In a recent interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Former President Jimmy Carter, 89, expressed sadness that Obama never asks for his opinion. Carter said that many other past Presidents have gotten in touch with him.
It appears that the former president would like for Obama to call him.
Carter expressed sadness during an interview Sunday that Obama doesn’t ever call him for advice. “Unfortunately, the answer is no,” Carter said after he was asked whether Obama ever calls him to ask for his opinion on domestic and international matters.
Looking as if he might have lost a friend, former president Carter added:
“President Obama doesn’t, but previous Presidents have called on me and the Carter Center to take action,” and he listed others former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and even Ronald Reagan who have enlisted his help or asked for an opinion.
He was then asked why he thought Obama didn’t get in touch with him to ask him his thoughts on domestic as well as international issues, Carter suggested that it had to do with their differing views on how to best achieve peace in the Middle East.
“That’s a hard question for me to answer with complete candor,” Carter said. “I think the problem was that in dealing with the issue of peace between Israel and Egypt, the Carter Center has taken a very strong position of equal treatment … and I think this was a sensitive area in which the President didn’t want to be involved.”
“But I can understand those sensitivities and I don’t have any criticism of him,” he added.
Carter, who was President from 1977 to 1981, also expressed fear that the federal government is “probably” spying on him.
In regard to the National Security Agency (NSA), he comments, “As a matter of fact, you know, I have felt that my own communications were probably monitored, and when I want to communicate with a foreign leader privately, I type or write the letter myself, put it in the post office and mail it.”
He has previous criticized the NSA stating, the surveillance practices have “been extremely liberalized and I think abused by our own intelligence agencies.”
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