Carter was considered an intellectual, in a kind of folksy way. Also Wilson.
I’m not so sure about Roosevelt… he wouldn’t stop a speech even after stopping a bullet. How brainy is that? 
His speech stopped the bullet. Thats a true fact, you could look it up.
It was Uncle Teddy Roosevelt who continued speaking after being shot. FDR was shot at in Miami, FL but was unhurt. Mayon Anton Cermak of Chicago was mortally wounded.
Depends on the clothes.
How does Bill Clinton – who is a former Rhodes Scholar, a voracious reader, a skilled debator and extemporaneous speaker, and a man who’s genuinely knowledgable of and curious about a wide spectrum of subjects – not count as a genuine intellectual? He may had poor judgment about his sexual behavior while in office, but lack of good sense in one area does not disprove what I see as a remarkable intellect.
Bush has at best an average intelligence and extraordinary incuriosity. Combined with his arrogance, which precludes his willingness to admit mistakes or accept advice from those who don’t agree with him, this makes for a particularly toxic combination in a leader.
I have always been ambiguous about his intellect. At times I have thought, and posted to the effect, that he is very smart and the whole thing is an act, and at other times I’ve wavered and thought, “no, Princhester, you’re kidding yourself, he really is a box of hammers”.
I don’t think the bit of your post I’ve quoted above indicates anything one way or the other. I’ve come across a number of highly effective but (to many of us) highly aggravating managers who use the technique of black/whiting everything. Consideration of shades of gray, nuance and ramifications complicate and slow down decision making. The technique I’ve seen involves picking an end goal, after consideration of all nuances and ramifications in private. Once the end goal is established, no nuances or ramications (except perhaps helpful ones) are spoken of or acknowledged. From that point forward, the end goal = good, anything else = bad. The same process is applied to any intermediate steps: discussion if any of subtleties occurs in private, and after that publically an intermediate step towards the end goal = good, anything else = bad.
Tom, I believe you have seriously underestimated the influence of Cheney on this presidency. While I agree with you that Bush is much smarter than some believe, I also believe he entered office as a woefully ignorant man, particularly in matters of world history and foreign policy. (Blame it on his “intellectually incurious” nature.) From the beginning, Bush deferred to Cheney and his cronies in foreign policy (to the detriment of the nation, in my opinion).
The Washington Post recently had a series on Cheney chronicling his unprecedentedly powerful vice presidency.
I was speaking about Teddy. Note the post I was replying to.
Well, there’s your problem. See, you should be wearing the Depends underneath your clothes.
In other news: Eeew.
Doesn’t matter anyway. It’s too late for Bush to do anything to materially affect his place in history - there’s too little time left, and no “political capital” left for him to do it with. We’re already shaping the post-Bush world right now.
There’s plenty of time for him to fuck up even more spectacularly. I’m having trouble imagining what he could do to make his legacy even worse – but the White House has a large staff to figure that out for me.
Bomb Iran
Bomb bomb Iran
See? The next spectacular fuckup idea can come from ordinary Joes like you and me.
Actually, she stole that from John McCain.
Conscription.
[del]Jail[/del] Prison for [del]protestors/dissenters[/del] disloyal terroist lovers.
:smack:
Damn! I forgot the footnote.
I’m sure there have been Americans wanting to bomb Iran ever since there was an Iran. The idea is practically folklore.
Clinton is highly intelligent – I just don’t think of him as an intellectual, that is, a person who is passionately interested in knowledge and ideas for their own sake. (Maybe I’d have a different picture if I read his autobiography.) TR and Wilson definitely were. It’s a matter of taste as well as ability.
Bush has more of a “brain Twist”… “How can I most effectively market my message(what ev er it is this week) to the masses?”
regards
FML
Oops. Does anyone know how to fix tunnel vision?