No mention of Richard Milhous Nixon? In terms of actual actions, this man was the stupidest person I ever heard about.
I have to step up to the defence of Nixon too, although you could arguably say he was both the most paranoid and the least principled of all the presidents.
However, despite coming from a limited educational background (a small California college) Nixon was probably the top President in understanding foreign relations, particularly in Latin America. His list of accomplishments in this area is long and includes the SALT treaty and normalization of relations with communist China. Most foreign leaders who dealt with Nixon had a high regard for him and bemoaned his fatal flaw, and getting caught for it.
Two quotes by, and two quotes about Warren G. Harding:
“I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends . . . They’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!”
“I don’t know what to do or where to turn in this taxation matter. Somewhere there must be a book that tells all about it, where I could go to straighten it out in my mind. But I don’t know where the book is, and maybe I couldn’t read it if I found it.”
“It’s a good thing Warren wasn’t born a girl, because he just can’t say no.”-his father
“Harding wasn’t a bad man. He was just a slob.”-Alice Roosevelt
I don’t know that I’m picking on Harding…and personally, he seems like he was extremely likeable, but he was also out of his depth as president, and part of what makes it a tragedy is that he realized that.
Didn’t even Henry Kissinger once say he wondered how it ever occurred to anyone that Reagan should be president? Or is that a liberal UL?
Sure, if by “dumbest” you mean worst public performance. The man is not a nincompoop… he just plays one on TV.
VPs aside, it seems to me that those who oppose GWB are trying hard to convince everyone he’s an idiot (always a good tactic, attacking intelligence instead of issues), while those who support him would be willing to overlook evidence of a less than perfect intellect.
And trying to convince either “side” that they’re wrong with anything near good hard solid facts won’t do anything. It’s a religous argument, based more on faith than on facts. This will tend to be true for any president.
Frankly, I think that GWB is probably more intelligent than I am in many matters of state, but that I could beat him in a game of chess or bridge anyday (poker I’m not so sure). Which would you use to argue that he’s more intelligent or less intelligent than I am?
As far as using grades or test scores to indicate his intelligence, consider this: My best friend is one of the smartest persons I know, yet his GPA is below 2.0 and after ten years at the local junior college he has not yet graduated. He can do three digit multiplication in his head in two seconds (which he constantly tries not to when we ask him to tell us 937 * 451, saying “Hey, this isn’t a party trick!”), is more informed on most matters political and economical than I, and is a part of MENSA with an IQ of 165 (I’m a measly 145).
Obviously, his grades are invalid indicators of his intelligence.
It would appear that the chief criterion determining whether a politician is dumb or not would be whether or not you agree with him. Liberals think Bush, Reagan and Nixon were malicious and stupid. Conservatives think Clinton and Carter were the worst presidents in history. As for snooty, aristocratic Europeans, they hate Americans in general anyway, so who gives a damn what they think?
Dan Quayle was thought stupid because he couldn’t spell potato, but then it is hard to argue that the great Cecil himself is any smarter when he uses “data” as a singular noun. I know everyone does it, but that doesn’t make it right. Who is really more stupid: a Dan Quayle who can’t spell or an Al Gore who imagines that it is possible to ban the internal combustion engine without killing 4 billion people in the process?
“As for snooty, aristocratic Europeans, they hate Americans in general anyway, so who gives a damn what they think?”
Okay, dear christophercampbell, maybe that was ironic. I hope so, and in that case, disregard the answer.
But where should I start if that was serious?
Okay, maybe with ‘snooty, aristocratic’: What you call snooty is a heightened awareness of how you should behave to others. You know, we are not the strong schoolyard bully of politics. So maybe what you call snooty is in fact the result of some painful experiences in the past, and the learning from it. At least European politicians know how the inhabitants of allied countries are called (and the ‘Greekians’ are damn important, because they are on Nato’s outer flank).
