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Can we finally agree

billydkid

Illuminator
billydkid
Joined
Aug 27, 2002
Messages
4,917
For the longest time when people have accused Bush of being stupid the counter argument has been that he is really smart, just very inarticulate and something to the effect that if he was stupid he wouldn't have gone to Harvard or have become a governor or become President. I think the fallaciousness of the latter arguments is completely obvious so I have no comment about those. However, can most of us finally agree that Bush's incompetence lies very much deeper than just his inability with language.

I have heard it argued that Bush may seem stupid, but he has that rare commodity common sense. I think we can all agree at the point that this myth has been well and truly dispelled. If you can look someone in the eye and argue that Bush has common sense or any kind of real native intelligence, then there is really no reasoning with you. Also, this idea that Bush is a decent but flawed human being and that he has any capacity at all for empathy or compassion, if you still hold onto that notion, again, any attempt at reasoning with you is pointless.

This is a man who is not fit to hold any kind of authority at all over other human beings. He is not only incompetent by any reasonable definition, but he also lacks any legitimate claim to any kind of moral authority. Bush is stupid and he is corrupt in his character. Just the sort of person that Americans would see fit to elect to the highest office in the land and the most powerful position on earth - twice. Incidentally, Bill Clinton is a tremendous, self-serving weasel also, so this has nothing to do with partisanship. I'm not a Democrat anyway.
 
Can we finally agree....that threads should have titles that clearly indicate what the topic is? If you want to talk about GWB then include his name in the title.
 
billydkid said:
For the longest time when people have accused Bush of being stupid the counter argument has been that he is really smart, just very inarticulate and something to the effect that if he was stupid he wouldn't have gone to Harvard or have become a governor or become President. I think the fallaciousness of the latter arguments is completely obvious so I have no comment about those. However, can most of us finally agree that Bush's incompetence lies very much deeper than just his inability with language.

I have heard it argued that Bush may seem stupid, but he has that rare commodity common sense. I think we can all agree at the point that this myth has been well and truly dispelled. If you can look someone in the eye and argue that Bush has common sense or any kind of real native intelligence, then there is really no reasoning with you. Also, this idea that Bush is a decent but flawed human being and that he has any capacity at all for empathy or compassion, if you still hold onto that notion, again, any attempt at reasoning with you is pointless.

This is a man who is not fit to hold any kind of authority at all over other human beings. He is not only incompetent by any reasonable definition, but he also lacks any legitimate claim to any kind of moral authority. Bush is stupid and he is corrupt in his character. Just the sort of person that Americans would see fit to elect to the highest office in the land and the most powerful position on earth - twice. Incidentally, Bill Clinton is a tremendous, self-serving weasel also, so this has nothing to do with partisanship. I'm not a Democrat anyway.
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You and I can agree.
 
billydkid said:
Also, this idea that Bush is a decent but flawed human being and that he has any capacity at all for empathy or compassion, if you still hold onto that notion, again, any attempt at reasoning with you is pointless.
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Whether or not he is a decent human being, I have no idea. I don't even think I'd be in any position to judge that, since I don't know him personally. I can judge him as a President, and I think he has been a lousy one. As far as whether or not he has any empathy or compassion -- well, sine you seem to have arrived at what you see as an irrefutible conclusion on that, it seems awfully pointless to bother. Somewhat ironic, given your last sentence in that paragraph.


This is a man who is not fit to hold any kind of authority at all over other human beings. He is not only incompetent by any reasonable definition, but he also lacks any legitimate claim to any kind of moral authority. Bush is stupid and he is corrupt in his character. Just the sort of person that Americans would see fit to elect to the highest office in the land and the most powerful position on earth - twice. Incidentally, Bill Clinton is a tremendous, self-serving weasel also, so this has nothing to do with partisanship. I'm not a Democrat anyway.
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I agree, Bush is a horribly incompetent President and a terrible leader, but that is neither here nor there on intelligence. I doubt either Albert Einstein or Carl Sagan would have made very good Presidents, though both were extremely intelligent people. I think Bush is probably about average intelligence. Nothing special. He doesn't have the leadership qualities or judgement to make good decisions, and that has been shown very well.

So yes, I am sure many of us will agree that Bush is not a good President. Everything else you wrote is personal in nature, and doesn't logically follow from the fact that he is a lousy President.
 
I just think this sort of rah rah thread should be on some other forum other than a skeptic one. This isn't the rallying site against Bush.
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Whether Bush is personally intelligent or a moron is beside the point, as is whether he has "common sense" or not. I would further hold that speculation whether Bush is in charge or just a puppet for Cheney/Rove/whoever is irrelevant, too.

