Beyond the bounce

IJ · Post by IJ » Thu Sep 16, 2004 2:00 am

Again, there's no poster of Kerry in my bedroom. Yet I've never been so angry at a politician as when I've listened to Bush completely ignore a question he's been asked and vomit some prewritten garbage about patriotism and iraq, or blabber about one principle and kill it in private, and then stamp out every viewpoint in his administration but his own undereducated prejudices. He's just a complete jackass. And while I don't fault the guy for having a drink or anyone else for smoking some weed especially a long time ago, he and his cronies are such a sanctimonious gasbag about other people's morals which makes his history that much more offensive. Rush comes to mind in this regard. Don't families need to be protected from cocaine using, alcoholic, womanizing goofballs as well as the quietly redecorating teetotalling gay couple down the street?

As for admissions to fancy pants schools, I worked with a bunch of interesting characters from places that I've been rejected from. That and hearing how their admissions scoring worked left my ego feeling a lot less bruised. One is welcome to argue that Kerry ought to have gotten in somewhere with the help he surely got. But I don't think Bush's admission to his choice school had much to do with his essay, test scores or mastery of his coursework.

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 7:27 pm

GW didn't just get in to the number 1 MBA program in the country; he did fine there. He was able to hold his own with the very best. Furthermore, his (snicker, snicker) National Guard service proved him to be a very good pilot, and the guy can bench press more than most who post on these forums. And by the way, did you see him throw the first pitch at Game 3 of the World Series in 2001 at Yankee Stadium? (After 9/11) Did you see Kerry do the same at Fenway Park before the DNC this year?

Ian, you and others are making a very, very big mistake underestimating GW's intelligence and capabilities. These "overachievers" will get you every time when you dismiss them as unintelligent. Truth be told, an extremely intelligent person who speaks eloquently in public (as opposed to passionately or clearly) isn't going to make it with Joe Sixpack who has some pretty basic needs. So...how effective is that?

Once you and others stop falling into the trap of labeling the guy as a doofus, you're going to be a lot farther along the path of getting what you want in life. Put yourself in his shoes. Try to figure out why he does what he does and panders to the folks he panders to. Then see what he does (and sees through to the end) as opposed to what he says he's going to do or what he acts on but doesn't see through to the end.

Dumb like a fox, I say. Change your thinking about the man and you're going to be a lot less frustrated.

- Bill

Gene DeMambro · Post by **Gene DeMambro** » Thu Sep 16, 2004 11:44 pm

I'd like to see Pres. Bush on a pair of skates playing hockey, or on the soccer pitch - two sports John Kerry excel in. But athletic prowess is a pretty petty reason to base a presidential vote on.

John Kerry was a well regarded pilot even before his military service. He even thought of piloting for the military after college, but his father convinced him otherwise, saying that if he flies in wartime, flying will never be fun again. Instead, Kerry went on to be decorated for bravery by the US Navy, while Pres. Bush went on to....

Gene

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 2:21 pm

Kerry went on to be decorated for bravery by the US Navy

Careful, Gene, you and your friend from Massachusettes are about to step into a big pile of doo doo. Check out A Swift Blow. Kerry really should have listened to Clinton - a man with a troubled private life who managed two good terms in the white house. Basing his eligibility for office on Vietnam was a very, very big mistake.

Good point about the ice hockey, though. Not too many frozen lakes in Texas, I guess. As Will Rogers says, "We are all ignorant about different things."

But athletic prowess is a pretty petty reason to base a presidential vote on.

This is just what I am talking about, Gene. You and others don't get it. On the surface, your cynical remark seems right on. But go a few layers deeper, and suddenly there's a level of intelligence on the subject (more EQ than IQ) that is being completely missed.

The Average Joes - the many who work 40 hours a week, and then go home and watch the NFL with the buddies over a few beers - do care about stupid things like this. Teddy Roosevelt was a man's man, and that personna was part of the big picture. Meanwhile Michael Dukakis's deadpan response to a debate question about the death penalty and his wife being raped did make a difference to many women voters who took him as being overly intellectual and not the least bit sensitive. And he looked really, really stupid riding around in a tank. Go figure...

Beware the dumb fox...

I'm not being the least bit critical of Ian. He and I go way back. I'm just trying to point out things that folks are missing here. I'm learning more and more about this stuff myself.

- Bill

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 2:35 pm

Speaking of Will Rogers...

We'd all vote for the best man, but he's never a candidate.

- Bill

Valkenar · Post by **Valkenar** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 4:37 pm

Bill Glasheen wrote: But go a few layers deeper, and suddenly there's a level of intelligence on the subject (more EQ than IQ) that is being completely missed.

If you're saying about Bush being dumb as a fox, then you're saying that he's just an incredible fake. Yet if that were true, you'd think his devastatingly brilliant policies would reveal his true nature. But I'm not seeing any evidence of that. If he were enough of a mastermind to create and maintain this perfect act of stupidity, then you'd think he could've managed to plant some WMD in Iraq, or avoided any of the other embarassments his administration has suffered.

But perhaps I only think this because he has me snowed with his superlative acting talent. Part of being completely duped is that you don't know it, so obviously there's no way to counter-argue that kind of point. I haven't stopped beating my wife yet either.

Anyhow, I think it's sad that ignorance and stupidity seem to be increasingly praised. So even if I were to concede that Bush is very clever (which I'm not), I think it's a tragedy that posing as bungling clown is a ticket to the whitehouse.

Re: The Swift Boat accusations impugning his record have been pretty well shown to be false. As for his anti-war protesting, good for him, standing up as a veteran opposing an awful war is not an easy thing to do.

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 4:45 pm

Criticisms of an acting president are easy to do, and your comments are valid.

However...

I think it's sad that ignorance and stupidity seem to be increasingly praised.

No, no, no...

This has been going on for some time. The "Bush is stupid" mantra has been repeated so often that folks are starting to believe it. People who hate Bush - and I can certainly see why they would - convince themselves that Bush is stupid, because they buy into the F-911 spin, the e-mails about famous Bush-isms (not quite as bad as Quayle-isms, BTW), and the comedy skits on TV. Pretty soon Buah the straw man becomes Bush the real man in his enemies' eyes.

I am telling you folks who hate Bush that you are making a very terrible mistake. Never ever underestimate the capability of the enemy. The message is falling on deaf ears; ignore it at your peril. Bush is far smarter than most take him to be, based on their own arbitrary definitions of intelligence.

I keep going back to the analogy of dogs vs. cats. Some people say that cats are stupid because they don't fetch. Oh really? Just because a politician won't do what you think is a brilliant thing to do doesn't mean he is unintelligent. Your political counterparts would argue just the opposite.

- Bill

Valkenar · Post by **Valkenar** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 5:58 pm

Bill Glasheen wrote:
I think it's sad that ignorance and stupidity seem to be increasingly praised.

This has been going on for some time.
Yes it has, but here I wasn't referring specifically to Bush. I've noticed it on television a lot. Reality TV is part of it, shows like Jackass, the kinds of movies popular, the slogans companies use to sell products. Maybe I'm imagining things but it seems the sometimes subtle, sometimes overt lauding of stupidity is at least slightly on the rise.

The "Bush is stupid" mantra has been repeated so often that folks are starting to believe it.
It's not about F-911, it's not from reading bushisms or watching comedy skits. It's from watching him talk and reading statements in legitimate media, paying attention to both what he says and how he says it. If I'm wrong about him, it's not because I've swallowed comedic protrayals.

I am telling you folks who hate Bush that you are making a very terrible mistake. Never ever underestimate the capability of the enemy. The message is falling on deaf ears; ignore it at your peril.
I'm not underestimating his ability to be re-elected. Sadly, I think he probably will be. The only thing I could be underestimating are the odds of him doing anything I agree with and I really think that given what he's done thus far I'm not going too far out on a limb to say that he's going to continue f-ing things up.

Bush is far smarter than most take him to be, based on their own arbitrary definitions of intelligence.

Well call it arbitrary if you want to, and maybe it is, but I don't think my definition of intelligence is very different from common usage.

If you say stupid things stupidly then you appear stupid. Is he a brilliant actor? Well maybe, ultimately what's the point in talking about that? Whether it's intentional or not, he comes off as an idiot. If you want to surmise that he's really a mastermind in disguise, fine. I could surmise that he's a team of subteranean gnomes in a suit and his apparent stupidity is just a result of the inherent difficulty of getting gnomes to work together.

RACastanet · Post by **RACastanet** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 6:42 pm

Justin said: "The Swift Boat accusations impugning his record have been pretty well shown to be false."

Oh? How so? The SBVT outnumber those that support Kerry by more than 10 to 1. Are they all lying? Kerry will not release his full military records even though they would 'justify' his awards and refute the SBVT. What gives?

Justin said: "As for his anti-war protesting, good for him, standing up as a veteran opposing an awful war is not an easy thing to do."

OK, gloves off... what Kerry did was sedition in that his antiwar activities aided and abbetted the enemy. One of the members of SBVT is a local navy flier/Vietnem vet by the name of Paul Galanti. Paul spent 6+ years in the Hanoi Hilton along with Sen. McCain.

