Or that’s what some readers have told me via email. I should be gentler on him and less one-sided, they say. And yet I assure you all, I have tried to give him the benefit of the doubt many, many times, especially with the war in Iraq. And, just as when I give the same benefit of the doubt to China’s Communist Party, I end up inevitably disappointed, and my original concerns end up justified.
I want to ask readers, is it possible to watch this and not conclude our president is, indeed, a mental midget? Or am I being unkind and one-sided? Don’t we have the right to expect our president’s IQ to be above room temperature?
1
By Ivan
If he had ever actually been ELECTED President, then I might agree that he deserves some token respect as the legal holder of that office. But he wasn’t elected. Ever. So, GW Bush can eat my shit.
October 28, 2006 @ 6:25 pm | Comment
2
By Dr. J
I don’t understand your critics on this issue for they have lost their fundamental sense of what democracy means. In a democracy, it is not the President who deserves the utmost respect rather it is “We the People.”
The actions of this President and his administartion belie their essential disrespect for “the People”. The matter of respect is a two-way street. Is it worse to be called “stupid” or “incompetent”, which simply serves as a hedge against taking responsibility, or is it worse to be labeled by him a “cut and run” coward and “traitor” if you oppose his War in Iraq. Who disrespects whom, and at what price?
October 28, 2006 @ 8:04 pm | Comment
3
By magores
He’s a bad man.
Is he bad because he’s stupid beyond all comprehension, clueless beyond all hope, or just plain evil? – Honestly, I don’t know.
What I do know, is that he is “bad”. Bad for the US, bad for the world, bad for all of us, and bad for all of our children.
October 28, 2006 @ 10:22 pm | Comment
4
By boo
One earns respect through the cumulative effect of daily actions, not through one’s job title.
Regarding the title of this post, I don’t think it’s rude to call him stupid, but it’s wrong (because he isn’t stupid in a general sense).
However, he’s incurious about the world around him, and he does many stupid things, and I don’t see how pointing this out would be rude.
October 28, 2006 @ 10:47 pm | Comment
5
By Tom - Daai Tou Laam
Gentler on him??? Have you used methods on Dumbya that caused organ failure or even approached organ failure? Because if it didn’t cause organ failure, then according to Big Time Dick Cheney’s favorite radio talk show hillbilly heroin addict, it’s nothing more than some frat hazing.
And I believe your emailing readers are exaggerating their distress (flailing my arms and daai tou laam around for added effect) at seeing their Dear Leader ridiculed in order to inflict guilt upon you in the run up to this crucial election.
October 28, 2006 @ 10:53 pm | Comment
6
By Ivan
As I’ve said in the Pond, Hunter Thompson seems to be haunting me this week. Here is what he said when former President Nixon died in 1994:
“…his casket should have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles.”
And Nixon had actually been a lawfully ELECTED President, and one with some actual intelligence, who occasionally did good things for the country.
Bush ain’t even that.
October 28, 2006 @ 11:01 pm | Comment
7
By richard
Ivan, don’t write things like that when I’m drinking beer. I just messed up my new t-shirt.
Dr. J, never saw you here before but welcome – what a great first comment.
Tom, it doesn’t work both ways. It’s frat hazing when you torture naked innocent Iraqis. When you go after Bush with words alone you are a traitor, you want to give comfort to our enemies, and can even be silenced (just ask the Dixie Chicks, and people wearing peace signs on their shirts who get thrown out of taxpayer-funded Bush events).
Boo, I really have tried to believe he isn’t stupid. At times I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that on a one-on-one level he is charming, engaging and bright. But I have seen too many examples, captured on video for all posterity, that indicate he is dumber than dirt. Nearly all of his policies and appointments indicate this as well.
October 29, 2006 @ 12:46 am | Comment
8
By Ivan
Hey Richard, how about this – it’s a clip from “A Fish Called Wanda” where Otto (the archetypally dumb American) objects to being called “stupid”:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LKCZ8-ZAT88
October 29, 2006 @ 1:06 am | Comment
9
By OtherLisa
Can I call him a “twisted, evil son of a bitch”? That’s not rude, is it?
October 29, 2006 @ 1:37 am | Comment
10
By Aaron
During a campaign stop to UC San Deigo, Democratic presidential hopeful Jerry Brown, an ex-governor of California I might add, kept referring to the campus as San Diego State (SDSU) and complained about various problems that campus was having (like shutting down their chemistry dept.)
Needless to say, Jerry was confused. Even the hippies shouting to him, “wrong campus” did not help.
Now, was Jerry stupid or more likely poorly briefed and on a whirlwind campaign that takes him to three places a day?
