It's been a long time since I've been exposed to the miltary genius of our 39th President -- so long that I've forgotten how idiotic one can be and still be elected to the White House. Fortunately, we have Hardball to allow us to bask in the undimmed genius of Jimmy Carter. Yesterday, Carter managed to write off the Revolutionary War as a mistake, and that was his opener for his interview with Chris Matthews:

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you the question about—this is going to cause some trouble with people—but as an historian now and studying the Revolutionary War as it was fought out in the South in those last years of the War, insurgency against a powerful British force, do you see any parallels between the fighting that we did on our side and the fighting that is going on in Iraq today?

CARTER: Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War, more than any other war up until recently, has been the most bloody war we‘ve fought. I think another parallel is that in some ways the Revolutionary War could have been avoided. It was an unnecessary war.

Had the British Parliament been a little more sensitive to the colonial‘s really legitimate complaints and requests the war could have been avoided completely, and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a nonviolent way.

I think in many ways the British were very misled in going to war against America and in trying to enforce their will on people who were quite different from them at the time.

I could buy the idea that the Revolutionary War was unnecessary, as Carter's presidency certainly gives us ample evidence of that much. However, since when did the Revolutionary War become the bloodiest conflict we've ever faced? The Civil War killed over 600,000 Americans, easily outpacing any other war in which we've fought. Even World War II only accounts for 407,000. Both of them dwarf our total casualties in the Revolutionary War, which cost less than 5,000 American lives.

This auspicious start to Carter's interview makes every reference Matthews makes to Carter's status as a "historian" utterly ironic. Read the rest of the interview -- it's as good a laugh as anything involving the sour and bitter Carter could ever produce.

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