Dangerously dumb

May 24, 2007

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but at times, the president appears to be dangerously dumb. Consider this exchange, for example, from this morning’s press conference.

Q: Mr. President, moments ago you said that al Qaeda attacked us before we were in Iraq. Since then Iraq has become much less stable; al Qaeda has used it as a recruiting tool, apparently with some success. So what would you say to those who would argue that what we’ve done in Iraq has simply enhanced al Qaeda and made the situation worse?

BUSH: Oh, so, in other words, the option would have been just let Saddam Hussein stay there? Your question is, should we not have left Saddam Hussein in power? And the answer is, absolutely not. Saddam Hussein was an enemy of the United States. He’d attacked his neighbors. He was paying Palestinian suicide bombers. He would have been — if he were to defy — and by the way, cheating on the U.N. oil for sanctions program — oil-for-food program. No, I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that this world would be a better place with Saddam Hussein in power, and particularly if — and I’m sure the Iraqis would agree with that.

Given the president’s small and confused worldview, he’s simply unable to answer the question. By any reasonable measure, Bush’s policies have made an awful situation tragic. We invaded Iraq in part because it was a destabilizing force in the Middle East, and we made it and its region less stable. Al Qaeda is getting stronger, not weaker. Terrorist attacks are going up, not down. Casualty rates are increasing, not decreasing.

Confronted with this fairly obvious and straightforward reality, Bush offers a forceful response: Saddam Hussein was a bad guy.

It’s like having a foreign policy argument with a six-year-old.

I know it’s impolitic for anyone to suggest the president is stupid. It makes the left look shrill, it’s considered rude and overly personal, it might even help the White House manage expectations. Besides, it’s a tired cliche. A cheap laugh. A joke that was too obvious years ago, and pointless now.

But I’m having a hard time understanding how anyone can consider the exchange and respect Bush’s intellect.

The reporter noted that Iraq is less table and al Qaeda is using Iraq to its advantage

The president responded, “Your question is, should we not have left Saddam Hussein in power? And the answer is, absolutely not.”

The reporter protested, and said that wasn’t his question.

“That’s really the crux of it,” Bush responded. When the reporter tried to clarify this important point, the president snaps, “Let me finish, please, here. I’m on a roll here.”

On a roll. The president can’t even describe his policy about Iraq and al Qaeda coherently, but he thinks he’s “on a roll.”

I wonder, when Republicans watch press conferences like this, do they hang their heads in shame, or have they deluded themselves into thinking Bush has a clue?

But isn’t that the exact answer Christopher Hitchens would have given? (Except Hitch would have mentioned Abu Nidal and that scientists who had centrifuge parts buried in his backyard.)

  • The moron cannot even answer correctly his own reconstruction of the original question. Go back and read it again.

    So very, very tired of this…

  • Is it really a sign of stupidity not to answer a very real question for which he has no convincing answer?

    The press is so cowed he can get away with it. Perhaps he isnt brilliant enough to come up with a complete and rational response to the question, but opting not to answer and instead offer platitudes and answer differnt questions may be smart. Dishonest and disingenous, but not necessarily dumb.

  • Why doesn’t anyone ask him, “why if AlQaeda is such danger, did we stop looking for them in Afghanistan in 2002?”

    That’s a pretty clear question; I’m not even sure the moron-in-chief could fuck that one up.

  • Maybe it’s time that someone did stand up and simply say, “With all due respect, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, Mr. President.”

    Sure, it may appear rude and shrill, but it’s honest, and if he still can’t explain to someone why his idea is not stupid, then that rests the case, doesn’t it?

  • I wonder, when Republicans watch press conferences like this, do they hang their heads in shame, or have they deluded themselves into thinking Bush has a clue?

    That would be reality based Republicans. And they’ve jumped ship already and tune him out just like the rest of us.

    But for The Base, i.e., the true believers, Bush’s answer is accepted wisdom.

    Remember, to the Dobsonites, we really don’t need to worry too much about getting Iraq right. Thunderbolts from above will clean house if things get to far gone in that part of the world. So if President says it was a good idea to smite Sadaam and the rest of his terrorist loving friends, they are in.

    And the Wingnuts over at The Corner, this is World War 4 man. They are in for that action. They might wish there had been more competence at the Whitehouse (then more terrorists would have been killed and civilization would be saved). But they are down with the wack Iraq and you wack the terrorists analogy already.

    I think its just members of the reality based community that hang their heads in shame.

    And the Repub Brand had been seriously damaged (for the reality based community) by Team Bush.

  • Actually, Bush is right. The question of whether or not to leave Saddam in power was the crux of that guy’s question. Let’s admit it. And the simple fact is- Yes. We should have left Saddam in power. We put him there. We kept him there. And there were reasons for those things. Ugly, morally gray reasons, but reasons nonetheless.

