Bush is Worst President Ever
in United States History

Interview of former President Carter
by Arkansas Democrat-Gazette religion editor Frank Lockwood
18may2007

Carter: “. . .I interrelate my condemnation and criticism of this unnecessary invasion with the ministry of Christ as the Prince of Peace. So that’s what I try to do. Not always preaching against public policy. But you know sometimes I approve what’s been happening around the world in a good way and I interrelate to the text [of the Bible] as well…. ”

Lockwood: Now, you talked about this war and how you believe it’s wrong. Which President was worse, George W. Bush and Richard Nixon?

Carter: ... I read an op-ed piece … that pretty well describes my views…. I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this Administration has been the worst in history. And the overt reversal of America’s basic values as expressed by previous Administrations, including George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me. We have a new policy now on war. We now have endorsed the concept of preemptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily even though our own security is not directly threatened if we want to change the regime there or if we feel sometime in the future our security might be endangered. That’s been a radical departure from all previous Administration policies. And we have had, for the first time since Israel was founded, we have had zero peace talks to try to bring a resolution of differences in the Middle East. That’s a radical departure from the past. We’ve also abandoned or directly refuted every nuclear arms control agreement ever negotiated down through history. And I think we have had a radical departure in my opinion from separation of church and state policies that have permeated previous administrations as expressed succinctly by Thomas Jefferson that we ought to build a wall between church and state. We’ve had an abandonment of almost every previous Administration’s policy on environmental quality, many of them basic laws that were passed under Richard Nixon and other Republican Presidents, as a matter of fact. I think we have pretty well abandoned those. So I think the last few years have been of most concern to me.

Lockwood: Sounds like you think it has been a disaster.

Carter: Well I think history will make a better judgment than I can. My hope is that some of those policies will be reversed during the next sixteen or eighteen months and if not the next president … no matter what party the President might represent, I think we will see a major domestic and international pressure for changes.

Lockwood: OK. Now, since I’m a religion writer, can you talk about how the Bush administration has crossed the line as far as church and state?

Carter: Well, I noticed in a news article this past. . . maybe this week . . . that there’ve been 900 . . . ah . . .

Lockwood: . . . earmarks . . ?

Carter:    . . .earmarks that comprised almost $350 million that have gone to religious institutions. And the headlines. . . I think it was in the Washington Post, was that now they’ve. . . individual churches and the religious seminaries and other stricter religious organizations have their own lobbyists now in Washington to make sure they get their share of the taxpayer’s funds. And as you know, the policy for the Whitehouse has been to allocate funds to religious institutions – even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion. Those things, in my opinion, are quite. . . are disturbing. And as a traditional Baptist, I’ve always believed in separation of church and state in honor of that premise when I was president. And so have all other presidents, I might say. . .

Lockwood: . . . except . . .

Carter: . . . except this one.

Transcribed by Mindfully.org from audio MP3 source: 26may2007