The esoteric club of gentlemen discussing Bush' mind

[Meshugger]

Well?

[Meshugger]

Maybe i need to adress this more correctly: Based on what is Bush the fool?

 

Characteristics? Scholar skills? Speech? Policy deciding? Judgement? Insight? Wisdom? IQ?

 

If you want to compare to other presidents, please use sources or base it the traits mentioned above. I want none of that "Nu-huh, look at that president, he was much worse!", without a detailed description on why.

[Humodour]

Are you asking whether Bush was a bad president or whether Bush is an unintelligent person? Quite a difference, but you seem to merge the two in your tangent at the end.

 

I don't really believe he is stupid, myself. I imagine he has an above average IQ (say, 110 or so). He doesn't appear to have strong willpower based on his substance abuse issues, and he didn't do well at uni. But a smart person could fail in these areas, too. I certainly think he's made a lot of stupid choices but what I put down to stupidity could simply be learned ideology which he's justified away in his head.

 

It doesn't help that a lot of people saw him as a puppet of Cheney, myself included.

[Rosbjerg]

I was more dissapointed with Bush.. USA and it's goverment had the support and sympathy of the Western world after 9/11 (probably much of the islamic world as well) and all that was sympathy was lost not 3 years later.. Bush and his administration squandered a perfect oppertunity to move towards are more united world and that's my biggest beef with him.

[cronicler]

My biggest beef with the GWB was probably his connection to Saudis and other Middle Eastern Moneybags. Now there is nothing wrong with doing business with other people but those people with questionable parentage are exporting trouble to rest of the wold to keep their own regimes free of hardliners and real troublemakers.

 

There were a lot of "WTF?" factors uncovered about 9/11 and they were all squashed/ hushed up. The WoT was seen as a real thing until it devolved into the usual division of spoils into friendly companies. It is comic to see how many Medical companies have "Medical" depots in Afghanistan and North Iraq nowadays. Same goes for the trade outposts.

 

Too many opportunities were squandered and too many "wrong" choices were made. I can understand using X faction to balance Y faction but the last 8 years just taught us that US can shift its policies 180' in a moment. A lot of "trust" was spent and it was spent very poorly.

Edited May 18, 2009 by cronicler

[Meshugger]

Are you asking whether Bush was a bad president or whether Bush is an unintelligent person? Quite a difference, but you seem to merge the two in your tangent at the end.

 

They aren't mutually exclusive either. They tend to affect one another a smart politician can makes smart choices

 

Maybe forsight is the word that i am looking for.

[Rostere]

They aren't mutually exclusive either. They tend to affect one another a smart politician can makes smart choices

 

I'm not entirely sure on that one. One can be very "smart" (as in high IQ) but still make very bad decisions in life.

[taks]

I don't really believe he is stupid, myself. I imagine he has an above average IQ (say, 110 or so).

hehe... that you would presume to "guess" his IQ. funny. FYI, based on his SAT scores, it is at least in the 125-130 range.

 

He doesn't appear to have strong willpower based on his substance abuse issues

which he beat.

 

and he didn't do well at uni.

didn't really do poorly, either. as dumb as everyone made bush out to be, nobody bothered to notice that his last opponent did equally as well, if not slightly worse, at yale.

 

I certainly think he's made a lot of stupid choices but what I put down to stupidity could simply be learned ideology which he's justified away in his head.

or your learned ideology.

 

It doesn't help that a lot of people saw him as a puppet of Cheney, myself included.

and certainly failures in his communications department (nicole wallace, i believe) could have attributed to world perception. that plus a media that simply hated him. not that i really liked bush, but the bias toward him was (and continues to be) overwhelmingly one-sided, while many of his so-called "failures" continue unabated as normal operating procedure.

 

taks

[Hurlshort]

In response to taks bringing up Carter:

 

I would probably agree with you that Carter's presidency was ineffective. But Carter himself has been fairly effective as an ambassador. Much like John Quincy Adams, he has created a solid legacy outside of the White House. Bush might end up doing likewise, only time will tell.

