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August 25, 2006
Dumb And Dumberer
We try - we really do - not to engage with the kind of metastasized, late stage BDS on display in the comments section of this post:
Do the math...he may well OWN 60 books. He may have thumbed through 60 books. But to say that he completed 60 books in 8 months is bullsh!t.60 books = 8 books / month or 2 books/week. That's 100 pages a day.
It's an obvious lie, and a clumsy one at that.
Unfortunately, barring an actual list from the Press Secretary, I'm more inclined to think they're of the "My Pet Goat" / "Pokey Little Puppy" / Incredibly Dirty Jokes, Volume 18" variety, rather than Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples, the Analects, or Henry V (which, come to think of it, would be a damn fine idea for 43).
But these are just amateurs. To see how the pros do it, check out Slate Online. No doubt this is the source of that ubiquitous quote, "Ladies and gentlemen, do NOT - we repeat DO NOT - try this at home":
The White House has been quick to laugh off any deeper meaning behind President Bush's strange decision to spend his vacation reading Albert Camus' The Stranger. If John Dickerson and Maureen Dowd go after him again, Tony Snow may have to pretend that there was a mix-up between Bush and his new neighbor Cindy Sheehan at the Crawford Public Library.Like most men, my first reaction was that Laura Bush must have finally convinced her husband to join a book group. But in the spirit of Emily Bazelon, I've tried to remember the advice educators give parents about their children's summer book list: No matter what they choose, just be glad they're reading.
In retrospect, we should have seen the tell-tale signs of Frenchness all along: Bush's Parisian refusal to work in August, Cheney's snooty contempt for American culture, Condi's flair for haute couture, Bolten's Marie-Antoinettish tax cuts, and Rumsfeld's penchant for les head-butts. All this time, we've mistaken W for the Peter Sellers in Being There, when in every aspect of his job, Bush is actually Inspector Clouseau.
Les giggles. Le snort. Once the half vast editorial staff picked ourselves up off le floor and recovered from our little attack of l'amusement, we had to confess ourselves a wee bit puzzled. Were not these the very same smart folks who, just a short while ago, were red-faced (Sacre bleu! make that blue-faced) with embarassement over the fact that the Presidential nightstand was bereft of weighty reading material? Never mind the fact that Mr. Bush has, by all accounts, been known to tackle some rather hefty tomes. He is, after all, married to a former librarian. But there is nothing more inconvenient, when you have a really good hate fest in the works, than to see your steaming great wad of bile flattened by an ice cold truck load of facts.
And anyway, everyone knows the President is a complete and utter moron. Just ask the expert: Fred Kaplan.
George W. Bush criticizing someone for not understanding the world is like … well, it's like George W. Bush criticizing someone for not understanding the world. It's sui generis: No parallel quite captures the absurdity so succinctly.This, after all, is the president who invaded Iraq without the slightest understanding of the country's ethnic composition or of the volcanic tensions that toppling its dictator might unleash. Complexity has no place in his schemes. Choices are never cloudy. The world is divided into the forces of terror and the forces of freedom: The one's defeat means the other's victory.
Gosh Fred - that's almost like saying that if we could just defeaticate the enemy, we'd be halfway to winning this war! That's just the kind of simplistic thinking one expects from a Republican administration, isn't it? And to think those idiot voters trust conservatives to keep them safe? Sheesh. It's a good thing the press are around to help us understand the subtle moral ambiguities inherent in foreign policy. After all, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, as they say down at Al-Reuters. Takes incredible courage to cover this war from the front lines of the Hotel Baghdad, doesn't it?
Old Fred can't wait to share more of the Prez's accidental wit and wisdom with us:
But here, from the transcript of the press conference, is how he sees the region's recent events:What's very interesting about the violence in Lebanon and the violence in Iraq and the violence in Gaza is this: These are all groups of terrorists who are trying to stop the advance of democracy.What is he talking about? Hamas, which has been responsible for much of the violence in Gaza, won the Palestinian territory's parliamentary elections. Hezbollah, which started its recent war with Israel, holds a substantial minority of seats in Lebanon's parliament and would probably win many more seats if a new election were held tomorrow. Many of the militants waging sectarian battle in Iraq have representation in Baghdad's popularly elected parliament.
Well there's another stunner for you.
There are only about a million things wrong with Fred's analysis, but lest we be accused of Le Piling On, we'll stop at three:
1. Last time we checked, Hamas didn't run on a platform of killing Jews. Had they done so, perhaps Mr. Kaplan could claim Hamas had a popular mandate, but repeated polls have shown that the run-of-the-mill Pali on the street wants peace. And Hamas toned down their hate filled rhetoric just before the election. They ran on a platform of restoring public services, not of killing Jews and wiping Israel off the map. Facts are stubborn things and in a popular election, voters choose from among the available options. They generally don't go reading between the lines looking for those all-important hidden motivations that may be lurking just beneath the surface: "Yes Habib, I know he said he wanted the trash to be picked up on Wednesday, but durnitall, I think he really wants to kill Jews". Don't read too much into an endorsement.
