You can't have too many external enemies!

I have an H. L. Mencken quote in the header:

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the
populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety)
by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

While we do indeed have some real external hobgoblins the Bush administration realizes that you can't have too many. So of course the Bush administration has absolutely no intention of doing anything that would diffuse the crisis with Iran. With this in mid it's not really too surprising that Condoleezza Rice rejected the letter from Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before reading it. In an effort to be fair and balanced I must admit that Ahmadinejad is playing the same game as the Bush administration but Dr Rice let her diplomatic incompetence show when she admitted she hadn't read the letter.

Note
Ahmadinejad's letter is a gem that could have been written by one Bush's wingnut spinners.

I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus (Peace be upon him) and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth," Ahmadinejad wrote Bush, who has said that Christ is his favorite philosopher.

"If Prophet Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishamel, Joseph, or Jesus Christ (Peace Be Upon Him) were with us today, how would they have judged such behavior?" he wrote.