I just wanted to note the event I attended at Temple Emanuel in Newton last Thursday. AIPAC sponsored an appearance by the former Carter Center official who was the first to tender his resignation over Carter's new book. Kenneth Stein was the center's first director and has worked closely with Carter for decades, even helping to author a book with him. When he started to receive calls and emails from friends and former students asking how he could have had anything to do with an abomination like Carter's latest, he knew he had to distance himself from the thing, and thus his resignation.

No audio as the organizers made it clear that the event was "off the record," though the hall was packed...maybe 1000 people? Not sure how many people fit in there, but it was a lot.

Stein used a PowerPoint presentation to detail some of the factual errors in the book -- from his error-ridden explanation of 242, to his topsy-turvy explanation of his Damascus meeting with Assad, to his lying about the motivations of Hamas. He explained that his respect for Carter's intellect is such (Stein feels Carter may be one of the most intelligent men to ever serve in the office) that he does not believe the grievous misrepresentations in the work could be anything but intentional, and that Carter is basically doing politics not history, and that this is a shame, since Carter's book, errors and all, will now be part of the record people use to learn about the conflict.

There was a brief Q&A via written questions. I didn't get my question answered, but I'm still curious. It was something like this: "Your resignation was one of, I believe, 15 from the Carter Center to date, all Jews. Two questions: Why so comparatively few? And where are your non-Jewish colleagues?"

Aside: Here's a lengthy article on Carter by Joshua Muravchik that appears in Commentary. I'm just starting it: Our Worst Ex-President