The Knucklehead of the Day award

Today's winner is Festus Mogae, the President of Botswana. He gets the award for the following.

HARARE (Reuters) - The president of Botswana offered Zimbabwe's embattled President Robert Mugabe rare diplomatic solidarity on Monday by praising a leader largely shunned by the West over his policies.

Festus Mogae, who has at times broken ranks with African leaders by publicly criticizing Mugabe over Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis, endorsed Mugabe's controversial seizures of white-owned farms for blacks as politically "necessary" and said the country's key agriculture sector would soon rebound.

Opening Harare's annual agricultural show, Mogae said Zimbabwe's agriculture -- whose output has fallen by over 60 percent in the last six years -- had great potential but the government must honor its pledge to ensure productive land use.

"Agriculture in Zimbabwe has unfortunately been disrupted by the necessary redistributive adjustments that have had to be made in favor of the majority of citizens," he said, adding that droughts and Western sanctions against Harare had also hurt the Zimbabwe economy.

Mogae said he had recently told a meeting of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization that Zimbabwe would soon become one of the top farming nations in the world.

"My prediction must be taken seriously," he said.

Independent experts predict Zimbabwe's farm sector will take many years to recover in the absence of crucial donor support, including training of new farmers.

Thousands of people are starving because of Mugabe's policies, but Mogae sees a need for social engineering. He's as crazy as his neighbor to the north.

For defending the indefensible, Festus Mogae is today's Knucklehead of the day.

Linked to- Right Wing Nation, Basil's Blog, Jo's Cafe, Bright & Early, Outside the Beltway, Pursuing Holiness, Cao's Blog,