Jimmy Carter -- the root of all evil?

Over at PowerLine, they take Jimmy Carter apart for his consistently leftist, anti-American behavior since he left office:

We've been pretty tough on Jimmy Carter, but with hindsight, probably not tough enough. If you search our site for 'Jimmy Carter,' you'll find all of his disgraceful acts that we've commented upon. His history is a sorry one: he started out as a Midshipman and served honorably in the Navy. But at some point, his leftist politics took hold and he started aligning himself with America's enemies.

I totally agree with their analysis, but I have a different bone to pick with our erstwhile President. As far as I'm concerned, it was he who set us on the path to our current conflict with the Islamic Fundamentalists. For those of you too young to recall, in 1979, when Iranian fanatics seized American hostages, Jimmy Carter apologized to these thugs, again and again and again. (Here's a good summary of Carter's despicable -- or maybe just stupid -- behavior.) There has never been any doubt in my mind that Carter first set America up as a paper tiger in the Arab mind, an image we were able to shake only with our successful military action in Afghanistan. To read in PowerLine about Jimmy Carter's post-1979 antics only confirms that, in 1980, when the American people booted him out of office, their instincts were absolutely correct.