .50 to .60 cents.
First time ever, lines at the gas stations, gas shortages abound. Thanks Jimmy, we know its our fault.
Inflation was off and running with an 18% intrest rate for a CJ5 Jeep in 1979.
For the first time ever, they had to invent a misery index for the general population.
For the first time ever, a US embassy was over run, and the staff taken hostage, and the President of the United States of America, sat on his hands, and worried what the world would think if he killed those that had violated our country with an act of war.
The US Army had no money for training, or fuel.
He was the first president to cozy up to Castro.
And as far as I know, he was the first President to go on TV and blame the American people for all the woes in the country. Accused hard working folks of being lazy.
Yeah, JC was a real Prince, alright. Prince of Darkness.
Save a SeAL, club a liberal!!
If things were right at
October 11, 2007 - 10:21 ET by Chris NormanIf things were right at MSNBC, we could regard Mika as comic relief, like Gracie Allen to Jack Benny...
Bashing
October 11, 2007 - 11:23 ET by kdoliverWhen the likes of JC or BRZEZINSKI bash you, you must be doing something right!!!
http://thelazytriathlete.blogspot.com/
"MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Well,
October 11, 2007 - 17:27 ET by ckc1227"MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Well, I've heard echoes of that before, for sure, so he's just saying what a lot of people are thinking."
Therein lies the problem, Mika. Folks like you and Jimmah Cahtah repeat as fact what you want to be true, as opposed to what is true, or what you can prove.
And frankly, Mr. Peanut should worry about his own failed presidency before criticizing others.