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It’s settled: Bush really is that dumb

That George W. Bush has been a staggeringly awful president — 1962 Mets/2003 Tigers awful – hasn’t been in doubt for a long, long time.  What has remained open to some debate, however, has been the genesis of this awfulness.  Is he really as dumb as he sounds?  Or is he smart, but incurious?  Or finally, is he really an evil genius, who is wrecking the US government as part of a devious plan to undermine support for liberal government?

Well, if there was any room for doubt left, for me, at least, this one settles it.

Associated Press: Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina

In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans’ Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.

Bush didn’t ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: “We are fully prepared.”

Bush didn’t ask a single question?  An Apocalypse was bearing down on a major US city, and he just sat there nonplused by it all?  (And then later, of course, he headed out of town for some West Coast guitar picking and cake cutting).  Can you imagine Bill Clinton doing that?  Hell, can you even imagine Bush’s dad doing that? 

Case closed: George W. Bush is a tool.  He’s an empty suit, an empty head and all too often an empty chest where the heart is supposed to go.  He’s a frontman — the smiling face (well, smirking face, anyway) providing  the cover for the crimes of Cheney & Co.  And even now, as the whole corrupt edifice is starting to fall down around him, he doesn’t have a clue.

And he’s still the only president we’ve got.

5 Responses to “It’s settled: Bush really is that dumb”

  1. hizzhoner Says:

    I got the distinct impression he was annoyed at even having to be in that meeting. I think he was annoyed that the hurricane was cutting into his vacation. Hence, he wasn’t even remotely interested in what was going on. It wasn’t his problem.

    As with everything else in his life, he has People” to take care of these things for him. His job was to make us feel like safe and assured even though we had no reason to be.

    He was, and remains, the consumate frat house president. He puts up the good front and the pledges do all the work.

  2. Again Says:

    Hence, he wasn’t even remotely interested in what was going on. It wasn’t his problem.

    why should he waste his beautiful mind on something like that? Hey, most of the problems of New Orleans are solved now! Poverty and black skin washed away by Gods own hands! (sorry, only the cache has survived)

    he headed out of town for some West Coast guitar picking and cake cutting

    God loves the rich and successful, don’t you know? So take a look at history: the french aristocracy also ate cakes when the negligible suffered, that’s “professional leadership” - focus on the important things, not on worthless and redundant human capital

  3. iowametal76 Says:

    Well said, Hizzoner. That’s exactly what it is. Disinterested, bored, shallow frat-house president.
    I’ve never really viewed him as stupid per se - he’s too crafty and manipulative for that. He’s smart, but not intelligent. There’s also a level of selfishness that would seem to border on misanthropy. He seems to me to be barely aware of the existence of other people… well, he knows other people exist, of course, but is unable to even conceptualize any human suffering or feeling of any kind other than his own. His concept of the rest of humanity seems very dim and detached.
    Maybe that’s why he was so attracted to, and so easily taken in by the hardcore neocon Christian right - it offers a view of life and humanity that allows one to talk the talk without walking the walk. In other words, his Christianity is all empty rhetoric with no deeds, no actually helping people or acting selflessly (you know, like Christ would’ve done).

    I dunno, maybe he is stupid.

  4. alwayshope Says:

    Yes! hizzhoner and Iowa,
    Bush is incapable of feeling other people’s pain. That he calls himself Christian is blasphemy. That anyone believes him is mind-boggling. That we must suffer the consequences of his stupidity is heartbreaking.

  5. FreeDem Says:

    One only needs look at the Great Mississippi Floods that went a long way toward laying the groundwork for the New Deal to know that all the Repugs want to go back to the Old Deal.

    The very Idea that the Government should help people in disasters is Repug-not.

    The aftermath of Katrina was just the sort of results they wanted. If the had wanted other results there woukd have been other results

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