Contents of the "Deck of Weasels" card set

[MORTARDUDE]

Spades Hearts Diamonds Clubs
A Jacques Chirac Martin Sheen Sen. Robert "KKK" Byrd Dan Rather
K Vicente Fox Michael Moore Sen. Teddy Kennedy Gore Vidal
Q Jean Chretien Barbra Steisand Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Katie Couric
J Kofi Annan Chrissie Hynde Rep. Jim McDermott Bill Moyers
10 Vladimir Putin Susan Sarandon Rep. Charlie Rangel Peter Arnett
9 Gerhard Schroeder Tim Robbins Rep. Pete Stark
Helen Thomas
8 Hans Blix Sean Penn Sen. Patty Murray Mary McGrory
7 Bashar al_Assad Janeane Garofalo Rep. Marcy Kaptur Robert Scheer
6 The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Natalie Maines Ramsey Clark Leslie Stahl
5 Moammar Gadhafi Woody Harrelson Rep Dennis Kucinich Walter Cronkite
4 Hugo Chavez George Clooney Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee Jane Fonda
3 Fidel Castro Ed Asner Rep. Jim Moran Ted Turner
2 Kim Jong-il Jessica Lange Howard Dean Harry Belafonte

And the Jokers: Jimmy Carter & Jesse Jackson

[David]

I lean toward the conservative side of the house but I must say Jimmy Carter has done a lot of good too :cl:

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20.../index_np.html
Bravo, Jimmy Carter

His visit can't end Castro's tyranny, Cuba's poverty or the Bush administration's lame policies, but he's the first American politician who has tried to give to Cuba, not just take.

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By Ben Corbett



May 16, 2002 | When Jimmy Carter's feet touched the baking asphalt of Havana's Jos? Mart? airport on Sunday, an amorous and long-delayed honeymoon with the rebel island finally began. Carter's late-1970s presidency made a huge difference to Cuba, and the former president is still smarter about U.S.-Cuba relations than any other American living today, including the current resident of the White House. When he talks about Cuba, people in both countries listen, and his five-day tour has been almost as historic and monumental as the pope's 1998 visit, from which Cuba is still enjoying a moderate hangover. Tourists can still purchase (at clearance prices!) the last few olive-drab T-shirts emblazoned with colorful prints of the pope and Castro shaking hands.

You'll never catch a Cuban wearing one of the pope T-shirts, of course, even at clearance prices. Nobody has the nine bucks (roughly a month's wages) to waste on such a novelty. Nor will they have the cash to buy the new Carter T-shirts. Those are tourist items. Castro hopes the Carter visit will result not just in T-shirts but also in a new wave of U.S. tourists to buy them, bringing dollars to save the moribund Cuban economy.

For Castro, the world's foremost media strategist now toiling with his tenth U.S. administration, Carter's visit has been yet another successful coup fought on the age-old battlefield of newsprint. On the heels of being added to the Axis of Evil by his enemies in Washington, who accused him supporting bio-terrorism -- a move timed to interfere with Carter's visit -- Castro got the respected former president to go to bat for him. In a courageous speech Carter challenged the United States to produce evidence of Cuban terrorism and insisted there was none. Of course, Castro also let Carter take to the Cuban airways and talk about democracy and human rights, knowing the openness would play well internationally and not change much domestically. Through it all, Castro had his eye on the prize: Carter's trip is the latest salvo in a battle to bring back American tourists, and while the battle hasn't yet been won, the P.R. value of the visit is enormous.
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[SuperScout]

Let's see: salon.com, now isn't that magazine whose writer also called for a "million Mogadishu's"? The guy who hoped for more American casualties in the war in Iraq? I wonder what this writer's political slant might be in offering us this gratuitous apology for Castro, and ol' StumbleBum Jimmy. So Carter took to the Cuban airwaves to blast his host? Really? Ever wondered how many people in this Western Hemisphere's answer to Bangladesh sometimes referred to as Cuber, even have a radio, much less the electricity needed to operate it, or could understand Carter's version of Spanish. Carter's visit to Cuba is no less an egregious insult to freedom loving people than Jim McDermott's groveling to Saddam. Deck of weasels indeed!

[sfc_darrel]

Carter Silent On Castro's Crackdown
Dave Eberhart
Friday May 16, 2003
Jimmy Carter is the self-appointed globetrotter on behalf of human rights.
But when Carter friend Fidel Castro unleashed a brutal wave of repression recently, that included extradjudicial executions, Carter?s reaction was silence, followed by muted criticism, and finalized with a stinging criticism of . . . the United States.

On just about the one year anniversary of Carter?s historic trip to Cuba, his new amigo Fidel Castro rounded up 75 political dissidents and independent journalists and packed them off to jail for 28 years each.

Although formally accused of conspiring with U.S. diplomats to undermine the socialist state, the apparent crime of almost all was their championing the so-called ?Varela Project,? a petition calling for greater basic liberties ? and the absolute centerpiece of Carter?s controversial mission-impossible-without-portfolio to the communist island.

The Cuban president followed up by ordering the execution of three men accused of terrorism in an unsuccessful hijacking of a passenger ferry headed to the United States. The three summarily went before a firing squad April 11 without so much as a final farewell to family and loved ones.

On March 21 when word of the initial arrests and detentions of the Varela dissidents hit the world media big-time, Carter issued only an anemic press release:

?I am deeply concerned about reports of detentions of Cuban citizens known for supporting the Varela Project, promoting human rights, and practicing independent journalism. The international community supports their rights to the protections afforded by the Cuban constitution. I call on the Cuban government to respect those rights and to refrain from detaining or harassing citizens who are expressing their views peacefully.?

But Carter also seemed to place part of the onus of Castro?s human rights abuses on the shoulders of the U.S.:

?I also am troubled by the rising tension between the Cuban government and the U.S. Interests Section in Havana. I urge my own government to work with the Cuban government to deflate those tensions and establish a relationship of mutual respect.?
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Didn't like Jimmy then, don't like him now. Joker in the deck? OK with me.

[HARDCORE]

"Hey, come on guys!" Jimmy's brother "BILLY" did have a short-lived beer named after him! That has to count for something!?