 

However Bush had 8 years, and he oversaw a major economic decline and two major conflicts that haven't been resolved. I'm not the type of person to judge a president until well after the fact, so we can take into account the long term planning, but the Bush administration has an uphill battle to break the top 30.

 

Still doesn't make him a fool though. It's the toughest job in the US, possibly in the world. I have nothing but respect for any individual that survives it.

[taks]

But Carter himself has been fairly effective as an ambassador.

no he hasn't. he gets lots of good press, that's about it. i suppose he gets credit as a humanitarian, but only in a limited scope.

 

Bush might end up doing likewise, only time will tell.

quite frankly, i doubt it. er, i doubt he'll have much post-office legacy. even if he has successes, he won't get the same sort of positive press that carter got for his failures.

 

However Bush had 8 years, and he oversaw a major economic decline and two major conflicts that haven't been resolved. I'm not the type of person to judge a president until well after the fact, so we can take into account the long term planning, but the Bush administration has an uphill battle to break the top 30.

he started out on a good foot with proposing tax cuts, then ramped up spending. same old keynsian tactics that every other president in the last 100 years has implemented (though reagan tried to avoid it, enlisting friedman to help out). TARP solidified this parting message, IMO.

 

Still doesn't make him a fool though. It's the toughest job in the US, possibly in the world. I have nothing but respect for any individual that survives it.

correct. it makes him a politician, actually. certainly neither politician, particularly POTUS, are jobs i would ever aspire to. the only people that want such a job are, generally speaking, the sorts of people i'm not comfortable being around.

 

taks

[Morgoth]

Being politician in Europe is a lot easier. All you need is a lobby that sets you up and some talent for drama.

[Aristes]

I'm not the type of person to judge a president until well after the fact, so we can take into account the long term planning...

 

I agree with this whole heartedly. It's probably too soon to judge Bush. Just remember, bringing up Adams, that a lot of contemporary historians gave him little credit for his policies. In fact, history was relatively unkind to him until more recently. Now, of course, there is renewed interest in John Adams.

 

Also, John Quincy, first because of his father and then because of his own talents, had impact on the national and international level before he became president in the first place. My attitude towards Carter has dwindled mightily over the years, but I can say that at least his desire to serve his country and fellow humanity has continued to be apparent. I disagree with most of his public actions in the political arena, either as president or after he left office, but there is little doubt that Carter tries his best to do the right thing. ...And maybe he'll get the John Adams treatment by history someday also.

 

The thing to remember is that a lot of presidents do great things for their country that are obscured by the politics of the day. Bush is no differnt in that respect, so I expect that history will come to judge him fairly warmly. His mistakes will be the footnotes and his successes will be the story.

 

I think he's an intelligent person but somewhat less than a genius. I agree with the fellow above who pointed out that some of the smartest people have been the worst politicians.

[Hurlshort]

LBJ had very low public opinion numbers due to Vietnam, he didn't have a fancy degree, and yet looking back I think he was the most effective single term president in History.

[Trenitay]

Can't really say he's a fool. Made some bad decisions maybe, but everyone does that. His just had a larger impact.

[Kaftan Barlast]

I would say that if you look stupid, talk stupid and do stupid things.. you're stupid. And is there anyone here who would seriously disagree that GWB fits that description?

[Hurlshort]

I would say that if you look stupid, talk stupid and do stupid things.. you're stupid. And is there anyone here who would seriously disagree that GWB fits that description?

 

Yes, I disagree.

[Enoch]

that plus a media that simply hated him. not that i really liked bush, but the bias toward him was (and continues to be) overwhelmingly one-sided, while many of his so-called "failures" continue unabated as normal operating procedure.

Pre-2004-ish, the media as a whole wasn't remarkably critical of Bush. Sure, the late night comedians always had fun with his malapropisms, but even major left-leaning media outlets like the NYT and WaPo were essentially carrying the administration's water in the leadup to the Iraq invasion.

