Scarborough takes on the ‘idiot’ question

August 16, 2006

It was surprising when MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough did a 10-minute segment last night on the question of whether the president’s limited intellectual strengths undermine the nation. It was even more surprising when MSNBC kept up the tagline “Is Bush An ‘Idiot’?” for the entire 10 minutes.

Scarborough, to his credit, didn’t exactly shill for the White House, and repeatedly suggested the president’s deficiencies have serious real-world consequences. At one point, he quoted a former presidential aide who told Scarborough personally that the president is “intellectually shallow and one of the most incurious public officials” the aide had ever met.

You know the segment went well for White House critics when the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund — the Bush defender on the program — lamented the fact that the president isn’t “more inventive” and “curious.”

Ultimately, I realize this has dog-bites-man all over it. Yes, the president isn’t terribly sharp; we get it. But with midterms 83 days away, the president’s intelligence does matter — with crises here and around the globe, wouldn’t the nation be better off with a Democratic Congress willing to check the president who may not be up to the job?

Here’s the video of the Scarborough segment:

All the yammering during the 2000 election cycle about how it was OK that Bush wasn’t very intellectual because he would surround himself with smart advisors, etc. was so transparent to me at the time, but most people bought it. I’m not an expert historian nor political scientist, but anyone who read “Thirteen Days” in college knows that it’s not enough to have good advisors, you have to have some brains to be a good “Decider.”

When Bush was applauded for not screwing up the first debate with Gore, I had a horrible sinking feeling that this election was going to turn out badly, and it did. Thanks to the media for cheering Bush’s failure to fail, we “elected” a buffoonish puppet.

  • “Joe Scarborough did a 10-minute segment last night on the question of . . . the president’s limited intellectual strengths”

    Pot, meet kettle.

  • This is odd and important. It is odd that at this point, someone as partisan as Scarborough all of a sudden is taking shots at W. Maybe it is just a function of the fact that the GOP ship is going down and Scarborough et al are rats saving themselves.

    It is important because if the President is a dolt and his advisors are neocon nutjobs Congressional oversight is paramount!

    I hope more of these stories start coming out. Bush will be on the wrong end of the punditry’s shock and awe campaign. I only hope he does not decide to impose martial law since he cannot fight back with words.

  • Hi CB,

    I think you meant to put the link to the video on the last line. It’s not there.

    What is important about the 2006 election is not that Boy George II is ‘incurious’, as George F. Will deems it, but that the Congressional Republican’ts can’t seem to deal with that deficiency. They are not holding his Bushites accounable when Boy George II fails to. They do not conduct oversight. They rubber stamp every little stupidity to come out of the White House and they approve every deficient Boy George II sends up for confirmation.

    America needs a Congress that will treat Boy George II as he deserves. A man whose ideas rarely have merit. A man whose opinions require intense analysis before they are accepted. A man whose friends can not be trusted with the governance of this country.

    In short, America needs a Democratic Congress of Russ Feingolds, and not Joe Liebermans, come 2007.

  • “Brownie, you are doing a heck of a job.”

    I think that settled it once and for all: Bush is a moron.

  • “they (the Republican’t Congress) approve every deficient Boy George II sends up for confirmation.” – me

    Well, to be fair, they rejected Harriet Myers 😉

  • I think you meant to put the link to the video on the last line. It’s not there.

    I touched up the links and it should work now. (Sometimes it takes an extra second to load.)

  • Seems like some pundits and even politicians think there is an iceberg right ahead of their ship. What they don’t realize is with Bush at the helm, they hit the iceberg years ago and they’re already on a sinking ship.

    Here’s to watching them squirm and shift and eventually freezing in they icy waters of irrelevance.

  • My favorite line in the clip comes near the end when John Fund laments the fact that so many Repub presidents have been labeled as stupid while he cannot recall a Dem president who has been tagged with that label. (Of course, wasn’t Gore ridiculed as being “too smart” by Republican pundits?) Fund seems to hint that this is a problem with the media’s portrayal of Repub leaders. I say where there’s smoke there’s fire.

    Scarborough has been remarkably moderate lately and rather critical of the right. This clip is a good example, but he also weighed in on Lamont’s behalf recently in Ned vs. Joe round 1. It’s funny how formerly staunch Bush fans have, after 6 1/2 years, finally found reason to criticize Bush. Either it’s a Republican condition to be a little slow on the uptake or they are realizing they are no longer the winning side and don’t want to be tagged as supporting a loser.

  • I think you meant to put the link to the video on the last line. It’s not there.

    It is; Bloglines ate it. You can even see it in the source to the RSS feed, so there’s nothing CB can do about it.

  • “.. but is that evidence that george w bush is stupid or just insa– inarticulate ..” Scarborough only just caught that one. “.. Take a look and decide for yourself ..”

    Idiot : A person of profound mental retardation having a mental age below three years and generally being unable to learn connected speech or guard against common dangers.

    My question is : Did he choose to be president or was he pushed ?

  • they’re asking this NOW?

    uh, rather, better late than never, dammit. am i pissed off? you betcha — we could’ve avoided an awful lot of shit if journos had reported on the glaringly obvious six years back.

