When John Kerry floated the idea that if he were elected president, perhaps he'd pick Jimmy Carter to be his special Middle East envoy, there was a chorus of protests from members of the Jewish community that the ex-President is far too pro-Arab in his views for such a chore.

The reason for their concern has become increasingly more clear as the 39th U.S. President has been touring the talk show circuit to promote his 19th book, Sharing Good Times. 

On Larry King's show Dec. 12 on CNN, Carter said if Yassir Arafat had accepted the Bill Clinton-Ehud Barak Middle East peace officer, Arafat likely would have been assassinated for making too many concessions.

Last night, (Wednesday, Dec. 15) Carter, 80, in humorous fashion recounted on NBC's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" how close his family has become to Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar. Carter told of a time that 23 members of his family traveled to Colorado on a Christmas vacation.

"One year we went out to Aspen and Prince Bandar—who is a good friend of mine—from Saudi Arabia, let us use his big mansion on top of a mountain overlooking the slopes, full of toys for the kids and so forth.  So one morning we were having breakfast and my one grandson, Jeremy, he could just barely see over the top of the table and he looked up at me and said, 'Papa are you going to die someday?' 

"You know all the grandparents want their kids to love them and so my heart just swelled up with pride that this kid was really worried about me.  I said, 'yes, Jeremy, everybody dies someday.'  And so I waited for him to say something else.  He didn't say anything else. So finally I said, 'honey, why did you ask me that question?'  He said 'when you die, can we still come to Bandar's house?'"    —Donald H. Harrison