'I Feel Quite at Ease in Doing This'

I feel quite at ease calling this dipshit what he is: a complete moron.

It's difficult to grasp the cravenly complicit actions of a former President of the United States actually sitting down with terrorists who take great pride in killing Americans.

"I feel quite at ease in doing this," he said. "I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process."

Although he said the meeting would not be a negotiation, he outlined distinct goals.

"I think that it's very important that at least someone meet with the Hamas leaders to express their views, to ascertain what flexibility they have, to try to induce them to stop all attacks against innocent civilians in Israel and to cooperate with the Fatah as a group that unites the Palestinians, maybe to get them to agree to a cease-fire — things of this kind," he said.

The State Department says it advised Carter twice against meeting representatives of Hamas, which Washington considers a terrorist organization.

"I find it hard to understand what is going to be gained by having discussions with Hamas about peace when Hamas is, in fact, the impediment to peace," Rice said Friday, after reports of the planned meeting surfaced.

Carter said he'd be meeting Syrians, Egyptians, Jordanians, Saudi Arabians and others "who might have to play a crucial role in any future peace agreement that involves the Middle East."

Asked whether it was right to meet a group that has not renounced violence or recognized Israel, he said, "Well, you can't always get prerequisites adopted by other people before you even talk to them."

You know this is a bad idea when even some Democrats suggest the peanut farmer scuttle this trip.

Pressure to drop the meeting has come from his own party. Democratic Reps. Artur Davis of Alabama, Shelley Berkley of Nevada, Adam Schiff of California and Adam Smith of Washington state wrote a letter to Carter saying the meeting could confer legitimacy on a group that embraces violence.

"I've been meeting with Hamas leaders for years," Carter said.

Maybe it's time to remove his Secret Service protection and let him travel alone to meet with terrorist leaders. The stupidity of this boggles the mind.

The NY Post editorial sums it up nicely.

For the record, Carter reportedly will be traveling in his capacity as head of his Carter Center and not as a former president.

That's a distinction likely to be lost on the families of:

* The four young Americans killed by a Hamas bomb at Hebrew University in 2002.

* The New Jersey woman who was among the 15 killed by the Hamas bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria in 2001.

* The two US citizens killed, along with 13 others, in the 1997 Hamas bombing of a crowded outdoor market in Jerusalem.

* The three Americans among the 26 victims of a 1996 Hamas passenger bus bombing in Jerusalem.

And so on.

To sit down with the leader of a group that has the blood of innocent Americans on its hands is an outrage.

If he goes through with it, Jimmy Carter will have disgraced (again) the office he once held.