The entire Murdoch media empire went into high gear when Jimmy Carter died at the age of 100 on Dec. 29. Fox News praised the former president nonstop for many hours. The only interruption from its over-the-top encomia was Bret Baier’s mildly expressed demur that Carter may have made a mistake by viewing Hamas as a political organization rather than terrorist group. Although Fox informed us that Carter’s administration was beset by high inflation and foreign policy disasters, it also stressed this president had dealt with those problems earnestly if not always successfully.

 We further learned that Carter was a devout Christian who dedicated his life to humanity; and as a Southern white he felt a special obligation to help his region overcome the burden of its racist past. He won the Georgia governorship in 1971 as an explicit opponent of segregation.

Other members of the Murdoch media empire, to wit, the New York Post and Wall Street Journal, dished out equally lavish praise for the deceased centenarian. This exceeded in its over-the-top quality even the ritualistic worship of Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther King Jr. provided by the same publications. Without wishing to violate the ancient teaching de mortuis nil nisi bonum (“Of the dead, speak nothing but good”), I would like to ask why this extravagant, prolonged praise was conferred on someone who clearly despised and loudly denounced everything to the right of Joe Biden’s Democratic Party. Carter, it would be safe to assume, was not on the same wavelength as those who are now frenetically hurling tributes at him.  

 Does Fox agree with Carter’s frequently made assertion that the reelection of Trump would be a “disaster”? What about his exuberant endorsement of Bernie Sanders in 2016, before Jimmy turned his support to Hillary?  Although Carter did not start his political career as an outspoken leftist, that is where he spent most of his life. Shortly before his death, he cast his vote for Kamala Harris and did so with obvious, effusive enthusiasm.

Carter started off his career in Georgia politics as a traditional Baptist but ended it as a supporter of an unabashedly woke Democratic Party. I think this change might be noted by putatively conservative news sources that wish to enlighten us about Carter’s self-sacrificing life. It’s nice that Carter participated in Habitat for Humanity and helped negotiate a peace between Israel and Egypt. I’m also pleased that he raised money for various charities.

But there was a lot more to his existence that might have been mentioned by his overzealous panegyrists on the make-believe right. How exactly did Carter reconcile his Christian beliefs with the Democrats’ present positions on abortion on demand and gay marriage, both of which Carter continued to oppose “personally” until the end of his life?  Why did a self-identified Evangelical Christian conspicuously rally to candidates who took positions diametrically opposed to his own expressed ones on key moral issues? It would have been helpful if our soi-disant conservatives used Carter’s demise to confront such serious question rather than overwhelm us with sentimental blah-blah.

And why, first of all, did we need to have these examples of excess that the conservative establishment demonstrated in its celebration of Carter’s life and activities? Authorized conservative commentators could not limit themselves in this case to respectful generalities when eulogizing this deceased luminary. They felt obliged to indulge in hours of hyperbole.

One obvious reason for this tasteless exhibition may be a concern with respectability and a burning desire to avoid the “extremist” label at all costs. We may easily assume that conservative establishment spokespersons and donors were trying very hard to be seen as moderate, polite opponents, not as ill-willed adversaries of their leftist colleagues and leftist family members. And so they avoided mentioning Carter’s continuing turn toward the left or such embarrassing details as his cordial friendship with Fidel Castro. The Fox News family and The Wall Street Journal editorial board were seeking, above all, the warmth of a journalistic consensus—and this may have driven them to praise intemperately all the real and imaginary achievements of a liberal democratic hero.

P.S.: Unlike other members of the conservative establishment, National Review did provide a restrained, dignified tribute to the late president. This was followed by a splendid diatribe by Philip Klein, which does not hold back in “speaking ill” of Carter’s botched presidency. However yawning the gulf that divides Chronicles from National Review on major political and historical issues, it behooves us to call attention to Klein’s meritorious action.