Former president and Arab money man Jimmy Carter spoke at Brandeis University outside Boston last night. After writing a book that he has said he hopes prompts a debate, Carter refused to debate law professor Alan Dershowitz.

There was a positive note in the article. In response to a question from a student, Carter confessed error in one of the more outrageous portions of his book.

Carter apologized for a passage in the book that says terrorist attacks on Israel will end when the Jewish state gives up control of the West Bank, saying it was worded "in an improper and stupid way."

"I have written and asked my publisher to change it in upcoming editions,'' Carter said. "I apologize to you personally, to everyone here."

Like the old cliche about a hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean being a "good start," this too is a good start. What I want to hear from Carter -- and I haven't yet -- is an unconditional denouncement of Arab terrorism worldwide. Carter still doesn't appear to grasp that all of the little insults to the Palestinians by the Israelis -- the checkpoints, the searches, etc. -- are a direct result of Palestinians strapping bombs to their bodies and killing innocent men, women and children.

On a related note: I was listening to a podcast of Dennis Prager's radio show yesterday (I'm not usually conscious at the time his show originally airs) and he had a man call in who had to be the most morally bankrupt Bush Derangement Syndrome sufferer in the United States. This man made the following observations:

Irving Kristol and all neocons are evil. Invading Iraq wasn't a mistake, it was an evil act. (Why Irving Kristol? I don't know, that's the name the caller tossed out.)

After thoughtful consideration (i.e. a long pause), Saddam Hussein was evil.

Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda death squads who detonate cars filled with explosives in crowded markets are not evil. It's their country and they have every right to fight how they want to fight. When Prager asked if it was "not evil" for an American to do the same thing in downtown Pittsburgh -- because it's his own country -- the caller was befuddled.