Happy belated 100th Birthday, President Carter! If I'd remembered, I'd have baked you a cake. But first, an apology. I spent many years beating you up in the press, only to now wish the Democrat Party had one-thousandth of what you brought to public life. But more of that in a moment.
From the get-go, I underestimated you. I remember a Democrat friend dragging me to a small gathering with maybe 30 young people in which you gave a short talk about your plan to become president. Your comments would soon go nationwide. All that folksy "I'll never lie to you" and "I'll restore dignity to the White House." I thought I was in Sunday school. And being someone who thought Dick Nixon should not have resigned (and I still don't), it all seemed a bit too high and mighty for my tastes.
Either way, I told my friend this guy has no chance — zero, nada. And yet, as things happened, Carter would show up everywhere. Talk about retail politics! I swear Carter must have been hitting every local diner in the country in his spare moments. I remember seeing him at one event where one of his opponents, a businessman whose name is lost in the mists of time, said if elected president, he was going to put a man on Mars. In my opinion, that guy had a better shot at being president than good ole boy Jimmy. I mean, was Carter even a good governor?
I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet. And now, I would like to present to the jury of public opinion videotape evidence that Jimmy Carter would be called a right-wing extremist in today's Democrat Party. Not that he would ever lie to you on national TV. So let's stipulate he is saying what he truly thinks and believes. Here, the great Robert Novak is questioning him on CBS's Face The Nation. Bob would probably not get through the door of any major news network today. But the so-called Prince of Darkness could cut to the chase in his direct questioning.
Novak: I just brought up the abortion issue. And you say on the campaign stump that some people think that abortion is murder? Do you?
Carter: That's a hard question for me to answer. I...I have a deep feeling that abortion is wrong. At what stage in the development of a fetus it becomes murder, I can't say. But I wish there were never any abortions. It really bothers me about it. The Supreme Court has ruled that in the first 13 weeks, the mother and the doctor have a right to have an abortion. I wish that there were no abortions, but I can't say at what point the abortion becomes murder.
Carter repeatedly states how much he abhors abortion. He erroneously states that the Supreme Court limited abortions to 13 weeks. This has been part of ongoing propaganda talking points from abortionists and abortion clinic operators like Planned Parenthood. The Supreme Court never restricted abortion to the first trimester. Roe v. Wade allowed abortion on demand up until birth.
The amazing thing is that Carter does not dispute the premise of Novak's question. He simply says he does not know at what point in the preborn child's development you cross the line from abortion to murder. While I see this as a distinction without a difference, Carter is at least acknowledging the humanity of the preborn child. That is something the modern Democrat Party and politicians like Kamala Harris and Tim Walz reject out of hand.
The logic is crystal clear. Once you acknowledge the humanity of the preborn child, all the spin in the world can't suppress the working of conscience. There is not enough entertainment, booze, and pills to drown out the obvious conclusion that a murder has taken place.
Not even today's mealy-mouthed Republicans would dare make that obviously true statement today. Carter was living through the beginnings of the great migration of Democrats to the Republican Party and Republicans to the Democrat Party. When he was running for office, in many states, Democrats were the pro-life party, and Republicans were the pro-abortion party. A similar shift is taking place today as abortion politics returns to the states. No party has a lock on the votes of social conservatives.
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In the election that made Carter president, Republican President Gerald Ford was not pro-life. Carter beat him in part because of social conservative support, especially given his clear statement of distaste for abortion. Republicans who think that ignoring the social conservative vote is a wise strategy might be wise to take note of Carter's words here.
And as for the Democrats, one of the iron laws of life is that what goes around comes around. Their policy of letting unvetted millions cross the southern border to replace the workers who were never born here is a two-edged sword. Embedded in that group are hundreds of thousands of murderers and thugs ready to repay in violence, the very violence of abortion that brought them here in the first place.
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