Former aides to President George W. Bush are suggesting Texas Gov. Rick Perry is not presidential material in the wake of his comments yesterday that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke may be guilty of “treason” and would be treated “pretty ugly down in Texas.”

Former Bush Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto spoke out against Perry’s comments just moments after ThinkProgress first reported them, writing on Twitter that the they were “inappropriate and unpresidential.”

This morning, Nicolle Wallace, who served as White House Communications Director in Bush’s second term, said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that “someone who wants to be the next president probably shouldn’t use these words” and agreed that Republicans should “lay off of some of this some personal stuff and keep it ideological.” “Not only is it going to maybe turn off some people in the middle, but these aren’t fights that are going to serve Perry well politically,” she added.

Key Bush aide Karl Rove appeared on Fox News later in the morning, where he called Perry’s comments “very unfortunate” and not “presidential“:

It’s his first time on the national stage, and it was a very unfortunate comment. You don’t accuse the chairman of the federal reserve of being a traitor to his country and being guilty of treason and suggesting that we treat him pretty ugly in Texas — that’s not, again, a presidential statement. [...] Governor Perry is going to have to fight the impression that he’s a cowboy from Texas, this simply added to it.

Peter Wehner, who served as Deputy Assistant to Bush and Director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, wrote a post on Commentary magazine’s blog calling the comments irresponsible “libel” and urged Perry to apologize for them:

People shouldn’t throw around the words “almost treasonous” loosely; and certainly a person running for president shouldn’t do such a thing. To say someone is treasonous means he is a traitor to his country. In the long catalogue of crimes an individual can commit, there are not many that are worse than treason. [...] But Perry should offer a substantive critique of Bernanke’s policies, not libel the man…it’s not helpful to our country. [...] In the meantime Perry ought to offer a retraction and apology — and then offer a serious intellectual critique of why he believes Ben Bernanke is pursuing injurious policies.

Bush’s and Perry’s supporters have clashed before, as many Bush aides supported Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s (R-TX) failed bid to oust Perry in a 2010 primary challenge, and this latest incident appears to confirm a growing rift between the camps. If Perry is too “cowboy” for even Bush loyalists, as Rove suggested, he’s taking cowboy politics to new heights.

During his inaugural appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box this morning as a paid commentator, Howard Dean told the CNBC regulars that he believed they were misreading the public’s reaction to Wall Street excess. Dean said that rather than resenting the wealth of Wall Street as a matter of course, Americans simply believe that “you shouldn’t get rewarded…for doing a crappy job”:

DEAN: I think you guys are looking at this the wrong way. I don’t think people resent Wall Street because they’re making millions of dollars. Everybody wants to be rich in this country. I think people resent Wall Street for making millions of dollars while the folks who are reading the newspaper are out of work. You shouldn’t get rewarded in a capitalist system for doing a crappy job. That’s what the issue is.

Squawk Box co-host Joe Kernen said that the hiring of Dean was meant to “balance” their recent hiring of former Bush administration spokesperson Tony Fratto. Watch it:

Earlier today, CNBC discussed a congressional proposal to create a systemic risk regulator for the financial industry. To analyze the feasibility and necessity of such a regulator, CNBC introduced one of its newest “contributors,” Tony Fratto, who most recently served as former President Bush’s Deputy Press Secretary. But rather than comment on the merits of the systemic risk regulatory plan, Fratto simply claimed that Congress is “dangerously” motivated to over regulate by a thirst for “vengeance” stemming from the current financial crisis. Watch it:

As Pat Garofalo explains at the Wonk Room, Fratto is far from a reliable voice on the economy. Last year, Fratto first claimed that no one was predicting a recession and then argued that admitting the U.S. is in a recession was “relatively irrelevant.” Garofalo asks CNBC, “Was Phil Gramm unavailable?”

Shortly after President Bush issued a pardon to real estate scammer Isaac Toussie, media reports revealed that his father, Robert Toussie, was a major Republican party donor. In response, Bush took the unprecedented step of revoking Toussie’s pardon, citing “information that has subsequently come to light.”

Despite the fact that Toussie’s pardon bypassed the Department of Justice, the White House insisted that neither White House Counsel Fred Fielding, nor Bush was aware that Toussie’s father was a significant Republican donor at the time of the pardon. White House spokesperson Tony Fratto reiterated the claim in today’s New York Daily News:

“The President found out that [Isaac Toussie] had a relative who had donated to the campaign when the Daily News informed us about it. Period.”

But the Bush administration’s continued insistence that no one in the White House was aware of Toussie’s father’s financial connections to the Republican party is looking increasingly doubtful. First, the New York Daily News unearthed a photo of the president shaking hands with Toussie’s father “during a high-dollar fund-raiser at the Manhattan home of top GOP donor Paul Singer, a hedge fund billionaire.”

And now, the Daily News has uncovered a second event, this one at the Bush ranch in Crawford, TX, at which Toussie’s father and Bush rubbed elbows. The Daily News reports:

Robert Toussie, who gave the Republican National Committee $28,500 in March, traveled to Crawford, Tex., to meet with Bush. … Toussie got to hang with Bush, as well as ex-President George H.W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, at the cash bash. [...]

The White House insists talk of a pardon never came up. … The White House would not confirm the date of the Texas event. But details of the gathering mirror an April 12 Republican fund-raiser that raised $3.5 million and featured a roast of the two President Bushes by their wives, Laura and Barbara.

As the Daily News notes, at no point in the process of responding to the reversal of his pardon decision did Bush or his staffers make any “mention of the meetings Bush had with Toussie.”

Upon learning of Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) selection of Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) as his running mate, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that Biden “is obviously a very fine statesman,” and called him a “true, true patriot.” In yesterday’s White House press conference, Assistant Press Secretary Tony Fratto was asked if President Bush agreed with Rice’s assessment. Fratto demurred but said Rice, herself, would be voting for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ):

FRATTO: Obviously — let me just say this — I mean, for Senator Biden to be selected to run on his party’s ticket for Vice President is a great honor. … As for Secretary Rice, I think Secretary Rice has made clear who she intends to vote for, and that will be Senator McCain and whomever he chooses to join him on the ticket.

It’s not at all clear, however, who Rice intends to vote for. As recently as August 17 on Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked which candidate Rice is supporting for president. Rice would only say that she considers herself a Republican and that she would make her choice “at the ballot box”:

WALLACE: And finally, Secretary Rice, do you support John McCain over Barack Obama for president?

RICE: Look, I’m the secretary of state, and as secretary of state, I think it’s a tradition that I’ll take a nonpartisan role here.

Everybody knows that I’m a Republican. Everybody also knows that I have great respect for our — for our political system, for the choices the American people will make. And as an American, will make my choice, like all Americans, at the ballot box.

Previously, Rice told Fox News that she is not interested in being McCain’s running mate.

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