What matters is the effects Bush's policies have had on the country and the world--and on that, the vast majority of the world does agree.

For this forum, I think Upchurch is right--no, we'll never agree. :)
 
Been pondering this, too, but I’m more willing to be convinced. Aside from the Harvard thing (I imagine you can be stupid and get into Harvard), and the getting elected thing (he wouldn’t be the first stupid politician in office), I simply see no evidence of particular intelligence.

Like I said, though, I could be convinced. And I think this is both a legitimate question, and one properly asked on this forum.

If Bush has a noteworthy intelligence, what is the evidence?
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
Whether or not he is a decent human being, I have no idea. I don't even think I'd be in any position to judge that, since I don't know him personally. I can judge him as a President, and I think he has been a lousy one. As far as whether or not he has any empathy or compassion -- well, sine you seem to have arrived at what you see as an irrefutible conclusion on that, it seems awfully pointless to bother. Somewhat ironic, given your last sentence in that paragraph.
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Ok, this is where I get very confused. Did or did not Bush make the decision to invade a sovereign nation for no legitimate or defensible reason. Did he or did he not deceptively manipulate the passion of the American people following 9/11 for the purpose of whipping support and war fervor for the invasion of Iraq. Did he or didn't he make the value judgement that the lives of a certain mumber of persons (as it turned out, many hundreds of thousands) was worth the greater glory of him imposing his vision of the world on the world. He is even now willing to sacrifice even more lives for what any thinking person knows is a lost cause. And there is some question in your mind whether or not he is a decent person? Call me dim and or just unperceptive, but I'm just not following you at all.
 
billydkid said:
Ok, this is where I get very confused. Did or did not Bush make the decision to invade a sovereign nation for no legitimate or defensible reason.
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Oh, it was a legitimate reason. It just wasn't true and was only defensible if you cherry-pick the evidence
 
Admiral said:
Incidentally, he went to Yale. He went to Harvard Law School afterwards.
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Still no big deal. Legacy admission. He got in because of his daddy, not his brains.

See, affirmative action can be good if you're the right shade of pale.
 
billydkid said:
Incidentally, Bill Clinton is a tremendous, self-serving weasel also, so this has nothing to do with partisanship. I'm not a Democrat anyway.
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For quite some time I've had a standard line about Bill Clinton which goes, "Bill Clinton is a sleazy, dishonest creep and I miss him more each day."
 
From whitehouse.gov



College
Yale University, Bachelor of Arts degree in history
Graduate School
Harvard University, Masters of Business Administration
 
Hotspur said:
College
Yale University, Bachelor of Arts degree in history
Graduate School
Harvard University, Masters of Business Administration
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Find someone from one of those schools and ask them how smart the people with George's grades are.
 
strathmeyer said:
Find someone from one of those schools and ask them how smart the people with George's grades are.
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Why? Grades don't reflect intelligence as much as they reflect the student's willingness to turn in homework.

A 77 is a C. How smart is average?

Besides, Kerry got the same grades, and sometimes worse.
 
billydkid said:
Ok, this is where I get very confused. Did or did not Bush make the decision to invade a sovereign nation for no legitimate or defensible reason. Did he or did he not deceptively manipulate the passion of the American people following 9/11 for the purpose of whipping support and war fervor for the invasion of Iraq. Did he or didn't he make the value judgement that the lives of a certain mumber of persons (as it turned out, many hundreds of thousands) was worth the greater glory of him imposing his vision of the world on the world. He is even now willing to sacrifice even more lives for what any thinking person knows is a lost cause. And there is some question in your mind whether or not he is a decent person? Call me dim and or just unperceptive, but I'm just not following you at all.
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Uhh ok. And Harry Truman dropped two bombs and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. Margaret Thatcher decided a couple of islands off the coast of Argentina were worth the sacrifice of hundreds of British and Argentinian troops. John F Kennedy callously sent an Army of Cuban exiles to their deaths. Plus, there was that whole Vietnam thing that he kicked into gear.

Yes, world leaders make decisions about life and death. They do it all the time, and Bush isn't the first to do it, nor the first to make a bad decision and be a bad leader. And that's what I'll be happy to judge him on: how lousy of a President he is.

You commented that it must be obvious that he has no empathy and no compassion. You seem to be giving him the attributes of a sociopath.
 
Bush is a legacy. I believe he got rejected from a UofT law school, yet Harvard accepted him into their MBA program. He's a Conn. born east coast elite pretending to be a Texan cowboy.
 
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