Respect your elders and learn from them. It’s a concept that transcends culture and faith. But not politics. Nothing is ever too low or too outlandish for politics.

President Bush and his happy gang of followers have been sparring with former President Jimmy Carter in the media over comments he made regarding Bush’s handling of the Iraq war and the precedent he has set for American foreign policy relations.

Last week in an interview published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Carter was quoted as saying, “I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history,” according to an Associated Press article. He expressed concern about preemptive war and said that Bush was responsible for an “overt reversal of America’s basic values.” In a separate interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC), he characterized outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s relationship with Bush as “Abominable. Loyal, blind, apparently subservient.”

Harsh words, but for Bush, who has led a major failure of a war so far, are they too harsh? Bush’s spokesman, Tony Fratto, responded to the comments Sunday by calling Carter’s comments “sad” and Carter himself “increasingly irrelevant.” How did Carter, a man who led this country and won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, become irrelevant to Bush, a man who is foundering in approval ratings and stubbornly refusing to make any headway into bi-partisan cooperation to get Iraq out of the pit it has fallen into?

Carter’s words are hard to take to heart, but the Bush team’s childish rebuttal and reference to Carter as “irrelevant” are really low hits for a team that has very little to be proud of right now. Rather than alienate Carter, who had his own share of diplomatic and national catastrophes to deal with during his administration, the Bush administration should get off its high horse and listen to a man who’s been there, done that and has a whole lot of hindsight to share.

Carter has been to the Middle East in turbulent times with some successes and plenty of failures that Bush could benefit from hearing about. Carter was at the helm when the Iran hostage crisis unfolded amid the Islamic Revolution in 1979, which gave birth to the decades of sour U.S.-Iran relations we know today. Carter also led the Camp David Accords in 1978 that ended with a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.

Poor relations with Iran and attempts to bring peace to the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict? These are still contemporary and serious issues that Carter can bring a lot of valuable information to. Unfortunately, party pride and the perpetual partisanship plaguing Capitol Hill have made learning from Democratic elders impossible.

This isn’t the first time Carter’s voice has been stifled recently. After his book on his experience with the Arab-Israeli conflict came out last year, titled Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, critics came out strongly against it in the media, even from within his own party. The discussion that ensued in the media did not center on the book’s content, which is what should have happened, but rather on the cheap shots and criticism people flung at Carter.

Carter was not the perfect president, but there is no doubt that his regrets and mistakes can be learned from. Unless our representatives on Capitol Hill start learning from the past, we can expect to stay on the merry-go-round of international political blunders for a long time to come.

Reach columnist Hanady Kader at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.