He won’t go away

LITTLE ROCK — SERIOUS people just smile when some partisan or other announces quite officially that the current occupant of the White House-whatever party he belongs to-is the Worst President Ever.

But it’s been 30 years since Jimmy Carter left office, after what may have been the longest one-term presidency in the country’s history. Americans, and the rest of the world, have a pretty clear picture of the Carter presidency, complete with its interminable Iran hostage crisis (America Held Hostage! starring Ted Koppel), stagflation, gas lines, Billy Beer, Inordinate Fear of Communism, Zbigniew Brzezinski, disco pants, malaise and more malaise. . . .

No kidding, the National Christmas Tree didn’t light up during the last two years of this man’s administration. Maybe it was because Jimmy Carter’s sweaters weren’t saving sufficient energy during Washington’s winters.

(The man was a source of more bad ideas than awhole convention of amateur inventors-or Joe Biden all by himself.)

Every now and again, the aforementioned Zbigniew Brzezinski will show up as the author of an op-ed in a newspaper or a long commentary in Foreign Affairs that reads even longer. You may remember Zbig, hard as you might have tried to forget him. He was kind of a poor man’s Henry Kissinger with political opinions suitably modified for a neo-isolationalist presidency. Professor Brzezinski was Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor when the country’s national security was taking a beating around the globe. But for some strange reason known only to them, a few editors still seek his opinions.

As for James Earl Carter himself, he also takes up the occasional 15-to-20 inches of column space to air his various views. Much as you’d air dirty socks.

You’d think newspapers would consult Mr. Carter only when they needed an expert on how to fend off killer rabbits or steer America into a four-year funk. But no. Last week the Washington Post gave the happily ex-president more than ample space to voice his opinion about North Korea’s latest attack on the South with the usual accompaniments-death, destruction and danger to the general peace of the world. The Post obviously has too much space to spare. We suggest more sudokus.

But much as you’d rubberneck at a car wreck, we couldn’t not read it. As on the rare occasion when you see somebody actually being bandaged up at the scene of the accident, it was fascinating. In a sad, sickening way.

HERE’S HOW the former Navy officer, who at one time thought about making the military his career, started his op-ed in Wednesday’s Post:

“No one can completely understand the motivations of the North Koreans, but it is entirely possible that their recent revelation of their uranium enrichment centrifuges and Pyongyang’s shelling of a South Korean island Tuesday are designed to remind the world that they deserve respect in negotiations that will shape their future. . . .”

Talk about sentences we should never have finished reading. There were a lot more like that in the piece. But what stopped us this time was:

The North Koreans deserve respect.

You bet they do. Not to mention fear, disgust and a healthy distance. Those people-or rather their misrulers-are terrifying. Like anybody who’s a danger to himself and others. The Kim Dynasty- cum-People’s Republic (how’s that for a unique political system?) is enriching uranium at home and killing fellow Koreans across the border and Jimmy Carter thinks the regime in Pyongyang has, uh, esteem issues?

This former president must have spent too much time reading run-of the-mill American editorials, because the rest of his op-ed had very little op or ed in it. Instead, he falls back on the formula relied on by the most ponderous of the commentariat to turn out their readerless pieces of prose. (These pieces are known as thumbsuckers in the trade.) That is, he recites the history of the problem going back generations, if not centuries, before not reaching a conclusion. After all, the Post has a lot of space to fill.

The last paragraph of this apotheosis of the Carteresque reads: “Pyongyang has sent a consistent message that during direct talks with the United States, it is ready to conclude an agreement to end its nuclear programs, put them all under IAEA inspection and conclude a permanent peace treaty to replace the ‘temporary’ cease-fire of 1953. We should consider responding to this offer. The unfortunate alternative is for North Koreans to take whatever actions

they consider necessary to defend themselves from what they claim to fear most: a military attack supported by the United States, along with efforts to change the political regime.” Ah, a conclusion at last. Or at least an ending. Give ’em what they want and we’ll have Peace In Our Time.

Jimmy Carter offers no new policy but a familiar one, though he doesn’t use its name: appeasement. It’s the same one America and most of Asia has been following for decades-with the usual, sad results: An ever more dangerous and reckless North Korea.

A similarly enlightened British journal in the 1930s could have run the same solemn piece, changing a few names and locales here and there, to explain why Herr Hitler’s little demarches (the Rhineland, Austria, Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, Poland . . . .) needed to be understood, and if only he were negotiated with (Munich is nice this time of year), then all would be well.

TO SUM UP Mr. Carter’s counsel: After the North’s latest act of war against the South-an American ally-the United States should grant North Korea’s wishes for direct talks.That is, the world should reward North Korea for its latest act of aggression by negotiating with it as it has so many times before-with tribute in hand. We’ve played this game before. And lost, lost, lost. Ah, but if we don’t try again, why, North Korea might become aggressive! That is, the Kim regime might start shelling the South and killing people. Oh, wait . . . .

Nobody with any sense wants another shooting war on the Korean peninsula. The first one was horrible enough, as ill-prepared American troops rushed to occupy precarious lines with all too predictable consequences. This time, word around the military campfire has it that the North has enough artillery to take out a large portion of all that moves below the 38th parallel. And after what happened last week, it’s all too clear that it’s ready to pull the lanyards.

So let’s reward Pyongyang for killing the innocent? That would be responsible American policy only in Jimmy Carter’s opinion-and maybe Zbigniew Brzezinski’s, too. Thankfully, they’re no longer making American policy.

Those who are should make this much clear: Bombarding our friends is no way to get the United States of America to the negotiation table. On the contrary, it’s a good way for the North to lose what’s left of its trade with the South and hasten the demise of a regime that has regularly threatened the peace of the world since June 25, 1950. The sooner it goes the way of the late, generally unlamented Soviet Union, aka the Evil Empire, the better for the peace of the world.

Surely only Jimmy Carter and his shrinking cadre of admirers would take his counsel seriously. Remember the days when former presidents were considered elder statesmen, upholding their dignity and that of the Republic by not taking potshots at their successors and generally conducting themselves with some decorum-instead of sounding like just one more kibitzer on MSNBC? We remember those days fondly every time Mr. Carter delivers another of his pontifications-and sounds less like a former president than one more minor annoyance of these ever jarring times.