At press conference, Bush revels in anti-intellectualism

September 20, 2007

Early on in this morning’s White House press conference, a reporter asked the president whether he believes there’s a risk of a recession. Bush replied, “You know, you need to talk to economists. I think I got a B in Econ 101. I got an A, however, in keeping taxes low and being fiscally responsible with the people’s money.”

As a factual matter, the president is mistaken (and not just because he got a C in Econ 101). ThinkProgress noted the many economists — including Alan Greenspan, Robert Shiller, and CBO Director Peter Orszag — who “have been predicting that the administration’s loose regulatory policies may soon lead to a recession.”

For that matter, the very idea that Bush would boast of being “fiscally responsible” seems rather amusing, given that he turned the largest surpluses in U.S. history into the largest deficits in U.S. history.

But that’s not the part that struck me as interesting. That came later, when a reporter returned to the subject.

Q: Mr. President, back to your grade point average on holding the line on taxes —

BUSH: Whew, I thought you were going to talk about the actual grade point average. (Laughter.) I remind people that, like when I’m with Condi I say, she’s the Ph.D. and I’m the C-student, and just look at who’s the President and who’s the advisor. (Laughter.)

This is one of Bush’s very favorite jokes. Given the context, I suspect he doesn’t realize how ridiculous it is.

Here, for example, was Bush at a scripted “conversation” on the administration’s prescription drug program.

Bush: I called upon a fellow named Dr. Mark McClellan to join me in this effort. He’s here. That’s him right there. He is a — (applause.) He’s a PhD, see — I’m a C student. (Laughter.) Look who’s the President and who’s the advisor. (Laughter and applause.) Dr. Mark is in charge of what’s called CMS. He’ll tell you what that means. We use a lot of initials in Washington. The way I like to describe it to you is he is in charge of making sure the Medicare reform plan is explained, rolled out, and administered properly. And so, Mark, thanks for coming. Welcome.

McClellan: Mr. President, it’s great to be here.

Bush: PhD in what?

McClellan: In economics, and I’m a physician, as well.

Bush: See, he spent a lot of time in the classroom. (Laughter.)

Hilarious. The president thinks it’s a laugh-riot that the egghead who reads a lot gets to be his advisor, while he can become president after barely cracking a book.

And here he was at a similar event, this time on Social Security:

Bush: I’ve asked Jeff Brown to join me. He is a professor. He can tell you where — where do you profess? (Laughter.)

Brown: I have a PhD in economics, and I teach at a business school.

Bush: Yes. It’s an interesting lesson here, by the way. He’s an advisor. Now, he is the PhD, and I am a C-student — or was a C-student. Now, what’s that tell you? (Laughter and applause.)

Well, for one thing it tells us that the president isn’t terribly impressed with the rigors of academia. It also suggests Bush believes the smart and educated are worth having around, but the real power belongs with people like him. And if he can poke fun at the nerd in front of thousands of people, making himself appear bigger in the process, all the better.

This joke is actually one of Bush’s go-to lines. He’s used it over and over and over again.

Indeed, this unfortunately fits into the image the president has worked to create. He brags about not having done well in school. He has said he doesn’t read newspapers and prefers short meetings that don’t go into too much detail. When Paul O’Neill, Bush’s former Treasury Secretary, described the president as “disengaged” during their policy meetings, Bush joked, “I wasn’t disengaged. I was bored as hell and my mother told me never to interrupt.”

It’s not that I mind Bush’s simplicity, it’s just that I have to wonder why he has to revel in his anti-intellectualism quite so often.

By the Broder standard, this IS intellectualism.

Up is down.

  • Bush has been laughing in everyone’s face from the start. Literally. He smirks and laughs because he can’t believe we’re stupid enough to buy his bullshit. He literally makes fucking jokes about looking under his desk for WMD while brave Americans die for that lie. He literally told us he’d like to be a dictator. He’s always laughing. I would be too. Nothing matters with him. His whole life has been on autopilot. The joke IS on us. That’s the one thing he’s been right about.

  • I think it goes way beyond “reveling in his anti-intellectualism.” I think it grows out of a deep-seated sense of intellectual insecurity and inferiority (no doubt largely instilled there by his parents, who made it plain to him he was the also-ran in the family), and serves an equally deep-seated need to make himself feel better by putting others down.

    It’s actually a pretty nauseating example of his pathology. For another example, see Josh Bolten’s “thank you for the privilege of serving you”. Anybody with any real sense of self-esteem would be disgusted if someone on their staff made such a comment.

  • A broad swath of this country over the past 20 years has come to equate, improperly, intellectualism with elitism and anti-intellectualism with populism. The intentional, reveled-in dumbing down of America has already begun to harm our interests, and will be our undoing far more surely than “Islamic terrorism” or superpowers like Russia or China.

    We are rapidly losing information economy and high-tech jobs to India, Israel, China, Europe and the Pacific Rim.

    We are turning out fewer researchers, and discouraging science education by restrictions on stem cell lines and by blurring the lines between science (evolution) and religion (creationism).

    We encourage those with intellectual gifts to hide their light under a bushel basket while we relish and pamper ignorant blowhards who couldn’t pass Intro to Logic if their lives depended on it.

