Charlie_Brennan's Blog

Here's a mystery for which I know there's an answer - I just don't know what it is. What was behind the silent Pepsi Center fly-by performed Monday by former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalyn?

A political convention is not unlike a cram-course civics lesson in which virtually every living, ambulatory, relevant figure from each party makes at least a cameo on stage to remind you either why they matter, allow them to tell you why the candidate matters, or, well, with a few of them I'm not sure why.

So it should not have surprised me to see the Carters appear, President Carter looking great and Rosalyn almost so.  But before you could say "cardigan sweater," suddenly they were disappearing into the gloaming from whence they'd sprung. Without saying a word.

At a convention in which the Democrats are trotting out people like Mike Fisher, a previously anonymous Amtrak tech from Indiana who might, I repeat, might, be laid off due to economic woes, the Donkeys can't make time for a former president to address the convention? Or was it Carter who didn't want to speak?

I get it that Carter is not viewed as the most successful president of my lifetime. I remember the whole "malaise" thing, and know that we're not in a climate where any party wants to be seen as blaming regular Americans for their economic woes, real or, as Phil Gramm would have it, imagined.

Here's hoping that there is a mundane and benign explanation for why Carter didn't speak - and I mean Jimmy, not Rosalyn. But, I almost would have taken Rosalyn over neither. Politics is a cold-blooded business much of the time, and I fear this may have been the hard-edged calculus of big-league electioneering, where even a former president, who I don't recall having resigned in disgrace or anything like that, can't be risked allowing near a microphone, for fear that a few undecided voters might say, "Hey, isn't that the guy who implied that I bore some responsibility for doing something about my own state of affairs some 30 years ago?" and therefore vote for Arizona Sen. John McCain.

There are probably even a few Democrats in attendance at this convention who, given the bloodiness of the battle between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, might have rather spent a few minutes listening to Carter than to former President Bill Clinton who will be speaking - probably at some length - on Wednesday.

As I started by saying, I know there's an answer to the blink-and-you-miss-it Carter cameo. If you know, go ahead and let me know. There's enough20going on right now, I need all the help I can get.