In praise of Steven Hayward

The new issue of the Weekly Standard has the theme of “summer reading.” The only book that it singles out for its unqualified recommendation is Steve Hayward’s The Real Jimmy Carter: How Our Worst Ex-President Undermines American Foreign Policy, Coddles Dictators, and Created the Party of Clinton and Kerry. Noemie Emery’s long review faithfully restates the book’s argument.
Emery notes Hayward’s iconoclastic evaluation of the ostensible good works to which Carter’s post-presidential career has been devoted:

This is the conceit ripped into shreds by…The Real Jimmy Carter, which maintains that in his current incarnation Carter is as wrongheaded and hapless as ever, that he has learned nothing at all from history, and, in his new guise as a globe-trotting statesman, is reprising his role as a bringer of chaos, this time on the stage of the world.

Emery’s excellent review is “The Muse of malaise.”

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses