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August 17, 2006
Did we misoverestimate him?
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough questions President Bush's intelligence in a recent entry on the Huffington Post.
Scarborough, a conservative voice, finally got worried about our commander-in-chief when he heard Republican voices complaining that Mr. Bush, "detests dissent, embraces a narrow world view and is intellectually incurious." File this piece under "things most of us knew six years ago."
While much is made of Bush's lack of command over the English language (Red state readers: you may commonly refer to it as "American"), I'm less concerned about his intellectual abilities than his obstinance. Mr. Bush is the Wile E. Coyote of foreign policy, staying the course until he's far past the cliff's edge, all the while refusing to look down for fear of admitting failure.
And yet, gravity has a way of catching up with you.
Plenty of dumb people get by just fine in life; indeed, some of them prosper. But few succeed when they adopt such a stubborn philosophy as Mr. Bush and fail to react to the fluid situations around them.
The lack of leadership coming out of the White House now doesn't prove the president is dim-witted, just that he lacks the maturity to change course and try something new ... especially if that something involves conceding a point to his political foes.
No one cares if the president can quote Shakespeare or do long division in his head. We do want someone who is in touch with reality, and secure enough to put his reputation second to the success of the nation as a whole. Mr. Bush needs to forget the past and embark with a fresh outlook on the future.
Posted by Greg Sidor at August 17, 2006 03:33 AM
Comments
America missed the signs. I remember when being red was still a bad thing.
Think about it, red china, the russians, communism in general, for all you accountants 'being in the red' is not a good place to be, the proverbial "woman in the red dress" is always trouble as well and of course being a 'redneck' is not an achievement and you shouldn't be proud no matter what Jeff Foxworthy tells you.
So when saw all the 'red states' and who they decided to elect, well, let's just say I stopped being so cheerie.
Posted by: Len Monade at August 17, 2006 09:22 PM