It is not the native qualities of the man, it is the position that makes those qualities stand out in stark relief. The Man Who Fell Up is a mediocrity, niether hot nor cold, smart nor dumb. But his position has the Very Nearly Elected President puts him in harsh light, and his lack of brilliance is shown naked.
Is he charming? I have it on considerable authority that he is. I couldn’t care less. I voted for wooden, stiff, policy wonk Gore because I wanted to hire a man to run the country. I didn’t want to drink beer and watch the game with him, didn’t want him marrying my sister, didn’t want to hang with him. That would be like hanging with an encyclopedia.
Bill “Big Dog” Clinton has oodles of charm. Look deep into his eyes, and you see stacks and stacks of position papers, articles, highlighted and referenced. Look into Our Leaders, and you see hastily scribbled notes: “Ask Karl.” “Refer this question to Rumsfeld.” “This is a press conference. Run!”
While I can’t muster enough creative invective to jump into this thread whole-hog, I can recommend an article in a recent issue of The Washington Monthly, a left-leaning, but often equal-opportunity iconoclastic publication. It’s titled “Confidence Men: Why the myth of Republican competence persists, despite all the evidence to the contrary,” and is available free of charge online. It predates the midterm elections, alas, but is still worth perusing.
Early Out, as you point out, Marshall’s predates the midterm election. It also predates Bush’s success in getting a Congressonal resolution and a unanimous UN resolution against Iraq, as well as Homeland Security, and Terrorism Insurance.
But, it doesn’t predate our unexpectedly rapid victory in Afghanistan – in contradition to the quagmire predicted by many liberal opponents of Bush. So, Marshall seems to have left something important out when he wrote
Marshall might claim that he only meant legislative initiatives. However, after 9/11, legislative successes don’t look as important as defence and military successes.
Confidence men was indeed a wonderful and prescient article. Joshua Micah Marshall is a prescient commentator, and a wonderful person. I keep threatening to throw him a dinner party, for being a genius, but he’s in Washington currently…
If anyone saw the documentary on Bush on HBO (it was about his Presidential campaign) there would be little doubt in your mind that he isn’t a complete idiot. Just a sample:
Bush is on an airplane. Someone gives him something to put over his eyes so he can go to sleep. Bush walks through the aisle…“I can’t see! There is something over my eyes!” Walks up to camera, “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. I have something over my eyes. I can’t hear you because I can’t see you…err…uhh…yeah.”
Watching him play matchmaker for the cameraman wasn’t very impressive either.
What a silly thing to say. Why on earth wouldn’t we want to bash him in a political way?
The fact that he’s a raging moron is just icing on the cake.
And december, I don’t care where his degrees are from. The man was easily led to believe that the PM of Canada is named Jean Poutine. Even little ol’, public university-educated me wouldn’t fall for that. It helps that I am aware of the world enough to actually know the name of the PM of Canada. And I don’t even have any advisors to keep me up-to-date on all of those piddling issues like the freaking name of the leader of the neighboring country!
I think he is an ignorant by choice, he already knows what is necessary to survive very well in a political environment, and then he sees everything else as superfluous.
Of course he is more than that. As I see it: Chumpsky demonstrates that it takes an obtuse man to know another.
There seem to be several things that you don’t know. NothingMan.[ul][]It is not known whether OBL still breathes. []We do know that he hasn’t produced any more video tapes.[]Al Qaeda and their Taliban allies no longer control Afghanistan, where they subjected the people to many atrocities[]Many predicted massive famine in Afghanistan last winter. E.g.This disaster was averted by our rapid victory which permitted food aid to the needy people. [/ul]
Well said, dec. Who can forget the noble, forceful sound bites of Our Leader: “Make no mistake about it, our national purpose is to free the Afghani people from the dreadful clutches of the Taliban! This is priority number one, make no mistake about it, and as soon as that is taken care of, we will move on Baghdad, because there very well may be the distinct possibility that there’s a good chance he might do something to us, someday!”
Stirring words! A nation girds its loins and prepares to launch an airstrike on a fog.
I think this is my first post in a political thread. Please don’t hurt me.
What bothers me about Bush is not the fact that he seems to be a man of mediocre intellect in a position of great power (no, I don’t know his IQ, but I feel qualified to call it mediocre from hearing the things he says), but the fact that the people around him seem to me to be corrupt, and in some cases, downright evil. This is the impression I get when I see Dick Cheney’s shady history in the oil industry, or what seems like Ashcroft’s willingness to tear up the Bill of Rights (not to mention his crimes against music ;)).
While the war in Afghanistan appears to have had good results (but then again, I’m not sure, since there never seems to be news coverage of the situation there anymore*), the proposed war in Iraq seems to have some ulterior motives. And then there’s the Pentagon’s new Total Information Awareness program, which is just FUCKING SCARY.
*Serious non-rhetorical question: How are women treated under the new government? I haven’t heard anything about that.
I feel Ace has it better than Chump. He’s not terribly bright, but very amicable and manipulative. His past as a businessman and his record as a governor in a ‘weak governor’ state bears this out.
I’ve heard him described (maybe it was on these boards) as an ideal small-town hardware store owner, maybe a high school football coach. That kind of charisma gets you a big slice of the vote and smoothes deals. He’s not threatening.
Can you begin to explain what this is supposed to mean? Because yes, changes need to be made, but there is no agreement about what those changes are. And it isn’t because of mindless “party politics” and a desire to disagree for the sake of disagreeing, it is because different people see things differently, that is why they choose one party over another.
This is just a meaningless soundbite that Bush was using over and over again to point fingers at others. “Gee, we all know that what I want is the best thing and we should do it, those Dems are just being spiteful and churlish not to go along!”
The truly disturbing thing is how many people, yourself included, are buying it.
I watched that very carefully, having heard from so many sources (including the quotes from the people on the plane in the documentary) that his charm was so evident. One guy said “He charmed the pants off us.” And I just don’t get it. He came off like an overgrown fratboy, and to whom is this charming?
It did soften my opinion of someone else, though: Karen Hughes. In a relaxed setting, she is much more attractive and pleasant to look upon. I always found her post-election demeanor to be completely off-putting and I think she made herself ugly with the way she presented herself and the expressions on her face, even long after the election thing was over. The documentary showed her in a much kinder light.
And I think I’ll take this moment to give props to George for the fact that two of his most closely trusted and highly respected advisors are women, Karen and Condi. I don’t like either one, but they are girls and that’s a good thing. (And Karen might not be visible anymore, but from what I understand of their relationship, it’s a sure bet he’s on the phone with her daily)
Not in a million years, milroyj. Sure, it sounds appealing now, but she’s way too narrow in her appeal.
It’s conceivable that we will soon see a woman or we will soon see a woman as president (and either one will almost certainly be a Republican), but we’ll all be long in our graves before we get a twofer.