  • For all of Bu$h’s failures, and there are MANY, he did succeed in one thing: Finally exposing the true colors of the GOP; the party of lying, cheating and stealing, the party of corporate fascism, plutocracy, whatever you want to call it.

  • I’m glad we’re past celebrating the Republicans’ anti-intellectualism. I guess that means the Scarborough and the rest will rigorously be examining the mental fitness of future presidential candidates, right?

  • Think national security.

    Can we really afford another catastrophy with Bush at the helm and a rubber stamp republican congress covering his back.

    9/11
    Iraq
    Katrina
    Iraq
    Lebanon
    Iraq
    _______?

    We need to get new leadership in DC this November.

  • prm–only those put up by the Dems

    I am sure that all these clowns will now be suddenly contesting W’s drug use, military service, etc. solely so that they can claim they did raise these issues during W’s presidency so they can slam the next Dem candidate on such issues.

  • To a degree, Bush being an idiot is forgivable. Some people just aren’t bright. Some lead such charmed (or spoiled) lives they don’t need brains. When such people exaccerbate their condition by frying their brains on alcohol and drugs, culpability enters. When they extend their childhood to age 60, culpability gets worse. And when they appear to learn nothing from five years in the most powerful office in the world (“yo, Brian”, munch munch) it’s truly unforgivable. What makes it all so bad is the Regal Moron’s complete, and willful, lack of curiosity.

  • I’ve often wondered why Democrats are often looked at as elitist. That line doesn’t make sense because Dems are the party that rushes to the aid of the common man and those in need. All the pundits sniffing about “east coast, Ivy League, elitist Democrats” always seem to get traction using this comment with their audience as if attending a university regarded for its academics is a weakness to be exploited. My premise is that Dems may very well be smarter than Repubs and Repubs respond to that by calling Dems elitist.

  • Goldilocks said, “A certifiable president?”

    Yes, all we need is the paperwork.

    I think it’s time for some more Monty Python Silly Party political skits.

  • Hm. Some Repugs have suddenly noticed Shrubby prancing around in his birthday suit, holding only a copy of My Pet Goat. I suspect there’s going to very shortly come a major split in the GOP between the pragmatic business Republicans who were the heart of the party for many years and the snake-handling, jabbering-in-tongues, rooting for the Rapture Index nitwits who were recruited into the party by Ronny Raygun’s handlers. The biz Repugs know Shrub’s an idiot; the holy rollers think he’s the Second Coming. Might be an interesting wash-out to watch.

  • Along the lines of #20:
    I think most of the leadership of the R’s aren’t stupid (though there certainly are exceptions: W, Geo Allen, J Sessions to name a few), but many of it’s followers are. Anyone who listens to the call-in sessions on CSPAN will note the mindless bushspeak of most of the R callers, while most Dem callers (tho there are a few delusioned folks too) speak with facts, well-reasoned arguments, etc.

    If thinking and reasoning are elitist, well, count me in.

  • I suspect there’s going to very shortly come a major split in the GOP between the pragmatic business Republicans who were the heart of the party for many years and the snake-handling, jabbering-in-tongues, rooting for the Rapture Index nitwits who were recruited into the party by Ronny Raygun’s handlers. The biz Repugs know Shrub’s an idiot; the holy rollers think he’s the Second Coming. Might be an interesting wash-out to watch.

    Susan, I think this is a misread of the situation. It was the Country Club Republicans (CCR) that put BushCo. in the White House. Remember all of the dough Bush raised in the 2000 campaign. It didn’t come from the collection plates down a the local holy roller church. These guys knew then and they know now Bush is not qualified to be president. They also knew that their actual candidate, Deadeye Dick, wasn’t electable. Just as with the Texas Rangers Bush was selected to be the amiable front man and Cheney was the back office guy that really ran the show.

    If they are unhappy with the BushCo performance, and I’m not sure they are, it as much to do with Cheney’s presidential power grab and misguided forgien policy as it with president fratboy’s antics.

    The snakehandlers were needed because the there aren’t enough CCR to elect a dog catcher. They need votes.

  • ” All the pundits sniffing about “east coast, Ivy League, elitist Democrats” always seem to get traction using this comment with their audience…” – petorado

    Anecdote offered in support: my father, a republican, watched a Kerry for president commercial and responded by dimissing Kerry as a “Yale elitist” without a hint of irony. Clearly, the GOP had convinced him that only one of the Yale graduates in the that election were evil because they went to Yale. It is called denial and it is a prerequisite for the vast majority of those that support the financial elite that are the constituents of concern for GOP leadershiop.

  • I’m not a genius, but I could tell 6 years ago that something was wrong with Bush. One theory is that he’s suffering from senile dementia. I honestly think he’s sick, as well as stupid. But what I don’t understand is how so many people could have voted for the dumb-ass. I tried to tell my Repub sister that she was making a big mistake voting for him, — that the world would wonder what the hell was wrong with the American people by the time he was through. And he’s not through yet. I could cry.

  • All this talk of idiots running our country reminds me of the early nineties’ discussions of Dan Quayle, “Quayle-isms and what a moron he was…I remember thinking at the time how relieved I was that he wasn’t president.

    And brian, you pretty much summed it up above!

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