Carter's Political Science Grade: "F"

After meeting with Hamas, former President Carter told CNN that the group promised not to undermine [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas' efforts to reach a peace deal with Israel, providing the Palestinian people approved it in a referendum. However, CNN later reported that Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said Carter's statements "do not mean that Hamas is going to accept the result of the referendum." Clearly, either Hamas lied to Carter – or Carter misunderstood or misrepresented what was said when they met. Either way, Carter’s effort to facilitate and “provide communications between people who won’t communicate with each other” has failed.

Like many, I believe Carter is well-intentioned and sincere in his desire to seek peace. Unfortunately, people can be quite sincere and quite wrong at the same time. Sincerity requires an earnest mind but does not necessitate either knowledge or wisdom. Lacking the latter, Jimmy Carter is learning that Experience is a hard teacher: she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.