The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter with Historian Kai Bird and Journalist Dan Raviv

President Carter, who was considered both an outsider and an outlier, dealt with many issues the United States is still dealing with today: healthcare, racism, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer Kai Bird is in conversation about his new book The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter with former CBS News correspondent Dan Raviv

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Is Mormonism the New Evangelicalism?

by Rebecca Borison With Mitt Romney's status as Republican presidential candidate now official, Americans have begun in earnest to analyze his characteristics and qualifications. The first topic up for debate seems to be that fact that Romney is a practicing Mormon. The talk of Romney’s affiliation with Mormonism is highly reminiscent of the 1976 elections and Jimmy Carter’s Evangelicalism, which brings to the table an important question: should the President’s religion matter? In 1976, Moment featured an article by Martin E. Marty titled “Is Carter an Evangelical?” In the article, Marty offers an informative guide to Evangelical Christianity and explores the validity of the Jewish concern over Carter’s religion. Thirty-six years ago, most Americans were fairly clueless about what Evangelical Christianity actually meant; various Christian sects often got bundled together under one umbrella. “Evangelicals have been overlooked...

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What Hamas Believes

By Jeremy Gillick Bombing Gaza might not force Hamas--the Palestinian version of the Muslim Brotherhood that rules it--to moderate its hatred of Israel or its hostility towards Jews, but talking to it won't either. At least, that's the dismal picture painted by Jeffrey Goldberg--based on discussions he had with several former Hamas leaders--in his fascinating op-ed in yesterday's New York Times. "Hamas is not a monolith," he explains, "and opinions inside the group differ about many things, including engagement with the Shiites of Hezbollah and Iran." That said, Goldberg argues, there is a consensus within the group that it should aspire to the ideals and successes of its northern counterpart, Hezbollah. "For Hamas," Goldberg writes, "Hezbollah is not only a source of weapons and instruction, it is a mentor and role model." If Hamas is not as malleable...

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Jimmy Carter Alert!! Everybody Look Out!

By Benjamin Schuman-Stoler Former president Jimmy Carter just arrived in Lebanon, where he will do some electoral analysis and give a speech that will probably upset legions of Jews across the globe. Carter will speak Dec. 12 at the American University in Beirut on "30 years after Camp David: A memo to the Arab World, Israel and the Quartet." He will also go to Syria. Says JTA: From Beirut, Carter will continue to Syria and a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad "to discuss the prospects for peace in the Middle East," according to a statement from the Atlanta-based Carter Center, the human rights group he established and still leads. Israel and Syria have been negotiating peace indirectly under Turkish auspices but without the encouragement of the Bush administration, which regards Syria as a terrorist-backing rogue nation. A number of dovish...

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Web Op-Ed: I Used to be a Democrat by David Epstein

By David Epstein My trajectory from Democrat to Republican had a few curves of my own making. First, I volunteered to work for George McGovern as the 1972 campaign's Ohio general counsel. I stood behind George McGovern, a brave World War II pilot and mushy foreign policy thinker, simply because he was the lesser evil alongside Richard Nixon. In 1976, I voted for Jimmy Carter. As President, Carter said we had made bad decisions based on "an inordinate fear of communism." I traveled in the Soviet Union and its satellites and spoke with the victims of the totalitarian states; my observation was that an inordinate fear of communism is totally warranted. Later, Carter had a rude awakening when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, saying, "My opinion of the Russians has changed more drastically in the last week...

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