Maybe he meant the Reagan Revolution?

The other day I caught a portion of a Chris Matthews interview with former president Jimmy Carter here on Armed Forces Network in Iraq. I had a hard time believing what I was hearing, then today I found this transcript on Powerline, with additional commentary (italics below) from Hindrocket

Reader William Holl alerted us to this unbelievable interview of former President Jimmy Carter by Chris Matthews on Hardball. Given that Matthews once worked for Carter, one might have expected the interview to be "Softball." In fact, it can only be described as "Screwball." It's hard to say who's nuttier, Carter or Matthews. Here are a few highlights, with my editorial comments:

MATTHEWS: [A]s 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 until recently has been the most bloody war we’ve fought.

Combat deaths, Revolutionary War: 4,435. Combat deaths, Civil War: 184,594. Combat deaths: World War II: 292,131. Combat deaths, Iraq war: 793.

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 non-violent way.

That's just the first of many stunners. You can argue for eternity on the merits of various presidents, but Carter's presidency is the only one in my lifetime that can be legitmately termed a failure - a fact that Democrats should be first to admit. Carter brought America from a post-watergate/post-Vietnam malaise in which it semed no Republican would ever again inhabit the White House to the dawn of the Reagan era in only four years.

Four very painful years.

Oh, and here's Jimmy's quote made true, with one simple word change:

"Well, one parallel is that the Revolutionary War more than any other war until recently has been the least bloody war we’ve fought.