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27 Feb 2007 03:39 pm

Carter On A Roll?

Phillip Weiss re-emerges in ... The American Conservative, a magazine that's getting hotter by the day. His thesis? That Carter's vicious attack on Israel has been a net plus for the former president in the curren political climate. Money quote:

The conventional wisdom seemed to be that Carter had damaged himself, and badly.

But the fury has masked a quieter trend —nodding support for the president’s views across the country. The book still ranks sixth on the New York Times bestseller list three months after publication, and Carter has taken on a moral halo among progressives and realists, the shotgun marriage of the Bush years. Film director Jonathan Demme, who mainstreamed gay rights with “Philadelphia,” is making a documentary on the book tour. “NBC Nightly News” featured the former president breaking down in tears on a panel at the Carter Center when relating a story of praying to God to give him strength before he confronted Anwar Sadat at Camp David in 1978, when Carter forged an historic peace accord between Israel and Egypt.

“I think the attacks in some ways have made the book more effective,” says Michael Brown, a fellow at the Palestine Center. “It’s extraordinary, but when people oppose a book or a movie, and make a big fuss out of it, most Americans will say, ‘I want to know what this is about.’”

That's Dinesh D'Souza's game-plan as well. (Hat tip: 3Quarks. Photo: Former US President, and electoral observer, Jimmy Carter, speaks with candidate Daniel Ortega from the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in Managua, 06 November 2006. By Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images)

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