Bush White House fires back at Jimmy Carter (calls Carter "increasingly irrelevant")

May 20, 2007

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - The White House on Sunday fired back at former President Jimmy Carter, calling him "increasingly irrelevant" a day after Carter described George W. Bush's presidency as the worst in history in international relations.

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."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto had declined to react on Saturday but on Sunday fired back.

"I think it's sad that President Carter's reckless personal criticism is out there," Fratto told reporters. "I think it's unfortunate. And I think he is proving to be increasingly irrelevant with these kinds of comments."

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Just 16 months after the President's re-election, his Capitol Hill allies are in a funk, pointing fingers and worrying about their survival in November's midterm elections. Even Bush loyalists fear the Commander in Chief is in a hole with no ladder. When the Dubai company that the Administration had okayed to run several U.S. ports pulled out of the widely derided deal last week, the President escaped from a fight with a Republican-controlled Congress that had the public overwhelmingly on its side. In the long run, though, the company's withdrawal may turn out to mark the moment Bush became a lame duck. "The ports deal showed that the Congress is completely going its own way," said a presidential adviser. White House officials contend that Bush quickly realized the ports affair was a fiasco. "I know a prairie fire when I see one," the Texas rancher told an aide.

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In an acknowledgment that he needs to offer a more convincing message on Iraq, the President is scheduled to deliver a series of three speeches this month that aim at persuasion, a departure from his usual hallmark of repetition. Bush plans to describe U.S. efforts to develop new defenses against insurgents' improvised explosive devices and give town-by-town case studies of how his strategy for victory in Iraq is playing out. "It's not going to change people's anxieties," a White House official said. "What it will do is help provide a greater understanding of why these events are happening and what we're doing to try to change them. We talk about the strategy oftentimes from 30,000 feet. What we're trying to do here is say how it is actually being applied on the ground."

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Through the challenges, the President has kept his human touch. Touring New Orleans last week, he met a man who had survived for days on canned goods before being evacuated to Utah. "Were you the only black man in Salt Lake City?" Bush asked.

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"The Bushies have proved that five people can run the country for four years and one day," a G.O.P. congressional aide complained. The critics are conducting their conversations with the President's men in polite code, such as asking how they can help. "There is a drumbeat," a Bush friend explained, "but it's not resonant in the White House. These are people this Administration, and the President in particular, disdains. You scrape 'em off your shoes--and keep going."