Jimmy Carter still links racism, 'you lie' outburst

By Ernie Suggs

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A day after wading into the President Barack Obama-Joe Wilson imbroglio, former President Jimmy Carter is not backing down from his comments that racism played a role in the controversy.

Carter said that Wilson’s comments — yelling “You lie,” as Obama addressed a joint session of Congress, was sparked by general attitudes from people who have an “aversion to have a black person as president.”

“I think it’s unprecedented to attack a president, wishing he were dead, and equating him with animals and Adolf Hitler,” Carter said. “That was the point that I made.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, rejected Carter’s notion that race played a part in Wilson’s comments.

“The president does not believe that criticism comes based on the color of his skin,” Gibbs said in his Wednesday briefing at the White House. “We understand that people have disagreements with some of the decisions that we’ve made and some of the extraordinary actions that had to be taken by both this administration and the previous administration.”

In the 28-plus years Carter has been out of the White House, he has never been one to settle into quiet retirement.

On Tuesday, during an NBC interview and at a town hall meeting at the Carter Center, he was asked how he felt about what was said by Wilson, a member of the House from South Carolina.

“I think it’s based on racism. There is an inherent feeling among many people in this country that an African-American ought not to be president and ought not to be given the same respect as if he were white,” Carter said. “And this has permeated politics ever since I’ve been involved with it back in the 1960s, not only the South but also in many places throughout the nation.”

In the digital age, Carter’s comments went viral. Thousands posted links of Carter on their Facebook pages with comments like “I want to be like President Jimmy Carter.”

By midday “Jimmy Carter” was trending fourth on Twitter, behind Nick Jonas, Kanye West and Jay-Z.

“Jimmy Carter is absolutely correct. Anyone who would not accept that he is correct is not being honest with themselves,” said Robert Watson, a history and political science professor at Hampton University in Virginia. “He clearly knows the minds and attitudes of Southern leadership and Southern people.”

But not everyone agrees. As expected, the right was quick to attack the former president.

“President Carter is flat-out wrong. This isn’t about race. It is about policy,” said RNC Chairman Michael Steele. “This is a pathetic distraction by Democrats to shift attention away from the president’s wildly unpopular government-run health care plan that the American people simply oppose.”

Christopher Quinn contributed to this story.