WHY DO so many, including the Globe, castigate our former president, Jimmy Carter, for meeting with a freely elected Hamas leader with a view to furthering peace talks between warring Palestinians and Israel ("Carter's unhelpful freelancing," Editorial, April 20), but praise University of Massachusetts professor Padraig O'Malley for organizing meetings and negotiations between less-than-friendly, verging-on-warring factions in Iraq? The US government is having scant success in both cases, and could use help from any source. Our history is replete with instances of US citizens without government portfolios more than dipping their toes in international diplomacy, often with positive results.
Surely Carter has more standing as a Middle East peace negotiator than does Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling as a political pundit, but I am aware of little outcry at Schilling for using his blog to influence US domestic politics.
A license is not mandated in any case.
JONATHAN ROOSEVELT, Sudbury
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