Rice: Huckabee’s Foreign Policy Criticisms Are ‘Simply Ludicrous’

President Bush’s foreign policy has recently come under fire from several conservatives. In a current Foreign Affairs article, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee writes that the administration suffers from an “arrogant bunker mentality.” Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton wants the United States to be more arrogant, saying that Bush’s policies are in “free fall” because he is “under the influence of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.”

Today in a press briefing, a reporter asked Rice to respond to their criticisms. Rice initially refused, dismissing them as unimportant. But she nevertheless proceeded into a vigorous defense of the administration’s policies, eventually calling the statements “ludicrous”:

RICE: Look, I don’t comment on other people’s comments. I don’t have time, all right. I really don’t have time to worry about this. [...]

The idea that somehow this is a go-it-alone policy is just simply ludicrous. And one would only have to be not observing the facts, let me say that, to say that this is now a go-it-alone foreign policy. [...]

And so, I would just say to people, look at the facts.

Watch it:

As ThinkProgress highlighted yesterday, a “look at the facts” of the Bush administration’s inclusive foreign policy:

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Transcript:

QUESTION: Madam Secretary, Mike Huckabee recently said that this administration has a go-it-alone foreign policy, that it has a arrogant, bunker mentality that’s hurt America around the world.

And we also recently heard from John Bolton, who said that the Bush administration’s foreign policy is in a free fall, and it’s because the president has been listening to you too much.

RICE: Gee.

QUESTION: So I would just like to give you opportunity: What do you make of this?

RICE: Look, I don’t comment on other people’s comments. I don’t have time, all right. I really don’t have time to worry about this.

Let me just tell you what I think of where we stand in America’s policy.

RICE: We have right now probably the strongest trans-Atlantic relations, interactions that we’ve had certainly during this administration, and I would say in a very long time.

If you look at the relationship with France, which is being put to good use in Lebanon, the kind of interaction the president had with President Sarkozy when he came here; if you loom at the relationship between Angela Merkel’s government — and it’s not just the chancellor. It is the relationship I have with Frank-Walter Steinmeyer the relationship that I have with Bernard Kouchner. You know, the British, it’s always been a solid relationship.

We go to NATO, we solve problems together, we’ve got NATO fighting in Afghanistan.

The idea that somehow this is a go-it-alone policy is just simply ludicrous. And one would only have to be not observing the facts, let me say that, to say that this is now a go-it-alone foreign policy. [...]

And so, I would just say to people, look at the facts.