By Dana Milbank
Thursday, April 5, 2007; A02

So Iran was releasing the hostages and Jimmy Carter was giving a news conference.

No, C-SPAN wasn't airing reruns yesterday. The Islamic Republic really was releasing hostages (these were British sailors) and the wizened former president was fielding reporters' questions after receiving a prize at the National Press Club. But Carter enjoyed his inadvertently perfect timing.

"As a matter of fact, I went through the same ordeal earlier," he told a British questioner with a smile. "Four-hundred forty days instead of 16 days -- but all of our hostages came home safe and free, also."

The 82-year-old Carter -- he twice referred to his presidency as "ancient" -- had two items on the agenda as he accepted the Ridenhour "Courage Prize": rehabilitating his image after a book of his appeared to justify suicide bombings; and adding whatever blemishes he could to the current president's image.

The latter required little courage of the Courage Prize winner. President Bush's public support is within a few points of the 28 percent low Carter hit in the malaise of 1979. And Carter, viewed favorably by 69 percent of Americans in a February Gallup poll, is enjoying the sort of gauzy hindsight Americans generally give their former presidents.

Still, Carter showed his beleaguered successor little mercy.

On Alberto Gonzales: "The attorney general ought to step down, not particularly because he's committed any crimes, but because I think he's brought discredit and embarrassment on his boss, who apparently has put too much confidence in him."

On the firing of federal prosecutors: "Congress should issue subpoenas and require the people that gave President Bush advice -- or didn't inform him, either one, I don't know which -- about the firing of these prosecutors ought to be completely revealed."

On Bush's threat to veto a bill calling for a withdrawal from Iraq: "I think there have been infinitely more mistakes made . . . by this administration, so that's a minor mistake on the gamut of totality."

On Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Middle East peace efforts: "Uncertain and wavering, but appreciated."

On Latin American policy: "You couldn't be appointed to major diplomatic posts unless you had a fervent and public animosity toward Castro."

On Hurricane Katrina: Bush "grossly violated" the principles Carter used to create FEMA. "Katrina was a disaster as far as FEMA was concerned, because it did not have a competent person in charge, it was not adequately financed . . . and it was under the still-struggling homeland security agency searching for its own role and its own identity."

Flashing his trademark smile, Carter added: "Other than that, it was okay."

If the words were a bit raw coming from a former president, Carter -- a reliable Bush critic long before yesterday's remarks -- hinted at a personal element to the dispute. Recounting his plan to visit Syria, he noted that, "for the only time in my life as a former president, I was ordered by the White House not to go."

Still, he had problems of his own to address. Demonstrators distributed leaflets at the press club describing Carter as anti-Israel. C-SPAN, in its broadcast, labeled him not as the former president but as "Author, 'Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.' " Of particular trouble for Carter: a single sentence, later disavowed by the author, proposing that Palestinians "make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the road map for peace are accepted by Israel."

Carter lamented the "ugly names" he has been called and he listed his pro-Jewish and pro-Israel credentials. "I was taught by my father every Sunday about the special status of the Jewish people," he said at the awards luncheon. "I visited Yad Vashem three times," he added, referring to Israel's Holocaust memorial.

The defense continued during his subsequent news conference. "In January, I received 6,100 letters," he said. "My staff tabulated them. Seventy-nine percent were in favor of the book."

Carter was studiously evenhanded yesterday, describing the "half-century of suffering, of death, of persecution and of fear experienced by the people of Israel and Palestine." He seemed angry as he closed his luncheon speech by asking lawmakers to "do what is necessary to return America to its honored position as a peacemaker." He walked away from the microphone after those words without the customary "thank you" or "God bless."

Later, at the news conference, Carter felt freer to take sides -- against Bush. He called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria this week, opposed by Bush, "long overdue." He continued: "When there's a crisis, the best way to help resolve the crisis is to deal with the people who are instrumental in the problem. As a matter of fact, when the shah left Iran back in ancient days, maybe before you were born, I had a choice between recognizing the revolutionary government or not. I did . . . although I didn't like the idea of the Ayatollah Khomeini being in charge."

It was a peculiar bit of advice from the 39th president to the 43rd: To solve the Iraq problem, do what I did in Iran?