Jimmy Carter Has A New Book!

It's called Beyond the White House. According to Publisher's Weekly:

Less a memoir than an extended brochure for his nonprofit institution, the Carter Center, President Carter's latest book ruminates on his work since leaving the Oval Office...Carter exults in having convinced his Chinese minders to allow him and Rosalynn to bike freely around 1981 Beijing, and fumes with indignation upon being subjected to tobacco advertising on a flight home from the Balkans. Ultimately, though, this book doesn't measure up to his bestsellers of recent years.

At least Carter's promotion tours for this book won't be as provocative as his last one.

James Taranto links to an interview Carter did, where he helpfully offers advice on a subject he feels he is expert in--how to deal with Iran:

Well, first of all, I think we should be communicating with the Iranians directly, through diplomatic means. Even after the shah was overthrown, we still maintained diplomatic relations with Iran--in fact, that's proven by the fact that my hostages were in Tehran. They had an equal number of diplomats in Washington, about 75 or so, and we should be communicating with them. And secondly, we should assure them that we don't intend to launch a pre-emptive war against them as we did in Iraq. But there are a lot of threats coming out, and that tends to put the Iranians on the defensive and make them want to do everything they can to build up their weaponry. So communicating with them and letting them know that we'll resolve their difference--differences diplomatically would be my recommendation.

Anyone remember that diplomacy didn't work when Carter was president?

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