MAILBAG:

I did not read Ila Johnson’s letter to the editor (“Jimmy Carter should stick to building houses,” April 18), but I did read the reply by Lu Walker (“Carter deserves credit for his contributions,” April 23) which compelled this response.

Walker mentioned Carter’s “concerns about our energy policy” but not his solution, broadcast from the White House on national TV, to turn down the thermostat and bundle up.

In part, because the Arab oil sheiks had cut the supply of oil to our country, prompting usurious prices for fuel and mile-long lines at local gas stations.

Walker seems to have forgotten her history of his inept and shameful presidency: The botched attempt to free our citizens held hostage by the Iranian terrorists for 435 days and released the instant President Ronald Reagan was elected, the double digit interest rates and severe recession or the gift of the Panama Canal to a foreign government and now controlled at both ends by the Chinese Communists.

Jimmy Carter is obsessed with a legacy, and aware he has guaranteed one filled with ignominy. It is he who went to North Korea, with President Bill Clinton’s support, and brokered a deal with Kim Jong Il that gave him a nuclear reactor and enabled him to build the nuclear missiles with which he now threatens us.

The peace Carter brokered between Israel and Egypt was the first step in the slow process of free and democratic nations strong-arming and weakening an ally, and the sole free and democratic nation in the Middle East. Lest anyone not understand his malign motives, a cursory review of his latest book will reveal his virulent anti-Semitism. As if his trip to meet with the avowed terrorist leader of Hamas whose goal is to complete the Holocaust Hitler started.

The worst president in our country’s history? Absolutely, without question, and an embarrassment to the people whom he was elected to represent.

R. CLAIRE FRIEND

Newport Beach