The news recently has been full of Bill Clinton’s heroic journey to North Korea to get the two journalists from Al Gore’s Current TV channel out and brought back to the US. His journey, while necessary, has brought to Americans’ attention, yet again, the roles ex-Presidents can play in diplomacy and such things. Indeed, while checking CNN’s website, I came upon a piece of commentary by Roland Martin entitled “Put former presidents to work.” If you wish, you may read the entire piece here--http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/07/martin.bill.clinton.north.korea/index.html. While I see the point Mr. Martin is making, I think that the traditional role of the American ex-President is by far more proper, and safer, than the expanded role he advocates here. Indeed, it is also significantly less dangerous.

The traditional role of the ex-President is a quiet one. No, it is not typically centered on, as he presents it, raising money and building a library, although those are important ideas. Think about it—once you’ve been President of the United States, exactly what else can you do to make money to live off of? And, the Presidential libraries are vital institutions that hold, in one place, the papers and personal memoirs of the president, vital to history. Yet, the traditional role of the US ex-President remains very quiet. Indeed, they go out of their way to stay out of the limelight, whether they left popular (Reagan, Eisenhower), or less than popular (LBJ, Nixon). This is for a very good reason. They do not wish to undercut or harm their successors in any way. Once you’ve been President, some of the allure attached to the office remains with you, and it would be very simple to create problems for the sitting President. Thus, the classy ex-POTUS remains in the shadows, going out of his way to avoid creating leadership challenges for the sitting POTUS.

However, Mr. Martin says it should not be this way. Former Presidents should be dispatched around the world to handle crises and assist the sitting President in his policies. One wonders whether he would feel the same if President Bush (43) had gotten he journalists released instead of President Clinton, but we digress. Indeed, Mr. Martin favorably cites both the missions of Bill Clinton recently, and the “Greatest Ex-President in US History,” Jimmy Carter, as his primary evidence, further “proving” his point by wistfully wishing President Bush (41) had been there to build an international coalition for his son in the days prior to the Iraq War. Yet, I think his very examples show the danger involved in putting ex-Presidents to work.

Let us first consider the work of the legendary ex-President Jimmy Carter. I maintain that we think of him that way mainly because, in comparison to his Presidency, anything the man did afterward would be an improvement. But, anyway, Carter broke the mould of the ex-President by becoming involved with Habitat for Humanity. Now, let us pause here and state, for the record, that we strongly approve of Habitat for Humanity’s goals, and that Jimmy Carter has done a world of good for the organization. But, is this really cause to send the man out on missions for the sitting President. Let us remember, Carter is best known for two (positive) things—the Camp David Accords in ’79 and working with Habitat for Humanity. Because of those two things (one of which occurred while he was President), he gets his title and a Nobel Peace Prize. Because of Camp David, which worked so well, he is considered an expert on the Middle East. Because of his work with Habitat for Humanity, he is considered some kind of good-will ambassador and expert on elections.

But, let us actually examine some of the other things ex-President Carter has done. 1994, Bill Clinton is President, and North Korea decides it’s going to build it some nukes. Why not, they have plenty of food and no history of violent aggression, after all (that was sarcasm, by the way). Whoopee. Clinton is desperately trying to figure out how to fix it, while at the same time not melt his administration and party down in the Hillary-care debacle of 1994. In steps Jimmy Carter. He goes off on an unsanctioned trip to North Korea (sound familiar?) and works out a deal. We give the North Koreans food and oil, and they promise (we knew they really meant it cause they crossed their hearts and hoped to die) not to build nukes. Fast-forward 8 years to the Bush administration. Pyongyang announces it is going to, you guessed it, build some nukes. Did we stop delivering our end of the bargain? No, we did not. Kim Jong-Il just decided to try and extort some more out of us. Boy, that deal worked out real well, didn’t it?

