{insert name here} is stupid?

The BBQ Pit
1

Okay. This one’s getting on my nerves. Doesn’t anyone know what the word “stupid” means anymore?

Bush is not stupid. He slips up on grammar sometimes, he acted on bad information from the “intelligence” community, and I’m sure everyone here disagrees with at least one thing he’s done. But the man isn’t stupid. He was smart enough to get elected president, after all.

I don’t like Clinton. I think he did a lot of illegal and immoral things, but they were carefully and intelligently planned. He’s not stupid, and I won’t call him that.

In [thread=282317]this thread[/thread], Opus1 has the gall to say “most Bush supporters too stupid to breathe.” Sorry, but I know some very intelligent people who support Bush, and some very intelligent people who support Kerry, too.

Okay, so they’re not stupid. Are they ignorant? There are a lot of people that are woefully ignorant about politics. Could your average person on the street name all of the Supreme Court justices? How about the Secretary of State? How about the last year when Iraq was proven to have weapons of mass destruction? Yep. A lot of people don’t know those things. But that makes them ignorant about politics.

Lots of folks know diddle-squat about equine anatomy, or programming in C#, or the writings of Homer, or the music of J.S. Bach, or the history of the Crow Indian tribe. We’re all ignorant about something, but that doesn’t justify calling people stupid or ignorant just because you disagree with them.

2

Talking about me? =D

BA

3

Bad example. :slight_smile:

4

Getting elected president is not empirical evidence of non-stupidity, especially when one is hand-picked and “handled” by RNC leadership, and comes from a rich and well-connected father.

Perhaps instead of getting mad at people for calling the president “stupid,” you should submit any evidence that he is remotely intelligent. Is he intellectual? Curious? Does he like to read? Has he ever done or said anything that wasn’t stupid? No? Then come to terms with it: he’s a fucking moron.

5

Intelligence and stupidity, contratry to popular belief, are not mutually exclusive. We are amazing critters, we humans, and we’re perfectly capable of being simultaneously smart and stupid.

I was a private school kid who got busted for shoplifting. W.J. Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar who decided to bone his intern at the office. President Bush went to Yale and can barely put together a coherent sentence in a public appearance.

:shrug:

By some definiteions, the President is plenty smart. By others, he isn’t. And he can easily be both at the same time.

Amazing critters, we humans.

6

For the past four years, I’ve been looking for some sign from George W. Bush that the “clueless but cute” reputation he’s built up has been all an elaborate act.

I’m still looking.

7

You’re joking, right? You honestly don’t think he’s done anything that wasn’t stupid? I watched the debates between Bush and Kerry, and found myself nodding and agreeing at times with both of them.

An excellent point, andros. But that allows all of us to be called “stupid,” which completely drains it of its meaning when applied to one individual, right?

Okay, he pronounces “nuclear” wrong. He’s made numerous slips of the tongue in public appearances. But “barely put together a coherent sentence”? That’s ridiculous. He puts together many logical sentences.

Obviously, at least two of you took my post to mean I’m a Bush apologist. Not true. He was only one of the examples I gave in the OP. But as long as we’re talking about him… Take a man who is truly stupid. Pull strings and get him into Yale. Will he really be able to graduate? Use Daddy’s political influence to make him a governor. If he’s really stupid, will he really be able to keep up a political career?

There are plenty of politicians who have done incredibly stupid things, but I don’t think they’re stupid people.

8

Yup; not necessarily. We are all stupid. It doesn’t completely lose it’s meaning.

I was hyperbolizing.

9

I agree with the spirit of your post–he’s not bereft of intellect.

But “Stupid” is a really good word for at least his administration. It carries with it an implication of “clumsy, blundering, ham-fistedness” as well as “not thoughtful.” The term “stupid mistake,” for instance, almost always applies to one that is wholly avoidable and unrepresentative of the true intellect of the individual who made the error. These characteristics pretty much describe Bush’s foreign policy as well as his treatment of his own constituents. Those who do not toe his line any way.

Idiot simian? Naw. Stupid? Yeah, on many levels.

10

I think the Secretary of State could probably name all the Supreme Court justices. I’ve never asked him, though.

11

Stupid is as stupid does.

A man could have written an award-winning doctoral thesis and possess an IQ of 190. If he acts stupid, he’s stupid.

Most of what Bush has done hasn’t been stupid, though. It’s been evil. The stupidity enters into the equation when he expects people who think critically to believe otherwise.

I think Americans in general should be embarrassed that our president comes across as stupid, even if he really isn’t. But of course, many of us like that he looks dumb. It makes us feel better about our own mental mediocrity.

12

I think you guys are missing the point of the OP(deliberately?)

