James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr.: Mr. President, you are a disgrace. Oh, and Mr Stewart: you are a bigger one

I can understand the logic of calling retired military people and politicians by their past titles. I can also see one serious problem with that: what if a person in question was a failure while doing that job that went with the title once? The title is still here, but how many remember the failures?

Especially a failure like this one that keeps coming up in the news with distressing regularity. Since this old dog doesn't learn any new tricks and, besides*, since he is rather a one trick pony than a dog anyway, Mr Carter repeats his complaint about the Zionist entity being at the root of all world problems at any opportunity.

This time the opportunity was courteously provided by Jon Stewart. Here is a recording of the meeting of these two exceptional minds:

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“Well, one of the origins for it is the Palestinian problem,” Carter replied. “And this aggravates people who are affiliated in any way with the Arab people who live in the West Bank and Gaza, what they are doing now — what’s being done to them. So I think that’s part of it.”

Yes, sure: two deranged terrorists kill a bunch of newspaper employees, innocent bystanders and policemen because of imaginary offense, then another terrorist kills four French Jews and all this is because of Zionist injustices in West Bank and Gaza? Of course, this part of the discussion incensed many people, and by rights. Because most people have seen only a short (about 1 minute) part of the conversation, like the one in this article.

But - and there is a big BUT: I can't really blame the old man. He, after all, repeated his mantra automatically upon being triggered. And notice who has done the triggering. Much earlier than the quote above was uttered, Stewart mentioned the Paris bloodbath and started the subject of Obama's non-appearance on the streets of Paris with other world leaders. After eliciting an explanation about the heavy load of work  the POTUS is subjected to, it was Jon Stewart who, quite unsubtly, lead the old man into the subject of Camp David, Oslo and whatnot. Notice his lead starting about 3'10''. 

Crude but effective and in this case unbeatable. From there the bridge to the rant quoted above was already impossible to miss, and of course, Carter didn't miss it. That specific pony knows the trick once it is shown the way to it, no question whatsoever.

And notice that Stewart doesn't have any objections to that "simple and straightforward" explanation of root causes given by Carter, no matter how far from reality or how offensive it is. He is just nodding sagely...

Jamie Weinstein in his The Daily Caller article asks a good question or two:

Carter didn’t explain how solving the Israeli-Palestinian issue would in any way resolve the violent conflicts currently engulfing the Arab world, including the Syrian civil war, the Islamic State’s takeover of part of Iraq and its brutal implementation of Islamic law, and the conflict between the Egyptian government and the Muslim Brotherhood, just to name a few. Nor did he detail how the “Palestinian problem” helps explain why three French Muslims murdered innocent French Jews buying groceries for the coming Sabbath and cartoonists preparing the next issue of their paper.

Good points all. The explanation consists of two points:

1. Jimmy Carter doesn't have any answers to that, aside of blaming the Z. Entity, of course. He is simply not geared for it.
2. Jon Stewart wasn't looking for any answers - all he needed was a familiar soundbite. In spite of his assurances to the opposite, he is geared to bash the Zionists.

I wish Jon Stewart could restrict himself to discussion of guinea worm - he is much better at that  than in politics, notwithstanding what he thinks about his political acumen. 

For shame.

(*) To make some people mad by mixing metaphors,

Thanks to Francine Robin for the picture of the protagonist.