If there’s one job that’s hard to retire from, it’s got to be the presidency.Whether it’s the luxuries of the White House residence, the deluxe accommodations on Air Force One or everybody standing up when you walk in a room, most former presidents simply don’t desire a peaceful retirement. Whether it’s Bill Clinton lending his gravitas to his wife’s campaign or George Bush skydiving with CNN reporters, the constant spotlight the office affords must be a hard addiction to break.Jimmy Carter has had an especially hard time fighting that addiction – since leaving office, he has worked constantly for human rights, founding the Carter center with his wife and taking a lead role in Habitat for Humanity.  For his post-presidential work, he’s won a Nobel Peace Prize – the only president to claim that honor.But recently Carter has been getting his spotlight high on something far less noble – “contributing” to (and by contributing to, I mean wrecking) the public discourse about health care reform.Carter ignited a media frenzy Wednesday during an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams. “I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man; that he is African-American,” the former president said.The results were immediate.  Media nationwide latched on to the story, broadcasting the clip ad nauseam and asking their viewers if they agreed – with pretty universally negative results. Pundits such as Bill O’Reilly and his ilk immediately decried the statements as ridiculous and offensive – and,  not surprisingly, claimed it was representative of Obama, the Democratic Party and the entire left. Republican leaders acted with the obligatory outrage, but did not go much further than a few generically indignant statements.They didn’t have to.Carter’s ill-advised remarks provided yet another high-profile, much-discussed extraneous issue to distract from a much-needed discussion of health care reform. Like Joe Wilson’s now-infamous outburst during the president’s address to a joint session of Congress, this gaffe – and it is a gaffe – was not only inappropriate by itself, but also – and more so — because it derailed what should be our national focus.Taken by itself, the concept is staggeringly illogical. Even if the circumstances are not of his making, Obama is facing a massive problem that needs solutions.  The solutions he and his colleagues have proposed are highly controversial, and for good reason – providing health care for the whole country is necessarily a slide left on the scale of socialism (although merely labeling it “Socialist” is hardly a legitimate attack). This debate cuts to the core of the political divide in our country – and those who value self-achievement over socially mandated progress have a great deal to be leery of.  It isn’t ridiculous to assume critics of Obama have legitimate concerns about his policies, their effects and even his most basic ideologies.In the same way Wilson’s outburst turned the debate from a rational discussion of matters of real political philosophy toward anger and impulse, Carter’s remarks portrayed those who oppose Obama more as irrational racists than respectable, logical people with legitimate disagreements.In the end, it’s probably true that there are those who disapprove of Obama because he is black.  Ignoring that reality would be naïve.But saying “an overwhelming portion” of his detractors are motivated more by race than by honest disagreement does a disservice to our political process, our attempts to fix a broken system, and to the American public as a whole.Matthew Albright is a 20-year-old mass communication junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_malbright.—-Contact Matthew Albright @ [email protected]