2. Hezbollah chose to shell Israel without consulting the democratically elected government of Lebanon, which was powerless to stop it. No one - not even Mr. Kaplan - seriously believes that decision respected representative government. If it had, Hezbollah would have stopped the shelling immediately upon request. It did not. The analogous situation would be if the American Republican party chose to shell Mexico to protest illegal immigration without consulting Congress, and Mr. Kaplan claimed that was "democratic". Not to put too fine a point on it, "Bull".
3. The fact that some members of the Iraqi parliament, while wearing democratic sheep's clothing, are secretly behaving as sectarian wolves, does not endow their actions with the cloak of democratic legitimacy. To somehow pretend it does strains even the credulity of the most partisan observer.
What is the common thread here? In all three cases, terrorists, while pretending to operate under the guise of democracy, are secretly trying to gain through violence what they cannot via the democratic process and under the rule of law. The President is trying to strengthen democratic institutions within Iraq and Afghanistan to the point where their actions will be transparent and government and civil authority can deal with them. In mature democracies, abuses continue to occur because people are human. But civil institutions are strong enough to expose and weather those abuses.
It would appear, on review, that Mr. Kaplan and not the President is the one who lacks understanding. Just because, during a short press conference, the President of the largest nation in the world doesn't have time to explain life to a man who apparently hasn't the brainpower God gave a gnat, does not mean he doesn't understand these things himself.
But Fred still had not wrung the last full measure of l'embarrassment from his "analysis" of the President's press conference:
Asked if it might be time for a new strategy in Iraq, given the unceasing rise in casualties and chaos, Bush replied, "The strategy is to help the Iraqi people achieve their objectives and dreams, which is a democratic society. That's the strategy. … Either you say, 'It's important we stay there and get it done,' or we leave. We're not leaving, so long as I'm the president."
He goes on later (helpfully - at least for his argument - leaving out most of what the President said) - to tell us that Bush has no idea what a strategic objective is:
Second, and more to the point, "helping Iraqis achieve a democratic society" may be a strategic objective, but it's not a strategy—any more than "ending poverty" or "going to the moon" is a strategy...Strategy involves how to achieve one's objectives—or, as the great British strategist B.H. Liddell Hart put it, "the art of distributing and applying military means to fulfill the ends of policy." These are the issues that Bush refuses to address publicly—what means and resources are to be applied, in what way, at what risk, and to what end, in pursuing his policy. Instead, he reduces everything to two options: "Cut and run" or, "Stay the course." It's as if there's nothing in between, no alternative way of applying military means. Could it be that he doesn't grasp the distinction between an "objective" and a "strategy," and so doesn't see that there might be alternatives?
Of course, when you actually hear what the President said, it sounds a bit different:
The strategic objective is to help this government succeed. That's the strategic -- and not only to help the government -- the reformers in Iraq succeed, but to help the reformers across the region succeed to fight off the elements of extremism. The tactics ...change. Now, if you say, are you going to change your strategic objective, it means you're leaving before the mission is complete. And we're not going to leave before the mission is complete. I agree with General Abizaid: We leave before the mission is done, the terrorists will follow us here.And so we have changed tactics. Our commanders have got the flexibility necessary to change tactics on the ground, starting with Plan Baghdad. And that's when we moved troops from Mosul into Baghdad and replaced them with the Stryker Brigade, so we increased troops during this time of instability.
This rather sounds like an "alternative way of applying military means". And given the news of the past week or so, contrary to what Mr. Kaplan and the New York Times are saying, it has been an incredible success. Of course, it's still early days.
But the truth of the matter is that the insurgency is lighter on its feet than we are, simply by nature of what they are and what they do, and so we can't have an all-encompassing Plan that is set in concrete. Their "plan" is simply to disrupt the Iraqi government as they try to implement democracy - to continue adapting and changing and testing the wires to see where the weak points are in our defenses. And our "plan" is to continue to make sure that they aren't successful. Since they continue to change and adapt, any "Plan" we make must continue to adapt and change as they continue to adapt and change.
It truly IS that simple. And I really have to wonder about the IQ of smart folks like Fred Kaplan, and the attention span of a nation who have had this explained to them time, and time, and time again.
And yet they STILL DON'T GET IT. This isn't brain surgery, and the President isn't a simpleton. The Plan is to hold on, and to keep adapting, and to finish the job. Maybe if you still don't understand, the problem isn't with him. Maybe the problem is you.
Update: Cross-posted to Real Clear Politics. I've never done this before, but you guys keep telling me I should be shopping my work around. Well, for once I listened.
