The inconsideration of Jimmy Carter never ceases to amaze. Apparently, he is convinced that his Christian piety provides a pass for an ungenerous disposition, that comes across as self-centered and -absorbed–whether campaigning for a Nobel Prize by publicly attacking his president at a time of war, or smearing democratic Israel, or snide comments about his successors. But that being said, I’m surprised at his latest quip: ”I have a specific regret in not having one more helicopter when I wanted to rescue our hostages. If I had had one more helicopter, they would have been rescued. I might have been reelected president.” Aside from the obvious that someone like the equivocator Carter, who sent Ramsey Clark to appease the terrorists, would always have one too few military assets, the statement is extremely callous. That April 1980 rescue mission (“Operation Eagle Claw”) was a catastrophe, costing the lives of 8 Americans, as well as over a dozen wounded, and top-secret plans falling into Iranian hands, as well as dispersion of the hostages. Carter seems to see the disaster not in terms of innate planning ineptness that led to death and mayhem of our troops, but as a wrong decision that cost him his precious reelection.