Bush does his best Grandpa Simpson routine

January 13, 2006

More and more, I understand why the president doesn’t like press conferences. For example, here was an exchange from today’s joint event with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Q: Thank you, sir. If I could just follow up on that. China’s U.N. Ambassador says referring Iran to the Security Council might complicate the issue. How hard is it going to be to get a —

Bush: Say that again, Steve. I’m getting a little old. I’m getting old; I’m having trouble hearing.

Q: China’s U.N. Ambassador —

Bush: The Chinese Ambassador said what?

Q: It might complicate the issue if you refer Iran to —

Bush: Might complicate the issue?

Q: Yes, sir — of how hard it’s going to be — what’s your timetable? Should the sanctions include the threat of military force?

Bush: First of all, I want to repeat what I said before. We should not prejudge the strategy in the Security Council until they get to the Security Council.

Earlier in the same press conference, we also saw this encouraging exchange.

Q: Are you in favor of sanctions against Iran in the Security Council, and what kind of sanctions should that be? And another question is, in Germany, there’s a discussion about intelligence, secret service people working in Baghdad during the Iraq war. From your knowledge, did the German intelligence help the U.S. before and during the Iraq war in Baghdad?

Bush: I have no idea about the latter. (Laughter.) You did say, secret intelligence, right? (Laughter.) I understand. I really — the truth of the matter is, the Chancellor brought this up this morning. I had no idea what she was talking about. The first I heard of it was this morning, truthfully. Secondly, the first part of your question was Iran.

Q: Iran, sir.

Bush: Okay, good. Sometimes when you mix them up, it throws us off balance, you know?

It’s the kind of press conference management that really inspires confidence, isn’t it?

Confidence? Nah, this President inspires one of the following: nausea, laughter, exasperation, foul language, damage to my television set and/or the small items on my coffee table…

  • We can’t bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell them stories that don’t go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, sooo I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. So, to take the ferry it cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. “Give me 5 bees for a quarter,” you’d say. Now where were we? Oh yeah, the important thing was, that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions…. because of the war. The only kind you could get was those big yellow ones…..

  • It’s nice to be able to recruit for speech & debate with the argument that in six weeks I can take you, a ninth grader, under my wing and you will be better at either than the sitting President of the United States.

    Couldn’t do that ten years ago….

  • I would make a comment about how many brain cells he killed of during his drinking days but that would be gratuitous.

  • Have we all heard the new Brownieism where
    on Bush’s New Orleans photo-op yesterday
    he declared the city “a heck of a place . . . ?”

  • Bush has always spoken like this. True story, the first time I ever heard him speak was on the radio in 2000; for the first five minutes or so I thought I was listening to a human interest piece about a low-IQ adult overcoming his mental challenges to succeed in life. Imagine my surprise when I realized this was the Republican candidate for President.

    These days the rumors are that Bush is back on the booze. I think what is more likely is that for five years the media has been cleaning up his diction when he stammers or babbles, and it is only recently that this is actually being reported honestly.

    No change in Bush, but a remarkable change in the reporting.

  • Isn’t it just him being Reagan, not Grandpa Simpson? That hard-of-hearing stuff worked for Dutch during Iran-Contra–he could ignore a lot of questions and then, under oath, say he forgot it all.
    But maybe if it’s not an act, it’s also Reagan all over again, since alcohol poisoning mimics Alzheimer’s.

  • Regarding Bush’s wearing of an earpiece during the 2004 debates and now: Can’t Larry Flynt or George Soros put up the money for somebody to spill the beans? Don’t Republicans love money (i.e. anal rententive)? Maybe, we’ll have to wait until 2009 for the book deals to come along before we pass the popcorn.

  • How sad and frustrating it must be for dignitaries and statesmen to sit down with Bush and try to have a conversation. Must he make everyone think we’re all buffons and morons?

  • Mr. Furious:

    Confidence? Nah, this President inspires one of the following: nausea, laughter, exasperation, foul language, damage to my television set and/or the small items on my coffee table…

    It is just laughter now for me.

    And I mean that without pretension.

    Quite frankly:

    Whenever I happen to hear Bush speak these days I invariable fill the space after his first pause with a super boisterous guffaw.

    I can’t help myself.
    It is automatic.
    And my laughter is earnest and genuine.

    It is like having a condensation of the Three Stooges and the Marx brothers all wraped in one Presidential Dolt.

    In other words:

    It is all fantasy.
    It can’t possilby be true that the richest, smartest, and bestest country in the world elected a blithering, smirking, and rich simian to be its Emperor.

    That can’t be true…. Right?

    And so… I laugh at this alternate funny universe I have somehow found myself in…

    [PS. It helps if you have a T-shirt that reads: Just visiting this planet (that really is a mood setter).]

  • Well, I’ll take my lumps when they’re right. Bushes are horrible public speakers. Even this neo-con admits this. You know the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Other than the contemporaneus (sp?) bullhorn speech given on the still smouldering ruins of the world trade center, the president has never made a public speach in which I did not wince and groan at the pain of hearing the art of oration rendered in fingerpaint. Thankfully, despite this, his IQ test score was still higher than Kerry’s, per Tom Brokaw. Nonetheless, touche, carpetbagger.

  • I don’t believe there are any actual IQ scores available for comparison. Just the results from some kind of conversion process, done using previous tests scores of both men. If memory serves me it was something like their Officer Qualification Tests or SAT scores.

    At least some of these tests were done by a Prof. Linda Gottfredson at the University of Delaware. There have been questions raised about the validity of her work on this issue, since her work was funded by the Pioneer Fund A group which been identified as a White Power hate organization.

  • According to Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes prior to the 2004 election, Bush Jr. has an IQ of 81, Bush Sr. has an IQ of 89 and Bill Clinton’s was in the 140’s. A president with an IQ of 81 needs handler(s). Putin distracted President Dumbass by driving him around in his little car on Putin’s estate. When Bushit went to Latin America a couple of months ago, he took over 2000 support people. 2000 people couldn’t make Dumbass look intelligent, competent or capable of any actual diplomatic negotiations.

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