Posted 3:00 PM by Blah blah

I can't believe I forgot to post this:

Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Carter, With Jab at Bush (NY Times). BRAVO, President Carter, sir!!! I've admired his post-presidential career ever since he founded the Carter Center in Atlanta and willingly got down and dirty to help build houses with Habitat for Humanity.

Jimmy Carter is a noble and inspiring man. This prize is well-deserved and long overdue. I have the greatest respect for him. Another men whom I think should win the Prize are diplomats like Richard Holbrooke (now U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.), an important mediator in Bosnia, and statesmen like ex-Senator George Mitchell (D-Maine), famous as mediator in a 22 month set of negotiations in N. Ireland. They have had to help negotiate peace between peoples with the most atrocious, deeply visceral hatreds.

"The Nobel Peace Prize, which carries a stipend of $1 million, recognizes the 39th president for his 'vital contribution' to the Camp David Accords in 1978 (text of the Accords), his 'outstanding commitment to human rights,' his work fighting tropical diseases like guinea worm and river blindness and his continuing interest in furthering democracy. On Monday, Mr. Carter, 78, is off to Jamaica to monitor elections.

More than any other ex-president, Mr. Carter, a Democrat and former Georgia governor, has stretched the gravitas and star power of the Oval Office to promote democratic values across the world. Unlike his peers, he never joined corporate boards or went on the lecture circuit.

Instead, with seemingly endless energy and his signature toothy grin, he has trudged up mountains to meet with warlords, cajoled dictators into granting more freedoms and found a second career of 'waging peace,' as he calls it. Everywhere he goes, so does his wife, Rosalynn, his most trusted confidant." There is a great love story enveloped in there between Jimmy and Rosalynn.