 

There is some ideological bias in American media, but it's nothing when compared to the bias in favor of what sells. And stories sell when they tell people things that agree with their pre-established opinions. Before the Iraq invasion went bad, Bush was popular, and the media in general reacted to that popularity by being generally supportive of him and not going out of their way to criticize the administration. Sure, the op-ed pages had backed the opposition in the campaign and argued against many of Bush's policy proposals (like the tax cuts), but they were also remarkably credulous with regard to everything the administration told them on foreign policy issues. After the lack of planning for post-invasion Iraq became evident and other criticisms of the Administration began to add up (Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, Kanye West, etc.), public opinion turned. That's the point when media presentation of the administration became far more critical, and only grew moreso as public opinion shrank.

 

In response to taks bringing up Carter:

...

It is axiomatic that chief executives get more credit than they deserve when things go well, and more blame than they deserve when things go poorly. Comparisons are all conjecture, as no two presidencies were presented with anything close to the same set of circumstances. As such, the Carter administration probably doesn't deserve the full measure of the scorn it is regularly assigned. They were unquestionably poor managers, delegating too little and totally screwing up relations with leaders in Congress who should've been their allies. But I'm not so sure that better managers and politicians would've have reached significantly better results if confronted with the same massive **** sandwich that the world gave America in the late '70s. (William Miller's appointment as Fed Chairman in '78 is probably the most obvious point where a different Admin could've done better, but Carter did learn from this mistake and appointed Paul Volcker-- who would be largely responsible for the recovery Reagan took credit for in the '80s-- to replace him a year later.) Plus, they were pretty much the only administration in the last generation with anything close to an effective energy policy. The pro-conservation policies initiated during the Carter administration are a big reason why America has been able to continue it's international dominance in spite of its ratio of energy use to domestic fuel production. (In the the face of my above statements, though, I must admit that these policies were to some degree or another a product of the times rather than of the Administration's acumen.)

 

LBJ had very low public opinion numbers due to Vietnam, he didn't have a fancy degree, and yet looking back I think he was the most effective single term president in History.

Well, his "single term" was 14 months longer than most single terms...

 

 

In sum, though, none of the presidential administrations of the past 30-ish years strike me as particularly impressive. They have all been too cowardly with regard to addressing long-term underlying problems in American policies, economics, and diplomacy. Too concerned with short-term partisan advantage at the expense of the country as a whole over the long term.

Edited May 18, 2009 by Enoch

[Aristes]

The big thing about GWB is that he ran two successful campaigns for president. After invading Iraq and not finding WMD, he still pulled off a victory against a well funded opponent. Sure, folks can say that he was a puppet and whatnot. The bottom line is, he's the guy who got the team together and took the white house.

 

I think he made some extremely bad decisions. On the other hand, I think that he also showed himself as one of the most disinterested politicians of modern times. This compares with the politician who governs by which way the polls blow. Bush had policies he believed were good and pushed them through, rather effectively, I might add, regardless of popularity.

 

I don't think he looked particularly stupid. His actual looks weren't really any different than other politicians. His manner of speaking was southern and he fumbled words here and there. I've known honest to goodness nuclear scientists who sounded weird. When I say know, I mean met them personally and conversed. When I say sounded weird, I mean variation in accents and all sorts of stuff. Some of them even did stupid things.

 

At the end of the day, though, I don't think it's a matter of intelligence. It's a matter of good policy. Since those play out long term, we have a while to wait before we see where it leads. My personal feeling is that he's been a fairly bad president, but that some of his policies might still work out in the end. If Iraq continues to work towards democracy and becomes a beacon of Islamic democracy in the middle east, then I think Bush will have earned a place near the head of the table in ranking US presidents.

[Meshugger]

Ok, now i have some free time:

 

- Characteristics and mannerisms: Reminds me about a carsalesman, a nice smile, no trace autharianism nor is he intimidating, he might actually make you feel really comfortable being in his presence. But in the end, you are reminded that he is looking towards his own interests. When a person of this character tries to intimidate or try to sound like a voice of authority, he usually fails utterly and thus it makes him look foolish; because deep inside, he's rebellious and very anti-autharian.