October 29, 2006 @ 2:02 am | Comment
11
By richard
Knowing Jerry Brown pretty well, I’d say the latter. Knowing Bush, and having seen him say stupid things – and I mean glaringly, harebrained stupid – for years, I have concluded the man is, at least in public, a total moron. He may be profound and graceful in private, but I’m skeptical.
October 29, 2006 @ 2:15 am | Comment
12
By Ivan
The Pope had the same opinion:
http://quicksitebuilder.cnet.com/sartre/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/bush-pope.jpg
October 29, 2006 @ 2:35 am | Comment
13
By boo
Perhaps “insane” might be more appropriate than “stupid.”
October 29, 2006 @ 2:48 am | Comment
14
By GZ Guy
It’s not that he’s an evil, menacing, arrogant co*ksucker, it’s that he’s only been placed in there by the omnipotent machinations of the Republican Party. A bunch of guys that KNEW they themselves couldn’t be elected, chose a harmless simpleton that they knew they could pull the strings on (see Cheney, Rumsfeld and the gang).
He is probably the most managed president since…well…EVER. Unfortunately this group of evil old, over-the-hill zillionaires of the military-industrial complex are also propped by overzealous little 20-something College Republicans that have never lived a real life, don’t know shit about shit and are willing to do anything to push the agenda and then line up a job at a “think tank” afterwards as “experts” on the Middle East, Asia, and the military.
Personally I say give EVERY one of these little silver spoon bastards a helmet and an M-16 and send them into Al Anbar Province, Iraq for 6 months with the Marines. After that, they can think about how cavalier their attitudes are…
October 29, 2006 @ 12:34 pm | Comment
15
By Fat Cat
Whenever I read comments like this about GW Bush, I can’t help but remember this incident. Is he for real or is he just trying to be funny? (Whatever you do, please don’t reply to this rhetorical question. Your name is not GW Bush. Thank you.)
October 29, 2006 @ 12:51 pm | Comment
16
By OtherLisa
Hey, I gotta object to the Jerry Brown comparison. I really do know him well. I worked for him once. And he’s very eccentric to be sure. But he is super-intelligent, super-engaged, an original thinker who is intellectually curious about everything around him.
He is in no way shape or form like Bush.
October 29, 2006 @ 2:50 pm | Comment
17
By LaoNei
The man doesn’t have a solid grasp of his native language. Maybe he’s a brilliant strategery-ist, maybe he really is brilliant somewhere in there, maybe he’s good at math, maybe he’s a real wiz at memorising, but he doesn’t remember how to speak correctly when left alone.
These are precisely the something that people call stupidity
And regarding the accumulation of respect over time due to actions, it is far easier to earn respect in this manner when you’re born with a silver spoon in your mouth. Had Bush been born in Clinton’s family, I suspect he would look more like Bill Clinton’s brother than Bill himself.
October 29, 2006 @ 2:57 pm | Comment
18
By LaoNei
huh. I’m stupid now, hahaha. can’t frickin’ speak english anymore…. oh well.
>>> This is precisely something that people would call stupidity<
October 29, 2006 @ 2:59 pm | Comment
19
By OtherLisa
English am hard, Lao Nei. Me have hard time talking it.
October 29, 2006 @ 3:14 pm | Comment
20
By Tom - Daai Tou Laam
Knowing Jerry Brown pretty well, I’d say the latter. Knowing Bush, and having seen him say stupid things – and I mean glaringly, harebrained stupid – for years, I have concluded the man is, at least in public, a total moron. He may be profound and graceful in private, but I’m skeptical.
Posted by: richard
To publicly state such skepticism is potentially destabilising to the one party state currently in Washington. It would be far better for you, Richard, to accept the benefits of our new glorious Harmonious Society, faithfully regurgitate the statements of the Deputy White House Chief of Propaganda and refrain from accepting Dixie Chicks ads or criticising your President in a time of “war on those not receiving wingnut welfare”.
October 29, 2006 @ 3:30 pm | Comment
21
By richard
Well said, Tom. Maybe I should rename this site, “Shut up and blog about China.” (A take-off on the title of the Dixie Chicks flick, “Shut up and Sing,” for those of you who aren’t readig the liberal bogs.)
October 29, 2006 @ 3:47 pm | Comment
22
By Ivan
(Letter to the editor, in “The Economist”, May 25 2006, by Steve Pettit of California):
“SIR, please do not ever mention George Bush and Winston Churchill in the same breath ever again, even if you must break all the rules of grammar to do so.”
October 30, 2006 @ 2:52 pm | Comment