El extraño mundo de Jimmy

Más sobre el íntimo amigo de Carlos Blogbis: Jimmy "un dictador habla en nombre de su pueblo" Carter.

Former President Jimmy Carter has an interesting way of saying more than he intends. He lusts in his heart. He turns to his 13-year-old daughter for foreign policy wisdom. He titles a book, "Palestine Peace Not Apartheid." What Mr. Carter means to say is that he is a flesh-and-blood human being, a caring father, a missionary for peace. What he actually communicates is that he is weirdly libidinal, scarily naive and obsessively hostile to Israel.

Now the 2002 Nobel laureate is in reprise mode. "In a democracy, I realize you don't need to talk to the top leader to know how the country feels," he said over the weekend, responding to a question from an Israeli journalist who noted that Mr. Carter had been snubbed by most of Israel's top leadership and reprimanded by its president, Shimon Peres. "When I go to a dictatorship, I only have to talk to one person and that's the dictator, because he speaks for all the people."

Come again?

Con quién se reunirá el grandioso Jimmy en su recorrido por los virtuosos países del medio oriente?

- In Egypt, Mr. Carter could give an address at the newly established Middle East Freedom Forum. He could call for the immediate release of George Ishak, a lawyer and democracy activist who helps coordinate the liberal Kifaya ("Enough") movement and was arrested by security forces last Wednesday. He could pay a call to journalist Gameela Ismael, the wife of Ayman Nour. Mr. Nour, who contested the 2005 election against President Hosni Mubarak and took 8% of the vote, has spent the past two years in prison on trumped-up charges of electoral fraud.

- In Saudi Arabia, Mr. Carter could raise the case of Fawza Falih, an illiterate woman who was convicted of "witchcraft" and sentenced to death on charges that she used sorcery to render a man impotent. He might also seek out the now famous "Qatif Girl," the woman who was gang-raped by seven men and, as a result of her "crime," sentenced to 200 lashes.

- In Jordan, Mr. Carter might find time for Jihad Momani, editor of the weekly "Shihan," who in 2006 was arrested for reprinting the Danish cartoons of Prophet Mohammed. "Muslims of the world be reasonable," he wrote in an editorial that ran alongside the cartoons. "What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?"

- With the Palestinians, Mr. Carter could denounce the Hamas-operated Al Aqsa TV, whose programming includes a Sesame Street-like show that urges its young viewers to "get rid of the Jews."

- In Syria, Mr. Carter could ask to meet with representatives of the National Council of the Damascus Declaration for Democratic Change. A dozen leaders of this pro-democracy umbrella group were arrested in December on charges of "spreading false or exaggerated news which would affect the morale of the country"; Human Rights Watch charges that at least eight of the men signed false confessions under torture.

Will Mr. Carter do any of this? The odds are long. Instead, he will meet with Mr. Mashal, author of the murder of several hundred Israeli civilians and not a few Americans, too.