I'd be curious to hear the particulars about why your friend felt the Carters to be such assholes. Were they rude to him? That certainly doesn't fit the public perception we've been given of their personalities.

I have to admit that my perception of people would also be affected by personal accounts from people I knew or trusted. I used to have a high regard for John McCain but my best friend, who was deeply ingrained in Arizona politics, told me some real horror stories about personal interactions he had with the man. Obviously it's possible for a public figure to hide their various imperfections when the cameras are on.

However, over the long term those oddities of personality always come out to the public. My friend told me about his distaste for McCain years ago and since then the man has shown himself to be the egotistical asshole he described. I'm not disputing the impression your friend had of the Carters but I have to tell you I simply have not seen evidence of "assholery" from them over the many years they've had of public exposure.

I won't debate you over Carter's effectiveness as president. I'm certainly not an advocate he was a great leader. My post is only really dealing with what I see as incredible intellectual honesty and compassion. I'm not sure, if the Carters lived next door that we'd never be anything more than respectful neighbors since I obviously don't fit into their very devout Christian world but my guess is that they'd be great neighbors.

As far as answering your question about who I think are hard-core Christian right members of this forum, let me put it to you this way. As the evidence piled up in huge heaps that the current administration was lying through its teeth to us and becoming a cancer to our rule of law, the people that continued to be apologists for the abuses seemed to have no logic behind their support. This was a real puzzlement for me if I analyzed that using only secular and purely political arguments. I've come to the conclusion that the only way sane and intelligent individuals could rationalize this behavior was to include some sort of fundamentalist religious justification. It's just a hunch on my part. So, without any other way of putting this civilly Frank, if you still are not outraged over the horrific blunders and possible crimes of the Bush administration, then I have to believe there's something in your religious makeup that puts you into that hard-core group.

Read my post in Flame about the contradictory makeup of the Christian message and, if you have no answer or are threatened by the question, I'm afraid the label probably fits you.

Art