Andy, I’ll answer your rhetorical question. The problem isn’t Carter’s recollection of history. He had notes from the meetings (a scan of which are in the article). The problem is he lied outright. This—not Dennis Ross’ maps—is what, I believe, Stein alluded to when he resigned. Carter put words in peoples’ mouths to change retroactively meetings that occurred more than a decade ago. He used these fictional facts, then, to attack Israel and its supporters. Now the 1980 election: Citations are in the article, but Brzezinski discussed this a bit in his memoirs in the context of the U.S. vote for UNSCR 465:

Jewish voters swung heavily over to Senator [Edward] Kennedy, ensuring Carter’s defeat. The set-back prolonged the Carter-Kennedy contest. Sadat did not want a final showdown on the Palestinian problem prior to the return of the Sinai to Egypt. Without pressure from Sadat, our own incentive to push Israel hard was much decreased. Begin proved himself to be a skilled manipulator … adroit at delaying tactics and in diversionary public appeals … by mid-June it was clear even to Mondale that Begin wanted Carter defeated.

Here’s Carter, in 1991, discussing the issue:

[Vice president] Fritz Mondale was much more deeply immersed in the Jewish organization leadership than I was. That was an alien world to me. They [American Jews] didn’t support me during the presidential campaign [that] had been predicated greatly upon Jewish money … Almost all of them were supportive of Scoop Jackson—Scoop Jackson was their spokesman … their hero. So I was looked upon as an alien challenger to their own candidate. You know, I don’t mean unanimously but … overwhelmingly. So I didn’t feel obligated to them or to labor unions and so forth. Fritz … was committed to Israel … It was an act just like breathing to him—it wasn’t like breathing to me. So I was willing to break the shell more than he was.

Politicians can be venal. They much rather conjure up some conspiracy than consider their own faults. In Carter’s case, it wasn’t the Iranian hostages, inflation, or U.S. malaise. It was Begin. And the ghost of Begin grew with time.