 

- Intelligence....too tired, i figure out something later.

[Rostere]

At the end of the day, though, I don't think it's a matter of intelligence. It's a matter of good policy. Since those play out long term, we have a while to wait before we see where it leads. My personal feeling is that he's been a fairly bad president, but that some of his policies might still work out in the end. If Iraq continues to work towards democracy and becomes a beacon of Islamic democracy in the middle east, then I think Bush will have earned a place near the head of the table in ranking US presidents.

 

I agree, although there are a lot of things to take into consideration when evaluating future scenarios. Even if Iraq goes well, there are a lot of other things which might go (or things which have already gone) wrong. What if "Peace in the Middle East" had been on Bush's agenda instead of the invasion of Iraq? What would have happened if he had instead pushed Israel harder to solve the Palestinian refugee problem? Could a possible future showdown with Iran or genocide of Israelis and/ or Palestinians have been avoided? Regardless of the situation in Iraq, the situation in the Middle East as a whole remains problematic.

[Aristes]

That is unfortunately true.

[taks]

They have all been too cowardly with regard to addressing long-term underlying problems in American policies, economics, and diplomacy. Too concerned with short-term partisan advantage at the expense of the country as a whole over the long term.

actually, this was not reagan, in his first term, but i think he was eventually worn down by the direction his party wanted to go, in expectation of bush sr. for the next term. too bad. in the end, he caved like they all do.

 

taks

[taks]

I would say that if you look stupid, talk stupid and do stupid things.. you're stupid. And is there anyone here who would seriously disagree that GWB fits that description?

 

Yes, I disagree.

no kidding. kaftan's opinion of "do stupid things" is really "do things that i am ideologically opposed to." oh well.

 

i can truly say, however, that i abhorred his mispronunciation of nuclear. i'm sorry, he should have been smacked in the beginning and told "you MUST get this right, even if it takes practice." yes, i know, lots of smart people get that one wrong. i don't care. the president of the US should not get these things wrong more than once. that's why POTUS has an endless staff of butt-kissers waiting around to do something useful.

 

taks

[Enoch]

They have all been too cowardly with regard to addressing long-term underlying problems in American policies, economics, and diplomacy. Too concerned with short-term partisan advantage at the expense of the country as a whole over the long term.

actually, this was not reagan, in his first term, but i think he was eventually worn down by the direction his party wanted to go, in expectation of bush sr. for the next term. too bad. in the end, he caved like they all do.

Well, you and I are almost certainly thinking about different long-term underlying problems. (And that I think that Reagan's idealist side wouldn't have done much of anything to address the issues I'm thinking about.)

 

But we've had that conversation before, I think.

 

I do agree that Ronnie's most defining achievement-- the fruits of his personal diplomacy with Gorbachev-- came from his idealism and against the advice of most of his advisors (even though he acted like something of a buffoon in doing so).

[taks]

Well, you and I are almost certainly thinking about different long-term underlying problems.

he addressed the biggest, IMO: economics. he was actually the bravest of them all to stand up to keynsian orthodoxy, that which has crippled us for 100 years or so, at least in his first term. in the end, he never did anything about the flawed monetary policy of the fed and he ultimately caved to congressional pressure to raise taxes (though not directly). indeed, he did more for "long term" than any, he just didn't stick to it for the ride. sigh...

 

I do agree that Ronnie's most defining achievement-- the fruits of his personal diplomacy with Gorbachev-- came from his idealism and against the advice of most of his advisors (even though he acted like something of a buffoon in doing so).

quite frankly, that isn't even a blip on my radar. good, yes, for the USSR and freedom in general (long term). however, nobody cared about big ole bad USA while the communists were around, so realistically, his actions ended up turning the world's attention to us. yay.

 

taks