About being aristocratic. A hallmark of aristocracy is that sons one day take the posts of their fathers. So much about that. Also, we can hold elections in a democratic fashion (sorry to say so, but your way of electing the president was invented to ensure that the ‘mob’ does not have too much of a say in it)
about “Europeans hate Americans anyway”. Okay, so if somebody disagrees with you on something, he hates you. Is it that? (and just for the record, we loved Bill Clinton). And a lot of people goes to the U.S. as tourists every year. And I guess the reason why I am doing American Studies is because I hate the U.S… Please…
About “who gives a damn what they think”
Okay, let me give you a part of ‘Diplomacy 101’
Thou shalt not alienate thine most important allies
Thou shalt at least know something about one of the other economic superpowers
Thou shalt remember that international politics get a whole lot easier if the others think good of you
If thou makest all the mistakes thou canst, then thou shalst not wonder that they kick you out of U.N. councils.(for a decent discussion of that question, go to http://www.flakmag.com/opinion/ushr.html )
sorry for that lengthy rant, but just because I am European that does not make me a diregardable aristocratic snooty moron.
Doc
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Dr. Ennig *
about “Europeans hate Americans anyway”. Okay, so if somebody disagrees with you on something, he hates you. Is it that? (and just for the record, we loved Bill Clinton).
There seemed to be plenty of Europeans who liked Bush, too. I WAS ironic, but for the record:
The reason most Americans are here is because their ancestors wanted to escape from oppressive European monarchies. My own family is here, for example, because we were sick and tired of the constant inter-clan feuding and civil wars that were the rule in Scotland. It is highly doubtful that there would be any semblence of democracy in Europe today if it were not for the influence of the United States. How long could Britain and France have held out against the general trend towards totalitarianism that swept Europe during the last century?
As for the claim that Europeans have learned something from the mistakes of the past, few Americans have seen any evidence of that whatsoever. Europe still thinks that the answers to its problems lie in solutions that are fundamentally totalitarian: socialism, restricted trade, and appeals to tribal loyalties (the Campbells in America manage to get along perfectly well with the McDonalds here – the same cannot be said in Scotland even today. As for Serbs and Slavs ever getting along in Europe, well…). We have our problems here, but most of us would not trade them for yours, thank you. How many more times are we going to have to save Europe before Europeans really do learn something from their mistakes, anyway?
As for your little list of commandments, Europeans routinely break them vis a vis the United States. Indeed, as in your post, hypocrisy reigns as the dominant feature of European culture.
okay, so we Europeans are hypocrites. And you’re right. But, please tell me, who isn’t? If us Europeans (which already is a very simplifying term, but for the sake of a simpler discussion, let’s keep it for now)are, then the one big superpower sure is too. So please bear in mind that I do not believe Europe is of some kind of immaculate holiness. Thanks, we know that we ain’t.
About your points:
Yes, the U.S. saved European democracy last century. But if you rest on your laurels you’re wearing them in the wrong spot. Also, those merits are a thing of the past (otherwise I would ask you who helped the U.S. win the revolutionary wars). Most importantly, I think that Europe is democratized now (if you look at the EU and progressive former eastern states such as Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and the Baltic countries)
“Europe still thinks that the answers to its problems lie in solutions that are fundamentally totalitarian: socialism,restricted trade, and appeals to tribal loyalties”
Oh boy, that argument is, erm, well, self-disqualifying, it is. Socialism = the socialism you talk about is dead in the EU. What we call Sozialismus back here is basically a liberal version of your Democratic party (extremely simplified now). To call that totalitarian is a McCarthyesque view of the world.
restricted trade = erm, so? In Europe that means more rights for the consumers and the laborers. It is not the mercantilist totalitarian ideology you think it is.
About Europe learning or not learning from the past. Well, this discussion is unresolved, I grant you that. But at least there is a discussion, at least ever country in Europe is forced to look at it’s own past in a very critical kind of way.
“As for your little list of commandments, Europeans routinely break them vis a vis the United States. Indeed, as in your post, hypocrisy reigns as the dominant feature of European culture.”
we break them? Why, because we try to keep treaties? because we can’t stand to be seen as reactionary backwards peoples who need the strong U.S. to decide for them? Because we voted a country which did not support a resolution against the manufacturing of torture instruments out of a human rights commission? (see the link in my previous post for an extensive discussion of that).
So if my post was reigned by hipocrisy, then yours was reigned by a supremacist position. Either is bad.
Doc
Strangely enough, Nixon is considered the smartest President by some. He graduated first in his law school class. As Annie-Xmas says, his actions were indeed stupid. Clinton is another very smart President whose actions were stupid.
