President Carter has packed away his human rights crusade, as the State Department implicitly confirmed in this year's survey of countryby- country violations and what the United States can do about them. Reduced to absurdity, the crusade now amounts to looking at 105 nations receiving American aid or buying American weapons and finally deciding it is safe to penalize Nicaragua. And who will deny that Nicaragua deserves a penalty?

No doubt we will continue to hear of human rights and occasionally see a bit of action, as we did of course before Carter appeared, but human rights as a crusade has been canceled. Carter in office quickly learned that his approach endangered too many American interests without visibly weakening tyrannies abroad.