Day: March 4, 2006

Ed Rollins, campaign manager for Ronald Reagan’s election team in 1980 and 1984, joined the bandwagon of Republicans who are openly criticizing the Bush Administration yesterday on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight:

“You know, the reality is, they’ve lost their touch … [Every] week it’s something that just reinforces the message that these guys don’t know what they’re doing. They’re incompetent. I mean, we’re almost to the point, where we’re going to look fondly back on Jimmy Carter’s administration. And I say that with great sadness as a Republican. But it’s week after week after week that they just can’t seem to find their way. Normally a foreign trip gives you something. You go there, but if we’re walking back with mangoes, and they’re getting nuclear rods, that’s not a very good swap.”

Here are Rollins’ bona fides:

He directed the most successful Presidential campaign in the history of the United States, serving as Ronald Reagan’s 1984 National Campaign Director… Mr. Rollins served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, joining the Reagan administration as one of the President’s top advisors in the role of Assistant to the President for Political and Governmental Affairs.

Remember the GOP Rule: Critizing Bush = Hating America

Quid pro mango: The centerpiece of President Bush’s visit to India last week was the signing of an agreement in which the United States would give nuclear energy technology to India.

So what does the United States get in return?

“The United States is looking forward to eating Indian mangoes as part of liberalising trades and opening markets.”

— President Bush, in India, on Thursday.

That’s right. Mangoes:

After nuclear diplomacy, it was time for mango diplomacy between India and US…. In what can be called a juicy development in Indo-US trade, the US has agreed to consider lifting of sanctions on Indian mangoes. India produces 41 percent of the World’s mangoes and America imports 29 percent of the fruit produced worldwide. The mangoes are, though, just a drop in a much larger fruit basket of US.

Let’s recap: We give India nuclear technology, and in return we will buy their mangoes.

“I believe that a prosperous, democratic Pakistan will be a steadfast partner for America, a peaceful neighbor for India and a force for freedom and moderation in the Arab world.”

— President Bush, in India on Friday

Close but no cigar:

• Pakistanis aren’t Arabs.
• Pakistan is not a democracy, as Bill Maher pointed out on “Real Time” last night. It is a military dictatorship under Gen. Musharraf who overthrew the last elected government in 1999.

Later, Scott McClelland swept up the president’s the horse hockeys:

McClellan told reporters that Bush meant to say Pakistan would be a force for freedom and moderation in the Muslim world. Pakistan is not an Arab country.

Here’s what happened: The White House message team drafted a boilerplate statement about Pakistan for the president’s farewell address in India.

President Bush’s job is simple — presidenting 101: Read the statement, remember the statement and speak it in front of cameras.

But he can’t even do the simple stuff competently.

I’m sure two errors in 30 words is not a record for the president but you would think that with all their other troubles, they would be at the top of their game.