Note to White House: You Snubbed Carter

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the White House says they "reached out" to former president Jimmy Carter" and won't elaborate on why Carter won't attend the Pope's funeral.

But this is a completely different story than Fox News was reporting around 4 or 5 AM (forgive me, I happened to be awake, I turned it on). The reporter there said the Vatican allowed a delegation of five and that because Bush had invited both his wife (almost understandable) and Condi (no.. it would normally be the president OR the sec of state, not both since Condi had no relationship with the pontiff), there was no room for Carter to go.

The correct thing to do (from what I was able to dig up about the diplomatic rule book) was boot Condi (preferably, with her own boots). But Bush has done everything possible to give Carter the finger.

While I was not a big fan of Mr. Carter's presidency (high school days for me), Carter the human being is a thousand times better than Bush the president (Bush the man isn't someone most of us would cross the street to see). But it was also Faux that told us two-three years ago that Carter would be permanently disinvited to anything official because he won the Nobel peace prize.

Forty members of Congress - none with clearance to attend anything official - will also pony along on the Bush trip. You know who will be there, too.