He wasn’t defending GW. He offered a bi-partisan example, first GW, then Clinton. What he was focused on, and it wasn’t difficult to spot, was that someone isn’t stupid just because his politcal views differ from yours. Calling Bush supporters “too stupid to breath” was the focus - again, since you seem to have trouble spotting it, he isn’t claiming that he supports Bush, but rather condemning the act of calling people stupid just because you disagree with their politics.

Try to focus on this part a little, and it might help

And not to side-track too much, but a question for both parties: When you say “Republicans are stupid” or “Democrats are morons” or the other hundreds of threads you start: What is your goal? Do you just want to inflame? Are you hoping to sway the fence-sitters? I mean really, do you honestly think that this kind of rhetoric will help convince someone to vote for your candidate?

13

An intelligent president, after his country is attacked, would retaliate against the attackers, not a country that had nothing to do with it.

An intelligent president, before commiting our armed forces to a war, would do everything possible to be certain of his justification of that war, and a very well-planned aftermath.

An intelligent president, when planning a war, would do everything possible not to alienate our allies.

An intelligent president would understand that the use of a smear word, such as “Liberal,” is not a substitution for respectable political discourse.

An intelligent president would not support a Constitutional Amendment which would make some of his constituants second-class citizens.

An intelligent president wouldn’t hand over the government’s money to religious organizations.

An intelligent president wouldn’t refer to foreign leaders by their first names, in a debate for his re-election.

An intelligent president would realize that there are more votes to be had from the middle class than from rich people.

An intelligent president wouldn’t allow vaccines from the UK, while forbidding US citizens from buying drugs from Canada.

An intelligent president wouldn’t wait until **now **to come up with a feeble plan for increased health care coverage, which he had not done in the previous four years.

And finally: an intelligent president wouldn’t rally against “activist judges,” while forgetting exactly how he became president.

14

No, ‘retaliation’ is stupid feel-good concept. ‘Retaliation’ would have gotten a stern rebuke sent to Afghanistan, along with a few cruise missiles. GW took decisive action in Aghanistan; you might note that Afghanistan recently undertook its first national elections ever.

It is ludicrous to think that Iraq could have just been left alone, post-9/11. The one leader in the world that openly praised the attacks can’t exactly be trusted, you know. Fortunately, even in the face of a bribery-inspired defense by the UN, once again, GW took decisive action.

And good on GW for meeting both of those criteria!

I agree completely! Isn’t it infuriating the way that Kerry pisses on the contributions of our allies in his lapdog-like attempt to placate the French and Germans? (Who already said they aren’t going to be sending troops, but Mssr.Kerry has yet to stop brown-nosing to them. Doesn’t make sense, does it?)

Hey, it’s only a ‘smear word’ if you see being ‘liberal’ as a bad thing. If you are so insecure in your political convictions that being called ‘liberal’ makes you cry, that’s your problem.

Good for us that no second-class-citizen amendments were proposed, eh?

Ya, because gov’t social programs have such a wonderful history of success that we shouldn’t explore other options.

Now you are just getting stupid.

But I still don’t see what that has to do with the price of tea in China! (You may have noticed that GW is a bit ahead in many polls, and those are not polls of ‘the rich’)

Heh.

Once again, we are in agreement. How can Kerry, with 20 years in a position of power, wait until this late moment to start talking about healthcare reform in a serious way? He must have a low opininion of the electorate if he thinks people are just going to fall for his BS.

By getting more electoral votes, as per the constitutional process? One has nothing to do with the other.

15

Instead of the word “stupid”. does “grossly incompetent” fit better?

16

I believe we were talking about Iraq, not Afghanistan, although I have to agree with you, President Bush did the right thing with Afghanistan. Well, at the beginning, anyway. I mean he did unseat the Taliban and make Karzei Mayor of Kabul and all that.

However, if the best reason you can offer for invading Iraq is because Saddam Hussein “openly praised the attacks” (“Maaaaaa!!! Saddam’s laughin’ at me agaaaain!!!”), as well as toeing the Party line by conflating last-minute charges of bribery (He’s got nucular weapons!!!..ok. he doesn’t…but…but…He wants to get nucular weapons…and, uh… anthrax, too!!!..yeah…ok…well…he’d sure as heck get 'em if he had the chance… and uh,…sell 'em to his buddies in Al Qaida.!!!..OK, so …maybe they don’t like each other… but…but…he was cheating on the oil embargo!!! ),

well, color me unimpressed.

17

Cite?

18

Yes. The most difficult thing about an Ivy League school is getting in. Based on my observations, the rate at which students “flunk out” is much lower than it is at any typical big state university.

19

Doesn’t anyone know what hyperbole is anymore?

Oh, c’mon. He browbeat the intelligence community to rubber stamp his war that he had planned on since the very first day of his presidency. He even went so far as to knowingly present intelligence that he would have had to have known was already discredited. The evidence has been shown again and again in this forum.

20

Brutus, all you’ve proven is that a Bush supporter can be every bit as stupid as Bush himself.