On Moral Leadership

I was not a particularly great admirer of Jimmy Carter when he was President, but in the years since then I have come to think of him as unquestionably the greatest Former President this nation has ever had, and one of the great unsung heroes of all time.

Like our present President, he has a Nobel Peace Prize; only his was not awarded in the hope that he might not start wars all over the world, which turned out to be a somewhat futile hope, but was awarded twenty years after his term in office ended, for “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development," all of which he did without seeking any trace of public recognition.

So when, in a New York Times editorial yesterday, he speaks of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights he knows whereof he speaks, and when he says that, “our government’s counterterrorism policies are now clearly violating at least 10 of the declaration’s 30 articles,” he speaks with a moral authority which should be taken very seriously.

You really should read the whole piece, which he finishes by saying that, “As concerned citizens, we must persuade Washington to reverse course and regain moral leadership.” I’m not sure how we could do that by reelecting Barack Obama or by electing Mitt Romney, which leaves us with a considerable dilemma.