careless or reckless. maybe. misinterpreted? no.

Former President Jimmy Carter is backing off his remark this weekend that the Bush administration's foreign policy "has been the worst in history," telling TODAY during an exclusive interview Monday that his comment was "careless" and widely misinterpreted. Carter's remarks to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Saturday were in response to a question about the foreign policy of President Richard Nixon, Carter, the 82-year-old former peanut farmer from Georgia, told TODAY host Meredith Vieira. "Are you saying now that you believe now that [your remarks] were careless or reckless?" Vieira asked. "Well, I think they were, yes, because they were interpreted as comparing [Bush's] whole administration to all other administrations," Carter said. "What I was actually doing was responding to a question about foreign policy between Richard Nixon and this administration. I think this administration's foreign policy compared to President Nixon's was much worse." "But not the worst in U.S. history?" Vieira interjected. "That's not what I wanted to say," Carter said.

Carter, a Democrat, said on Saturday in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that “as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history.”