Anyone who thinks Reagan was stupid should check for himself or herself by reading Reagan in His Own Hand. That book of Reagan’s own essays demonstates that he was smart and very, very knowledgable on a host of issues. Even I, a supporter of Reagan, was amazed at these essays.
Y’know, I wish everyone would forget about the whole “potatoe” thing… It’s turned into a straw man. The typical discussion of Danforth’s intelligence goes something like:
Joe: Quayle is stupid.
Bob: No, he’s not! You’re just saying that because he misspelled “potato”!
The fact of the matter is that that was just one case among a great many. How about “It’s a terrible waste to lose one’s mind”, in reference to the United Negro College Fund? Or his statement that the US is part of Europe? Or his “proof” that Mars is habitable? OK, I realize that he’s a politician, not an astronomer. There’s probably plenty of politicians who don’t know diddly about Mars. The difference is that most of them realize that they don’t know diddly, and therefore don’t talk about Mars without a lot of coaching from advisors who do know.
Reagan, meanwhile, may well have been very smart, at one time. He was also already suffering from Altzheimer’s while he was in office.
Just to be fair, though, despite the many other things that can be said about Nixon, there’s no reason to suppose he was stupid. It’s arguable that he had a better handle on foreign policy than any other president in the twentieth century. His problem was a lack of scruples, not of brains.
At least Quayle knows his own name…
Ignore my comment above. I got confused with the estimable Sen. Danforth…oh, nevermind.
In these NYC parts, GWB means George Washington Bridge. Not that I’m comparing Dubya to a bridge in terms of intelligence, you understand…
Frankly, I think there’s a difference between being a bad speaker (which he is) and being intelligent. Although he may be the “best” bad speaker, he’s not the only one. Practically every politician has put their foot in their mouths in their speaches. And no doubt, every posters here has made dumb statements in their posts.
Using a person’s worst quotes to as a measure of intelligence would make would make most everyone in the world seem to be lacking in smarts.
And there’s one of mine Remove the first “to”.
Yeah, but after a few embarrassments, you’d think he’d learn to read the prepared texts beforehand so he wouldn’t come off as such an idiot.
I don’t believe that there is any reason to believe that Dan Quayle was unintelligent, or even a poor public speaker. Beyond the fact that many of his supposed mis-statements never actually happened - they were pure ULs or late-night comedian’s jokes that morphed into news stories, there is no reason to suppose that he was more prone to this type of mis-statement than any other politician. Politicians give zillions of speeches, which means that even someone who is less likely than average to flub his lines is likely to do so more than an average person. Furthermore, they are frequently called upon to vary their standard “stump” speech by inserting some reference to local color, and it is these unfamiliar variations which are often botched (e.g. the UNF slogan). Anyone who follows politics even slightly has seen numerous examples of non-Quayle politicians goofing up in the exact same manner that Quayle did. Beyond this, a lot of the Quayle “mis-statements” actually make perfect sense, if one is willing to stop and think about it for a second or pay attention to the context of his words, which most people aren’t.
The reasons for the widespread perception that Quayle is a moron are twofold. 1. because the media tend to focus on items which conform to already-drawn caricatures. In the last election, stories that indicated that Gore was a liar or that Bush was not too bright received far more publicity than those that suggested the converse. So too it was with Quayle, who got off to a bad start when it was suggested that he’d gotten to where he was on his father’s connections, and snowballed from there. 2. because most Americans, including and especially those who believe that Quayle is a moron, are actually not too bright themselves. And they follow the late shows a lot closer than they follow national politics. So it is easy for them too accept the caricature drawn by comedians and overlook the actual role that Quayle played in the Bush administration.
Yeah, but Clinton had the Parliament Funkadelic to help out!
From Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1984):
da-ta. . .*n pl but sing or pl in constr, often attrib* [L, pl. of datum] (1646): factual information (as measurements or statistics) used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation <the ~ is plentiful and easily available__H. A. Gleason, Jr.> <comprehensive ~ on economic growth have been published–N. H. Jacoby>
usage Although still occas. marked with a disapproving [sic], data is well established both as a singular and as a plural noun. The singular data is regularly used as a mass noun denoting a collection of material; it is almost never used as a count noun equivalent to datum. Our evidence shows plural use to be considerably more common than singular use.
Cecil 1, christophercampbell 0