    Time and time again I’ve heard supporters of this war define what success will look like as “stability,” “a nation that can defend its borders” “a place where terrorists and religious extremists can’t get a foothold…” etc.

    In other words exactly what we had with Saddam in place.

    Teriq Aziz is a Christian, for Christ’s sake. Do you think a Christian could rise as high as he did in today’s Iraq?

    Bush had something to prove to his father, and no experience getting shot down over the Pacific to temper his actions. “I wouldn’t do that to our boys” meant nothing to Junior because he’s lived his life in a drug-addled bubble. You think this coward would ever skydive like 41? Never!

    He is not his father. He is a drunk and he is not the true and rightful president. Al Gore is!!!

  • Bush’s answer is pure neo-con bullshit. His rational has been drilled into him. Bush is nothing more than Bill Kristol’s sock puppet. My proof? How about when Bush recites: “He’d attacked his neighbors. He was paying Palestinian suicide bombers.”

  • And why, may I ask again, is impeachment off the table?

    Also: “He’d attacked his neighbors [with the US’s help and approval, heck we even sent Rummy over there to make sure the supply chain was being properly managed]. He was paying Palestinian suicide bombers [but ignore Cheney’s arranging, with the Saudis, of secret payments to hardline jihadi groups]. He would have been — if he were to defy — and by the way, cheating on the U.N. oil for sanctions program — oil-for-food program [just like Chevron did under the direct supervision of Condi Rice].

  • Suddam was bad but what we’ve done makes him look like a saint by comparison. Terror , torture, rape, murder, instability, destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure, 10x more Iraq’s dead, injured and homeless than Saddam could have done in his lifetime. American troops dead and dying, riches lost to the point of bankruptcy, American freedoms sacrificed, Hate toward our country unequaled, and This president continues to feed the war profiteers in treasure and blood because he can’t admit to what he has done. Quoting Joey Bacon, “…in the forest where the blind man sees, the faithful never need to know when you’re lying”-Roses in Egypt.
    Bush truly will not admit what “he” has done or is doing because he blames everyone else for “his” failed treachery. To hold the troops hostage to get the funding for the war profiteers is unforgivable.

  • I’m on a roll here.

    I didn’t know “a roll” was slang for “massive amounts of coke.”

    I’m still hoping for at least one massive pResidential freak out before Jan. 2009. Hell, I’m willing to bet he’ll have to be forklifted out of the WH.

    “Put me down! I’m the commander guy!!”

  • He’s on a roll, all right, like a tumbrel on its way to the guillotine. Apparently he’s on such a roll that it renders him incapable of noticing a good many Iraqis have said exactly that – that things were better under Saddam.

    Salon suggested, in an article yesterday,that impeachment remains off the table because too many Americans are unable to confront the dark part of themselves that rejoiced when Bush hurled the country’s military might against Iraq: simply because the affront to America was such that somebody had to be smashed, and who got smashed was of little consequence. Perhaps the same impulse drives the MSM’s questioning of Bush – he continues to be fed slack because, despite his obvious idiocy, the media once cheered him on in his quest to be George of Persia.

    Some have wondered how such an obviously drooling, paint-chip-eating stunzio could remain in office so long. I submit it is because that profile is the dream personality the real movers and shakers were waiting for to carry out their foreign policy agenda. And those are the people who still have his ear, and still keep him believing he’s a misunderstood genius even as he jitters apart.

  • Is it really a sign of stupidity not to answer a very real question for which he has no convincing answer?

    I think this is right. Bush is boxed into a corner. He can’t argue directly with the implications of the question, and the obvious answer puts him in a very bad light, so his only choice is to change the subject. This move is obvious to people who are interested in the answer, but he’s not talking to them; he’s talking to his base.

  • It’s not that he’s dumb, he’s just desperate. And he’s a liar. During his first term press appearances, he always looked and sounded like the unprepared kid who got called on in class. It was obvious and he looked overly familiar with the situation.

    When he was reelected, he seemed to believe he really was that strong, powerful leader the retards said he was. But as things have kept collapsing, he’s terrified again. He is haunted by the growing fear that Daddy George, James Baker, Brent Scrowcroft and Dick Cheney are going to call him to an imaginary “office” and beat his wretched ass for being the serial fuck-up he knows he is.

  • What Haik said in #9.

    And the rare honest Republican would admit that we should have left Saddam alone, and waited for his own countrymen to overthrow him. But Republicans are not honest, and that’s why we’re in Iraq.

    I would add that there’s plenty of other “bad men” out there, so which one’s country should we invade next, George? Or would this world be a better place with (insert Bad Guy) in power?

    Douchebag.