    We make purely short-run decisions devoid of science to prop up corporations – we led the world in the electric car, then we killed it. We were closing in on useful collected solar energy, then we defunded the project. We do this all the time because the innovation is a threat to the established big money corporation. Why wouldn’t those researchers go to other countries who more appreciate their contributions?

    Soon, all America will be able to do is provide pink-collar service jobs for the rest of the world, as all of the innovation and high-tech manufacturing will have gone to places that prize science, research, innovation and intelligence.

    All of those C-students and class-skipping slackers who followed proudly in the model Dumbya gladly sets will be doing data entry in little cubicles as the new low-cost offshoring options of the next economic powerhouses.

  • We are in an alternate Universe, one gone very wrong.

    In a better world, George Bush would be the most popular gas station owner in Crawford.

    He’s an accident of history.

  • Easy answer: He was an underachiever that has over achieved.

    And by the way, CB getting good grades in college doesn’t immediately make one an “intellectual.” I bet you there are a few folks here who are intellectual and don’t have a college degree.

  • [sarcasm] Well, when God himself chooses you to lead the country, book learnin’ just ain’t that important. [/sarcasm]

  • I remind people that, like when I’m with Condi I say, she’s the Ph.D. and I’m the C-student, and just look at who’s the President and who’s the advisor.

    Duh… No President Left Behind

    Dunce…

  • Jesus Republicans are fucking stupid. They voted for that cretin twice.

    Bush knows that 99% of all the smart people hold him in utter contempt, especially nowadays. He gets his fan mail from the stupidest people imaginable. So he’s obviously going to try to make fun of the smart folks any chance he gets.

    The most painful thing to me is that Reid and Pelosi think they can reason with the man. He’s a sociopath, and they should be frog marching him to the Hague.

  • As democracy is perfected , the office of the president represents more and more closley the inner soul of the people . On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last and the Whitehouse will be adorned by a downright moron .
    H.L Mencken 7-6-20

  • This “joke” of Bush’s is also a public, underhanded insult at the person he’s referring to. It would be wonderful (and it won’t ever happen, I know) if Condi or one of the other PhD’s he did this to were to someday come back with “Well, f*ck you too, moron,” and walk off the stage.

  • I sense that Fred Thompson’s anti-intellectualism is exactly the same as what you describe above. Let’s hope nobody falls for it the second time around.

  • I can imagine him, as a child, maybe even a teenager, saying: “when I’m president, you’ll be *sorry* you ever called me a retard”. He feels vindicated, hence the smirks and the rubbing it in.

  • These examples are the perfect illustration of Bush’s frat-boy, I’m entitled, who cares so let the nerds do it, attitude. He is the product of American aristocracy, selfish and arrogant, who never did any hard work in his life. I am certain that he is the kind of guy who paid “tutors and editors” to write his thesis, and probably most of his term papers.

    Personally I wonder how a person who got a C in Economics 101 got into a Ivy League MBA program, let alone finish the program. It just goes to show how little such a degree means if the person is among the privileged class. As someone who worked pretty hard during college and graduate school, I would never joke about getting a C. It happens to the best of us, but it is nothing to brag about. What an insecure little piss-ant we have for a leader.

  • I think, actually, he’s rather amazed. That probably growing up, he was told by his dad that C students didn’t get to be president.

    And really, it’s not his shame, it’s ours for electing someone whose academic record demonstrates that he is incapable of running the country.

  • Catherine – a slight correction. The Regal Moron can, and is running the country. He is running it into a brick wall at about 100 MPH. I’m hoping the imact will occur in his term, because all of his buddies (the haves and have mores) will effectively pin it on the Dems. Especially since his buddies own the media.

  • So passes the Age of Empire; not with a bang, but with a snicker. As I’ve suggested before, the true scope of the damage the Bush presidency has done to America will not be appreciated until he’s long gone, and the effects will long outlive him. The glorification of intellectual mediocrity is simply one more example why handing the reins of power to someone who failed at every practical test over the course of a lifetime was a catastrophe for the country.

    And unless you manage to send him to prison as a war criminal, you’ll never get the opportunity to make him laugh on the other side of his face. He’s a rich son of a rich family, and comfortably insulated from any punishment life may care to mete out, short of random terminal disease. As Lily Tomlin once said; no matter how cynical you become, you can never keep up.

  • It’s like Peter Griffin became president. -Liam J

    You’re kidding, right? We’d be much better off in Petoria.

    At least Brian would be an adviser.

  • Exactly the attitude the foreign powers like to see in our president. The loudmouth doesn’t even know when he is being manipulated. Terrorists got him to act like General George Custer and chase a few of them right into an ambush that has resulted in thousands of deaths, trillions of dollars lost. and the loss of many of our constitutional freedoms. Call him chicken and he strays right in the middle of the turkey shoot so they who could not easily reach us can shoot us at leisure. “See how smart I really am. I’m famous and you’re not”. How can anyone trust a fool…oh yeah…the money and the contracts.

    “I’ve ruined the country for years to come, caused all kinds of death destruction and chaos, but you’ll never forget me. Not bad for a “c” student huh?”…Our President folks.

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