LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) — Former President Jimmy Carter took a gentle poke at President Donald Trump at the start of a commencement address to graduates of Liberty University in Virginia.
Taking the podium Saturday to a standing ovation a year after Trump spoke to Liberty graduates, Carter took note of the large crowd at the university stadium. He said Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr. “told me before we came here that it’s even bigger — I hate to say this — than it was last year.”
“I don’t know if President Trump would admit that or not,” Carter said, drawing laughter. The remark harkened back to controversies over Trump’s claim of a massive inauguration crowd exceeding 1 million, despite photographic evidence suggesting otherwise.
Carter is the third U.S. president, and the first Democrat, Liberty has hosted for commencement. George H.W. Bush gave the keynote in 1990. The university is a hub for conservative politics, often frequented by candidates courting evangelical voters. Carter is an evangelical as well, but with more progressive views.
The bulk of Carter’s speech emphasized broad themes of human rights and equality. He said he now believes the greatest challenge in the world is “discrimination against women and girls in the world.” He noted the killings of newborn girls around the world where families have preference for boys, as well as global sex trafficking networks.
He called on Christians in general, and Baptists in particular, to emphasize their commonalities as opposed to their differences. Both Carter and Falwell are Baptists.
He alluded to nuclear tension over North Korea and Iran. The example of Jesus Christ, he said, shows we need to learn “to get along with our potential enemies, instead of how we can prevail in combat.”
“We don’t need enemies to fight, nor do we need inferior peoples whom we can dominate,” Carter said.
Suggesting? Suggesting?? Suggesting!?!
Dear Associated Press: the photographic evidence damned well proved that the current (p)Resident is delusional about the size of the crowd. Time has since shown us he is delusional about many other things, too.
Whatever one may have thought of him as an executive, Carter would have been infinitely better for the country than the man who succeeded him particularly in consideration of the path it set the country on in the decades leading to our current debacle: so much time and opportunity lost and we still aren’t done.
As some wag noted, 1980; the year America had the choice of Carter, who advised us to grow up and behave with intelligent restraint, and Reagan, who told us we were so exceptional that we could have anything we wanted and the bills would never come due.
America’s Dismal Turning Point
The most dishonest claim made by contemporary conservatives in a legion of dishonest claims was the claim they were the party of responsibility and maturity.
Falwell. Liberty. Carter. Fuck it.
Important for Carter, if the Christian Taliban gives him a platform, take it, and deliver the right message, and he did. Maybe a handful will see the light, scratch a win for the old man.
Love is the way in.