Jimmy Carter like Richard Wagner?

Hats off to Warren Boroson for his Aug. 7 cover story on Richard Wagner. In baseball terms Boroson has hit for the cycle, with solid recent features covering sports, finance, human interest, and now the arts.

Reading about Wagner, it struck me how similar his views and personal/psychological traits were to those of Jimmy Carter. Although Carter’s public pronouncements against Jews have been much more couched than Wagner’s, the sentiments are similar, with Carter, as one example, having had adversarial or outright hostile feelings towards virtually every Israeli leader he ever met. Yet, both within his administration and after leaving office, like Wagner he did have associations with Jews when it was to his benefit. Also like Wagner, Carter has an exaggerated sense of self-importance, interfering in the policies of nearly every president succeeding him, often to the detriment of our country, as he seems unable to accept the fact that he was no longer in office.

Carter, too, has displayed a paranoia towards those who have challenged him, and the reference in the article to how Wagner “lied and lied” and how to him “the truth was always incidental,” fits Carter to a T.

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In summary, the article’s intent was to delve into the life of Richard Wagner, but for me it also served the purpose of solving an enigma by finally giving a label to Jimmy Carter, that of a narcissist.