I know Paul as an acquantance and have lunch with him on occasion. He is very quiet and surprisingly carries no chip on his shoulder. However, he has become a vocal detractor of Kerry. Why? When in the Hanoi Hilton, Kerry's statements and TV appearances alledging attrocities by all American forces in Vietnam gave the enemy reason to physically and mentally torture Paul and his fellow POWs. Not girly torture like making them stand around naked, but beatings, starvation and all manner of unpleasent things.

As they were being tortured, Kerry's statements were being read or played to them. Kerry directly caused harm to US warriors.

As hated as Hanoi Jane Fonda is, to her credit a few years back, she apologized to the POWs as she had no idea what the results of her visits and sedition had caused. She really believed that the NVA followed the rules of the Geneva convention. Ha!

Kerry and Fonda should both be sent to live in Vietnam.

Justin said: "reading statements in legitimate media"

OK, which ones? The Washington Post? The New York Times? CBS? These organizations are so far left as to have become irrelevent. Did you see the ratings for CBS News lately since everyone fron Rather to their News President started backing and filling to cover their a$$es?

Justin, must be too young and idealistic to have a clue.

Rich

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 6:51 pm

Justin is far from clueless, and here I come to his defense. He's a smart, idealistic young lad who often asks probing questions and deserves the kinds of thoughtful responses you gave, Rich. So everything you said was great...except for the last comment.

It's easy to get emotionally hijacked about issues like this. I understand where Rich is coming from.

- Bill

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 7:01 pm

If you say stupid things stupidly then you appear stupid.

It's already a well-established fact that Bush has marginal capabilities in extemporaneous speaking.

It's difficult enough to sound intelligent when you have a reasonable forum. But when folks in the press are waiting for you to make that one careless remark for their news bite (byte) du jour, well then there isn't much chance for you to look like Mensa material 24/7. Add in all Bush's speech deflects and his nervousness, and you get what you get.

God knows, someone needs to tell the man the difference between nuclear and nucular.

But at least he has a sense of humor about it, commenting in his RNC convention speech about "The Governator's" command of the English language vs. his own.

- Bill

Panther · Post by **Panther** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 8:33 pm

<Moderator hat == on>

Keep it civil folks... And please back up some of the assertions with (unbiased?) sources and cites.

<Moderator hat == off>

RACastanet · Post by **RACastanet** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 9:04 pm

Panther lurks...

Bill said: "So everything you said was great ...except for the last comment."

I stand by what I said. When Justin says things like

"his apparent stupidity" and "he comes off as an idiot."

about a sitting president he shows a complete disrespect for the office. Either that or he is an opinionated norrow minded troll or just uneducated.

What is it Justin? If my son made those comments he'd be going to the woodshed.

No retraction by me.

Now, Bill said: "God knows, someone needs to tell the man the difference between nuclear and nucular ."

If you have travelled the country as much as I have you would recognize a lot of very legitimate regional nuances. For instance, in VA and the Carolinas african americans and some others say 'ax' for 'ask'. This is not ebonics or ghetto. This is a legit old english pronunciation of the word going back to the original cavaliers. Perhaps we pronounce 'ask' incorrectly. And yes, in Texas, I have heard 'nukular' regarding power plants.

Rich

Valkenar · Post by **Valkenar** » Fri Sep 17, 2004 9:08 pm

RACastanet wrote: Oh? How so? The SBVT outnumber those that support Kerry by more than 10 to 1. Are they all lying? Kerry will not release his full military records even though they would 'justify' his awards and refute the SBVT. What gives?

George Elliot's retraction, Benjamin Ginsberg's revelation and consequent resignation, the incompatability between SBVT's stories and known records, the fact that several of the people condemning Kerry now praised his deeds at the time. Someone is lying, on one side or the other. I believe it is the people who hate him for his politics, and war-protesting.

OK, gloves off... what Kerry did was sedition in that his antiwar activities aided and abbetted the enemy.

Is it every acceptable to protest a war? Isn't there some extent to which any protest is an act that aids the enemy? Free speech can be damned inconvenient. But even if it abets the enemy, if protesting can bring a quicker withdrawl from an unjust war then it probably can be called a net good.

When in the Hanoi Hilton, Kerry's statements and TV appearances alledging attrocities by all American forces in Vietnam gave the enemy reason to physically and mentally torture Paul and his fellow POWs.

Do you honestly believe that the POWs would not have been tortured if there were no protests? Prisoners are tortured for information, control and revenge (roughly speaking). The existance of protestors doesn't change that.

