Re: My political career

I'm going to sort of jump on the ball that Jim got rolling. Politicians
today are known mostly by the public through their television appearances.
They are slid in between Connie Chung and David Letterman. So what counts
most? And what are they compared to? Politicians today are judged
extensively according to their looks and their public speaking abilities.
An overweight president like Garfield would not stand a chance in today's
political arena, unless he dropped about a hundred pounds. I know some
highly intelligent people who have a tough time speaking to crowds. So
George W. stumbles on his words sometimes. It looks bad in contrast to
everyone else on the idiot box, all those practiced actors and
entertainers. It doesn't mean he's not smart. Not that I'm a huge Bush
fan. Not that I think of him as a genius.
Does any one else agree with me that in our land jester is king. Isn't
that scary? If it was up to me, politics would not be on TV, except for
the rare, serious national address. But I guess it is up to me, cause I
don't have a television and I will never been won over by a smooth, hip,
saxophone playing lady's man.

JPB

                                                                                                                      
                    Jim Rovira
                    <jrovira@drew.edu> To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
                    Sent by: cc:
                    owner-bananafish@roug Subject: Re: My political career
                    hdraft.org
                                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                      
                    04/18/03 09:32 AM
                    Please respond to
                    bananafish
                                                                                                                      
                                                                                                                      

I don't think the "Bush is dumb" phenomena arises from a mass delusion
of some sort, but rather from the felt need of all people at all times
in almost all circumstances to say the obvious when, of course, it's the
obvious that needs least saying.

That being said, I tend to think there are different kinds of
intelligence. Bush seems to lack verbal intelligence, which I think
probably reflects upon his performance in school and certainly upon the
beautiful way the English language has grown since he's been publicly
speaking -- just think, if it wasn't for Bush's speech to the CIA in
2002, we wouldn't have the word "misunderestimate."

I don't know that Bush isn't fairly intelligent in other ways, though.
Call me naive, if you like -- I probably deserve it -- but there's a
part of me that wants to think that for someone to get this far, he had
to have some positive personal quality going for him.

In the 2000 Presidential debates, it was him and Gore and no one else,
and Bush walked away doing much better than everyone expected because he
used his stupidity as a rather charming, anti-intellectual asset. Just
think about the hostility you see toward academics generally. Bush
played on that facet of American culture to his benefit and Gore's
loss. In addition, he nearly evenly split the popular vote when the
odds were against him. He was running against an incumbent VP at the
end of a long period of economic recovery.

Takes smarts of some kind to do that. Maybe not so much intelligence
as...cunning?

Jim

Scottie Bowman wrote:

> I don't mind it too much when people dismiss Dubya
> as comically stupid. The names & statues can be seen
> everywhere of men who, in their day, were similarly
> dismissed as mere embarrassments. (One of them currently
> sitting plonked in the Lincoln Memorial & another leaning
> on his cane in Parliament Square.)
>
> What gets me is the serene assumption that such a judgment
> somehow identifies the individual making it as his intellectual
> superior.
>
> On this side of the Atlantic - & evidently among your own
> right-thinkers - the view is almost universal. Yet doesn't
> that very universality make for a certain unease? Most
> of the people are wrong, after all, most of the time.
> If I were to observe a vast field packed with sheep,
> all bleating the same smug message, I think I'd pause
> before raising my own little furry snout to swell their chorus.
>
> Scottie B.

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Received on Fri Apr 18 09:59:24 2003