dragging out the scapegoats

[Terrance]

Jasper Fidget wrote:
> 
> Listening to somebody speak of Bush making some decision the other day, I
> was momentarily nudged into thinking (later reclassified as fantasizing)
> that Bush is himself fully in charge of and fully directing the US.  I admit
> that those moments were somewhat terrifying.  I would love to believe that
> GW is actually quite smart despite his obvious (and nationally embarrassing)
> language deficiencies; I would love to know *how* to acquire this belief.
> But I realized that so far--from election campaign to the present--I've been
> assuming Bush is a sort of political mask for the group of unquestionably
> smart men and women behind him (not excluding his wife and family to whom I
> attribute motivation at least).  It is that group I've imagined making all
> the serious decisions, and it is in that group I've placed my faith for
> recovery and future.  Somehow I guess I also assumed that everybody else
> thought similarly.
> 
> I admit that my problem with GWB does originate from his ineloquence.  It
> implies--to me anyway, and I may very well be a nutcase--that he hasn't
> spent much time *reading*, hasn't gained much of a relationship with
> language through books.  This in turn implies a lack of curiosity, a lack of
> imagination, and a lack of any desire to solve problems on his own by
> hunting down his own answers or developing his own tools for constructing
> answers (or beliefs for that matter).  The way such a person succeeds all
> the way to the White House must be in his sponge-like ability (itself
> extraordinary) to adopt and live the answers, convictions, and beliefs of
> others.  I see GW therefore as our first *committee* presidency, less a
> puppet than a vessel, or a chorus, and I feel much more comfortable with
> that.
> 
> Than again, he may just get freaked out by cameras.
> 
> Jasper Fidget


Bush is not the Prime Minister of Great Briton. The President of the USA
doesn't need to give lots of speeches. When I think of Presidents giving
speeches, I think of ex-Presidents. Our ex-Presidents  fly around the
world giving speeches and building  libraries and writing  books. This
is how they pay off their debts. These debts can be financial (Clinton).
These debts can be intangible and personal. Even if the ex-president,
while president,  was loaded with ideas, flush with words, he may have
been a very poor president (Carter) and so he may run around giving
speeches and building libraries and swinging hammers for humanity. 
Ex-presidents can make tons of money giving talks on foreign  policy
(Reagan)  and whatever else people want to hear, but Presidents are not
lecturers, are not college professors, are not men of the cloth. They
don't need to give speeches at all. Well, there are a few required
speeches, but these are written by professionals and staged for TV and
so they aren't really speeches at all, they are performances. Ronald
Ray-Gun was a good performer. Jack  looked better than Tricky Dick on
the Tube. Ex-presidents give speeches and the press doesn't even show
up, so why perform? Some of the best speeches are probably ex-President
speeches. Can't imagine Bush as President or any President in the future
saying a word without the camera capturing every word. Maybe Bush is
afraid of the Tube. Maybe, like Nixon, he knows he doesn't look good on
TV. Almost anyone looks good sitting next to 
Tim Russet and almost anyone looks smart talking to Charlie Rose, maybe
Bush should give these guys a shot, but a President doesn't have to look
smart or even talk smart to be good and smart president. 

BTW, William Safire is a smart guy. He reads a lot. He writes a lot. He
knows more about language than most presidents and most anyone, but did
you ever sit an listen to Bill Safire give a speech? 

Maybe speech is over rated. Maybe not. Not a few men in history have
gone to prison or to the grave because of what they said or what the
refused to say. I think of Socrates. A smart guy, no doubt articulate,
but he could not even defend himself because his accusers accused him of
being too articulate, an orator so great that he could deceive 
anyone that listened to him.   

Howard Gardener, the education guru, says there are several forms of
intelligence. So maybe Bush has a smoozing IQ higher than Clinton's. Who
knows? The last decade of the 20th century was often referred as the
decade of the brain and the decade of language. 
We discovered a lot about the brain and about language. We discovered
that people that have difficulty articulating ideas, may in fact have
brilliant ideas in their heads. That a lisp (I believe Churchill had a
speech impediment) does not a dummy make. We have discovered that the
brain is remarkably adaptive.

An analogy: 

A boy with a lame right arm must row a boat 500 yards to school every
morning. 
If he rows in the conventional way, he will go round in circles. His
strong left arm will work against him. But if the boy sits in the back
of the boat and uses one of the oars and only his good arm, he will make
it to school. His good arm will become very strong. This is also what
happens in the brain. The strong areas of the brain become stronger to
make up for the weak parts. W has a very weak language arm in his brain.
Obviously, it is not his entire language center that is weak, for if it
were, he would not have been able to succeed as he has. Some will say
his success is due only to his blue-blood and not his adaptive brain,
but I disagree. 

Bush is no bookworm. So what? I don't think it follows that he lacks
curiosity. Some very curious people can't read at all. Most of what
humans, curious by nature,  have  discovered, they have not discovered
in books. While I love books and encourage people to read, particularly
young people, and while I think reading does help develop imagination, I
know that  people that have never seen a book, never learned to read,
can and do develop healthy imaginations. Solving problems is not an art
exclusive to, or even dependent upon book learning. I could read
thousands of books about how to build a house, but until I go out and
swing a hammer, I don't know how to build one. Beliefs and ideas are not
developed simply by reading books. Most of us get our beliefs, and Bush
is no exception, from our parents and our religious traditions. 

My point, my only point really, is that we should critique the
President's policies at least as often as we call him stupid and make
fun of his language inadequacies. 



> 
> >
> >
> > glthompson wrote:
> > >
> > > Terrance wrote:
> > >
> > > > Bashing Bush for his language skills is easy, but
> > > > demonstrating, with solid facts and good argument, that Bush is not a
> > > > smart man
> > > > or that his policies are stupid is not so easy.
> > > >
> > > > It's easy to call the man a box or rocks. It's not so easy to
> > > > critique his foreign policy.
> > > >
> > > > The devil is in the details, in the facts, not in the marbles in the
> > > > president's mouth.
> > > >
> > > > I still contend that Bush is a very smart man. I don't buy into the TV
> > > > stereotypes and propaganda from the Left. He's smart.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Sorry, that would be propaganda from the Right. In case you hadn't
> noticed,
> > > the Left doesn't have much role these days in the distribution of
> propaganda
> > > (e.g., Fox News, "We report. You decide" indeed, or the newly
> right-tilting
> > > "Hire Rush Limbaugh" CNN).
> >
> > No, it's propaganda from the Left. And if the Left had no voice we
> > wouldn't be having this debate. I'm not sure why you have provided these
> > examples, CNN and Fox, unless you are suggesting that the Nation's TV
> > Networks have moved to the Right. This seems to be the case. However,
> > the Left is still very vocal and very influential given the
> > circumstances.
> >
> > My complaint is that the Left has peddled the notion that Bush is a
> > stupid man. Moreover, what the Left continues to argue is that Bush in
> > not an articulate man and is therefore a stupid man. What  I have argued
> > is that his difficulties with language are not indicative of a lack of
> > intelligence and that the Left should step up to the plate and attack
> > policy and stop trying to convince people that Bush's tongue-tied
> > statements are proof that he is a stupid person.
> 
> [...]