Not girly torture like making them stand around naked, but beatings, starvation and all manner of unpleasent things.

I assume this is a reference to Abu Ghraib. Those prisoners underwent torture that attacked their beliefs. To you it's just standing around naked, for them it' may be worse than being dismemebered.

As they were being tortured, Kerry's statements were being read or played to them. Kerry directly caused harm to US warriors.

Here is where it gets stickier. I believe you that hearing Kerry's statements was painful to them. The only answer I have to that is that it's a very difficult choice. If you believe that public opinion can lead to a war's quicker end, and the protests can influence public opinion, then you believe that protests can save lives. Then the question becomes how many lives is it worth it to save to avoid the use of your protest as a torture device? I don't have a good answer for that. But I do think there's a point at which the benefit in the form of soldiers returning home outweighs the drawback of the additional suffering caused to the POWs.

If you don't believe that protesting can have the effect I indicated then that's a different issue, and we can talk about that if you like. But supposing for a moment that it can, do you see my point at all?

OK, which ones? The Washington Post? The New York Times? CBS? These organizations are so far left as to have become irrelevent.

Well, since you don't like those, which I certainly have gotten some information from, how about some others. Fox, CNN, Reuters, Newsmax, Chronwatch are a few of the sites/channels I've browsed recently. Are those also irrelevent?

IJ · Post by IJ » Fri Sep 17, 2004 9:29 pm

Lemme ask this--I don't know and need to be edified--how well did he do in his graduate education compared to his peers? I've heard of his grades and know from personal experience you have to shoot the instructor in the knee to get a C at some of these Ivy League schools.

But Bill, if you want, we can paint GWB as a brilliant strategist who's just speaking vernacular for the average American. He'd be fully responsible for deliberately managimg a number of things then, things I cannot conceive of having had any defensible strategy behind them. For example:

Blowing all the international support we had after 9/11 and making enemies out of a ton of prior allies we now wish would be eager to help out in Iraq. Blowing any credibility with Iraqis by doing nothing and saying nothing about abu ghraib for months until it became news and then, not apologizing until AFTER the din of protest became undeniable. Do we remember the "Crusade" he proposed? Arabs do. Does any other nation in the west have a ruler who believes a divine hand is guiding his war plans? He's just one foreign relations flub after another.

How about his total intellectual inflexibility with, say, substance abuse? Here's a previous substance abuser to took many opprotunities to change the laws in TX that punish users of crack (that is, blacks) very harshly, despite his own experiences with chemical dependence? What about his baseless attacks on segments of the population (such as me) who basically want to be left alone (that is, have discrimination lifted) when he himself represented a greater threat to the "American Family" as a drunk? If he's cleverly pandering for the votes of prejudiced Americans than he's following in the footsteps of Hitler who had Germany looking past the real cause and solution of their problems at a scapegoat population just to retain his office--not stupid, yet not commendable. He's the first national figure since Prohibition to suggest amending the greatest political document in the history of the world to REMOVE rights and he's doing it over a temporary national debate and for no justifiable reason--unless drumming up votes qualifies.

How about the well known atmosphere at the Bush administration to make policy decisions and charge ahead with them (iraq, etc) without considering alternative strategies and without looking at long term consequences? I've read several accounts from people who worked in the intelligence community or Bush administration (mostly published on Salon, again) and the consensus is that it was his way or the highway, and policy, data and other considerations were promptly bent to his objectives? Are we to be shocked that the WMD scare had been overstated in this environment? Crazy like a fox or just crazy?

How about the exploding deficit? He's done things with debt Reagan hadn't dreamed of and still we lost a bunch of jobs. How about proposing space travel to Mars in the middle of a budget crisis and what he called wartime?

There are a number of things that infuriate me about Bush (and company) that clearly aren't the result of an intelligence deficit. I'll give you that. For example, holding every single meeting on the environment with energy industry executives and not one with environmental groups wasn't a "mistake." That's the calculated work of someone who has favors to repay. How about house republicans dropping approx 28.3 billion from veterans benefits and health care shortly after passing a resolution praising their work in Iraq? How about passing about 20 billion in tax cuts to the energy industry shortly thereafter? How about somehow managing to convince Americans (50% in one survey) that Iraq had been directly linked to 9/11? How about convincing the same group that it's not a problem that the original reason for the Iraq war has evaporated? How about convincing most americans that they're going to get 2k in tax cuts when that average figure applies to very few of them?

I'm glad the man can pitch, but it ain't enough. If he only comes off as an idiot and actually is an effective malevolent strategist, I still won't vote for him.