But surely we cannot hold one blip against him, right? Erm, well, actually, let’s keep going. Venezuela. Hugo Chavez has decided he’s going to run again. The Constitution says he can’t. He does it anyway, and invites international monitors to watch the whole thing. Carter agrees to go. He goes down, spends a few hours watching, and declares the entire thing, which other observers found highly irregular, to be a smashing success, better even than some American elections (gee, I wonder what he was referring to?). Was it fair? Possibly, but knowing Hugo Chavez, I doubt it. Might he have won a fair election? Maybe, dictators are never comfortable with maybe. What does Carter’s endorsement give him? Legitimacy, especially coming from a former US President. In other words, Carter’s little trip made the current administration’s life that much harder.

OK, so, there’s two. What else? Well, consider Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, in which he basically blames most of the Middle East’s problems on Israel (the only Middle Eastern democracy at the time), and castigates them for daring to attempt to defend themselves from Palestinian suicide bombers and rocket attacks. It was just a book! you say. Well, yeah, except, again, it came from such an exalted personage as a former President of the United States, and no less than the Greatest Living Ex-President, Jimmy Cater. Translation, more legitimacy to Palestinian terrorists and those who blame Israel for everything, and making the Bush administration’s job that much harder.

OK, so we’ve hit Carter pretty hard, surely he’s an anomaly, right? Well, no, not really. We must remember Bill Clinton, as well. See, back before he was married to the Secretary of State and a fine example of a former President, before he travelled the world with his new best-bud George HW Bush collecting for Tsunami relief, he made speeches as well. He made speeches throughout the US and the world, in which he castigated the current administration on several fronts, most notably the Iraq War. The man seemed to be everywhere campaigning. A couple of times I felt like reminding him he couldn’t run for President again.

Now, let us further consider his latest excursion into the political and diplomatic world—the North Korea thing. He got the journalists back, and that is great. We are all glad to see them out of the starving gulag that is North Korea and back on American soil. However, what has the Obama administration spent most of its time doing? Denying they sent President Clinton and denying they were changing policies and trying to make sure nobody got any funny ideas about the whole thing. In other words, the mere fact of a former President of the Untied States going over there made the whole mess more complicated and difficult than it already was. The President of the United States does not sit down with a tin-pot wannabe dictator. It just gives him legitimacy in the eyes of the world. This is why Bush refused to talk to North Korea one on one, and refused to talk to Iran until they ditched the nukes. This extends to former US Presidents as well. Did he accomplish his goal of getting the girls out? Yes, he did. Did he possibly make things worse in the long-run for everybody else? Again, yes, it is a possibility.

Now, Mr. Martin further claims that President George W. Bush would have had an easier time of it had he sent his father out to rally support for our intervention in Iraq than he did. Except, that was absolutely the last thing George W. Bush needed to do. It goes to the heart of why ex-Presidents stay out of the way. What was one of the main Democrat charges during the entire Bush Presidency? That he was the blessed son of a former President, that he got everything riding Daddy’s coattails. You know, exactly what they said about his father, Bush 41. They charged he got into the Texas Air National Guard by pulling strings while John Kerry was bravely serving in Vietnam (I know this will come as a shock to those of you who never knew Kerry served in Vietnam). Shoot, they even charged he got his service switched around and then didn’t finish his service (a charge proved with patently false documents) by pulling strings. Had he sent Daddy out to help broaden the Coalition of the Willing, he would have destroyed his own legitimacy by appearing that he couldn’t do anything without Daddy’s help, and you know John Kerry would have made major political hay out of that.

But, didn’t Bush 41 and Clinton help with tsunami relief? Why, yes, yes they did. And this illustrates the proper role of a former US President. Tsunami relief was about as uncontroversial as you can get. Indeed, all Bush and Clinton were doing was trying to get somebody beside the US to help out. They were clearly sent by the sitting President to raise money for disaster relief. Nothing controversial there. The role of a former US President is to raise money for the causes he believes in and otherwise stay out of the way and let his successor run things. It is not to interfere in difficult situations, it is not to use his prestige to build his own legacy, and it is not to help fix thorny political problems. By getting involved in things beyond philanthropic causes, all former Presidents do is muddy the water and make the long-term problem even worse.