Granted, going after Little Lord Pontchartrain for being an idiot is like picking on the slow kid, but the 'leader' of the U.S. just burbled this (by way of The Liberal Avenger):
George W. Bush, responding to Katie Couric's question on what the United States has learned from interrogating high-value terrorism suspects:"Well, for example -- there's a -- we -- we uncovered a -- a potential anthrax attack on the United States. Or the fact that -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed had got somebody to -- to line up people to fly airlines, to -- to crash airlines on, I think, the West Coast or somewhere in America. And these would be Southeast Asians. In other words, we've uncovered cells."
If this program had been successful, wouldn't he have been familiar enough with--and proud of--specific successes such that he could have discussed them intelligibly? (Intelligently would be too much to ask for).
He is dangerously stupid.
- Log in to post comments
I think you make a fundamental mistake by concluding that Dubya is stupid. In fact, I have read that his IQ is higher then his opponent in the last election, John Kerry. Further, I have read that he scored 1217 in the college boards, which is well above the average of 1000. The problem with Dubya is that he is a dillettante and is intellectually lazy and incurious. Thus he obtains information by listening to people, rather then reading briefing papers. He also prefers listening to people who tell him what he wants to hear. This, of course, has led to his problems in Iraq. As an example, he listened to Rumsfeld, the former air force pilot, instead of Shinseki, the Chief of Staff of the Army when deciding how many troops would be needed in Iraq. He is also a poor communicator who is obviously not properly briefed by his staff for a press conference.
I'm in agreement with SLC. Bush isn't stupid, his problem is primarily that he doesn't do his homework.
I think Bush's problems in Iraq had more to do with his idealistic neo-Wilsonian fantasies than with his supposed lack of intelligence. He could've executed the war far more effectively had he not taken many of the things he did for granted (they'll greet us as liberators and throw roses at our feet! there will be no insurgency! etc. etc.). Though I'm still not convinced we would've been entirely successful, and am certainly not convinced the war was necessary, I don't think it's because he's dumb. He's just lazy.
Bush is ineloquent. I won't say whether he's stupid or not. By the way, you can't score a 1217 on the SATs. The scores increment by multiples of 10.
Wait a minute...Bush isn't stupid, he's just incapable of communicating, is superficial, and is lazy?
I'd like to know exactly how you define "stupid," because if someone's got the depth of a mud puddle, lacks the discipline to better himself, and babbles like an idjit, I say he IS stupid. It doesn't matter what some abstract, rarified metric on some arbitrary test somewhere in his past said -- what counts is what he is and what he does.
I think what folks here are saying is that he may be dumb, but he's not stupid.
I'd like to know exactly how you define "stupid," because if someone's got the depth of a mud puddle, lacks the discipline to better himself, and babbles like an idjit, I say he IS stupid.
Can't find any flaws in that statement!
We've read about his incuriousity more than once. & I've seen the same symptoms in relatives of mine. It's like a detached complacency. There's also a (conscious or reflexive, not sure) tendency by them to belittle my interest in & knowledge of current politics.
When I mentioned Bush & Abu Ghraib, earlier this year, my sister-in-law's immediate verbal response was to say (roughly): "Al Gore, tax-and-spend Democrats."
Let's see ... Al Gore, candiate in 2000. Bush, war criminal in 2006.
WTF?????
How does one even respond to that level of ... brainwashing, is the best word that comes to mind?
Re RPM
"By the way, you can't score a 1217 on the SATs. The scores increment by multiples of 10."
I don't think that was true 40 years ago when Bush took the tests. FYI, I scored 1365 which is not a multiple of 10.
Re PZ Myers
According to Websters' dictionary, the word stupid means, "lacking normal intelligence or understanding, slow-witted, dull." Based on this definition, I stand on my statement which opened this thread; Dubya is many things, namely a lying, coke-snorting, pot smoking drunk, but stupid he's not.
Stupid is a declination (I think) of stupor, hence a state (potentially temporary) of decreased cognitive function, while dumb is more permanent. I'm willing to grant stupid, with the hope that it will alter. Soon would be good.
Also, as a calculated move, W intentionally portrays himself as an aw-shucks, good-old-boy, common-man "just like YOU" instead of the New England elitist he really is. It pays off well. And he doesn't care if the people he already despises despise him back for it.