Last year, I had lunch with Jimmy and Rosalind Carter who were in Oxford for Encaenia, the annual ceremony where the former president received his Honorary Doctorate.
As a Democrat, I am immensely proud of the Carter legacy - EPA, Affirmative Action, Human Rights, Camp David Accords, no US military interventions (the only US administration of the 20th century not to invade or attack a foreign nation); equal rights and many other progressive achievements. Carter’s presidency is certainly the high-point of social progress in America.
Carter is popular in North Carolina, where I have already heard conversations in public places praising him for his statements earlier today about Obama.
Carter’s endorsement of Obama - confirmed by his own testimony below - is a major political development. On the global scale, Carter is the most popular former US president by a very wide margin over the two other contenders for that honor: George Bush, Sr. (who is still reviled globally) and Bill Clinton, who is popular but whose presidency is currently undergoing a sharp revision in light of his negative contributions to the current presidential campaign.
Many of Clinton’s policies were not appreciated by the international community in their day: NAFTA; CAFTA; US influence at the WTO and World Bank; numerous military interventions including the bombing of Sudan and Iraq as well as other nations; the expansion of NATO; ‘wagging the dog’ during the Monica Lewinsky scandal by bombing Baghdad; draconian penalties for possession of crack cocaine (now seen as a sop to the racist right); the massive expansion of the burgeoning US prison population and the repeal of Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the backbone of what little there once was of US social security now interpreted as yet another racially inspired policy.
Although he is still personally popular, Clinton’s post presidency has not impressed many outside of America. While Clinton’s charity has apparently contributed to lowering the cost of US manufactured drugs for AIDS in Africa - there was little political risk in such a project. It is noticeable that Clinton has said relatively little about the excesses of the Bush-Cheney administration: the Patriot Act; the Iraq War and the torture and rendition of prisoners. He has been much more reticent than Carter to criticize Bush and Cheney.
It is no secret that support for Clinton amongst the US African-American community has taken a nosedive since his very unwise attacks on Obama that began in December. For quite some time, Party members have been astonished at his intimate relationship with George Bush, Sr. who many believe to be serving as a surrogate father figure for the underprivileged Southern boy who from Hope, Arkansas. These developments have not gone unnoticed in the rest of the world. On American websites, rumors are rife with reports of Clinton’s alleged use of his presidential library as a vacuum for foreign income that has been estimated at more than $100 million in the past 2 years alone.
Carter’s bold and perfectly timed comments now open the door for Gore and Edwards. When will they cross the threshold?
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American Politics 
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Today, a struggle is taking place in Great Britain between prejudice and science.