  • Or it’s politics in the reality TV age. We watch people humiliate themselves in order to feel better about ourselves. When the fantasy world so blurs with reality there are few and rare tangible consequences to governmental incompetence. They happen elsewhere.

    See: Idiocracy

  • I cannot say that he’s dumber than a post, or dumber than roadkill—because that would require me to insult the post and the dead “whatever” that’s lying in the middle of the road. Dangerously dumb comes close, by my preference would be “stupider than six-day-old cowshit in the middle of a twister’s path.” If he wants to pretend to be a Texan, then he ought to understand that one.

    Someone does need to start pushing his buttons on the Saddam thing, though. Questions like “Why the need to execute Saddam when the guy who killed thousands of Americans—Osama bin Laden—gets off scot-free?” “Why are we still in Iraq, supposedly fighting a small part of al Quaeda, when the known enemy’s main forces are in Afghanistan and Pakistan?”

    As for this “on a roll” thing, I find myself reminded of Clara Peller, who gained her claim to fame in a hamburger commercial. Standing at the fast-food counter, she examines a bun with ketchup, mustard, and pickle—but no meat. Her words still resound to this day:

    “WHERE’S THE BEEF?”

    It took the likes of Reagan to argue that ketchup was a food group; it takes an evolutionary profound fool like Bush to boast about being just “condiments on a bun….”

  • There are a few possible explanations for Bush’s crazy behavior. First and my personal favorite is that when he choked on the pretzel he did some damage to his brain and he lost what little cognitive ability he had after his twenty year long coke run.

    Or perhaps he is back on the booze/coke again; he certainly seems like he is.

    Or, perhaps he is simply stupid and his family had enough wealth and power that he was able to fake it through with tutors and people who could bail him out when needed. Now he is unraveling and unable to rely on tutors, we are seeing the true W.

    But the most chilling explanation for his stupidity is that he has cracked under the strain, and he is truly insane. That is my greatest fear.

    Realistically it is probably all of the above. We are in deep sh*t.

  • Maybe it’s time that someone did stand up and simply say, “With all due respect, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, Mr. President.”

    Sure, it may appear rude and shrill, but it’s honest, and if he still can’t explain to someone why his idea is not stupid, then that rests the case, doesn’t it?

    Comment by Shaft

    Man that would be great! Or how about everybody just start laughing at the preznits silly responses. Or maybe if they all just got up and left the idiot standing there talking to Laura and Barney.

  • Bush’s speech says more about the intellect & courage of those questioning than about his own intellect.

    The fact that Pres Bush gets away with such obvious blather demonstrates the servility of the press corps. He served up the shit, but they ate it.

  • Ever work with (or for) someone who can’t admit that they are wrong?

    This guy is mentally damaged, and the Republican’ts that put him in office only reinforced his narcissistic point of view. So now the real world is crowding in, and he can’t handle it.

    Remember he mangeled “fool me once…” ? He couldn’t even say “shame on me.”

    First Clinton’s impeachment, and then Commander Codpiece. I will never be able to forgive that party, and I wll do all that I can to oppose it. Even if it means supporting the Dems.

  • Bush’s answer was clearly canned. Anytime he is asked a question of the variety “would we have been better off not going into Iraq?” his response is a variation on Saddam was a bad guy. Does this make Bush dumb? I’m not sure. What bothers me is that he hasn’t updated his canned answer to take into account new information. Is this the best that Junior’s braintrust has got? Or has Junior failed to absorb any new lessons since 2002. While either answer is frightening, my guess is that it is the latter.

  • Once he becomes certifiably stupid enough, I imagine that he’ll be forced to step down. Question: Who takes over if Bu$h becdomes “mentally incapacitated?”

    Kucinich is right—we need to impeach Cheney NOW….

  • What we really need, is an “Oliver Twist journalist” at every presser: “Sir… you didn’t answer my question; my questions was: …”. If it happened every time, he’d crack eventually. Maybe; he semed to take being shat on (by a bird) in stride…

  • “What bothers me is that he hasn’t updated his canned answer to take into account new information.”

    I honestly think the man knows little more than what Cheney tells him about Iraq. I honestly think the idiot swallowed all the neocon babble for two reasons: a) he wanted to one-up daddy, and 2) he has no idea, even from books, what war costs people personally.

    In that respect, he’s just another sheltered, self-centered rich kid who became president of the United States for reasons neither he nor anyone else can comprehend.

  • On top of that Americablog points out, he says in one breath “if we don’t acheive victory in Iraq, Al Queda will come here and kill your children” and ADDS “if the Iraqi government asks us to leave we will”.

    Pointing out, logically this means Bush is willing to let the Iraqi government decide the fate of the “children of the USA”!

    Someone (with teeth) ought to point that out again and again, and againg.

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