Posted by Cassandra at August 25, 2006 12:59 PM
Comments
I wish we could play "Wack-a Mole" with these oh so "nuanced" journalists.
Posted by: Unkawill at August 25, 2006 06:40 PM
Good post, Cassidy. Best two things in it, from where I sit:
1) "The Plan is to hold on, and to keep adapting, and to finish the job."
Right.
2) "But the truth of the matter is that the insurgency is lighter on its feet than we are, simply by nature of what they are and what they do..."
Exactly right. The same reasons that Joseph Schumpeter laid out for why Capitalism would never collapse as Marx predicted are why insurgencies will always outmaneuver government bureaucracies -- at first.
Still, while Microsoft (say) can't stop a basement software firm from producing a product that undermines a small portion of its software line, Microsoft -can- replicate that software, offer it for free, and thereby destroy the business competing with it. There will always be weaknesses, and enemies of this type will often succeed at exploiting a new one.
However, Microsoft still remains Microsoft in the long run. In the end, the insurgency in Iraq will be put down: however inventive, at the last, it lacks the resources to compete. Unless we set artificial limits on ourselves, that is -- in which case we are choosing to let them beat us. We ought to be sober about the consequences of that before we make such a choice.
Posted by: Grim at August 25, 2006 08:40 PM
Well (cringing) if you like it you can always vote for me at RCP.
I have never prmoted anything I have done before and to be honest I am kind of regretting this already. But I am tired of having people nag me about it so after losing this post once today two sentences before finishing it and having to start all over again (and to be honest it wasn't nearly as good the second time around because I just didn't have the time or energy to reconstruct it) I just said what the heck.
Posted by: Cassandra at August 25, 2006 08:51 PM
I have no idea if that made any sense. I misplaced my reading glasses earlier today and I can't see a darned thing. Life is a blur right now.
Posted by: Cassandra at August 25, 2006 08:52 PM
Give I le Palm D'or for excellence in giving eyepokes to Cowboy Boosh to journaliste Kaplan, et al! It is known-well that Bush stupid genius is!
"Nuance" is l'arte diplomatique of always right being. Naturalement, if always you are right being, then follow it goes that l'opponent always wrong is. Thus, without saying goes it that Cowboy Boosh always wrong is! Notice how "nuanced" am I par excellence?
Go I now to make more speechness at UN to denounce l'americains and l'israelis. Always are delegates demanding more encores! Also am scheduled for hearing to run regardez Iranian programme nuclear. They rue the day will they UN disobeyed when they subjected are to my mighty pout and the dreaded diplosnit francaise!
When l'iranians upgive by solemn promise making to nukes not build, who then has the laughter stupid Cowboy Boosh? Ha Ha! Who is now stupid surrender monkey? Score I another coup diplomatique!
Au revoir, stupid americains!
-- Jacques Chirac
Posted by: a former european at August 25, 2006 09:00 PM
I can't read through all that. No way...
Posted by: camojack at August 25, 2006 09:05 PM
Unless we set artificial limits on ourselves, that is -- in which case we are choosing to let them beat us. We ought to be sober about the consequences of that before we make such a choice.
Now that is what I have been trying to say for some time Grim, but you articulated it far better than I have been able to. I get angry, and it gets in my way.
*sigh*
And that, in a nutshell, is why I don't like to get mad when I write. It isn't useful, generally.
Posted by: Cassandra at August 25, 2006 09:46 PM
afe, you fool :D
Posted by: Cassandra at August 25, 2006 09:47 PM
Ah cherie! How you my passions make inflammable! Your talk of garmentsunder lacking made me ferocious! Like a lion was I! Well, okay, a lion cowardly maybe. But still, ferocious for a frenchman!
Always are you the tantalizement giving me! But when come I to take you out in le Jacquemobile, say you "Non!" with le pout irresistible!
Why must you with my affectionate toy? What did do I that you refuse to make love like le crazed badgers? Was it the way I cowered helplessly when those youths islamiste torched my Citroen? Was I only understand trying the "causes root" of their anger!
Was it the way I myself soiled when Kim Jong Il demanded milk money mine in schoolyard? Understand you do not! Was only "sophisticated" technique diplomatique! Sit next to him in UN assembly do I. Now must he smell my cullottes soiled all day long! Ha Ha! Impressive, non?
Was it pitched-high shriek of little schoolgirl gave I when Iran Paris threatened to nuke, or was it the sobbing, groveling, and blubbering? Was all an act, sort of!
Cherie, throw Jacques not to curb again! Where will find you such an elitiste insufferable? Look how high nose have I in air for l'attitude snootiest! Also, forgotten have you my magnifique interpretive dances? Regardez my danse interpretive! Am I beautiful albatross of love! Look how I prance and caper! Admit it, resist you cannot!
-- Jacques Chirac
Posted by: a former european at August 25, 2006 11:54 PM
Jacques,
Speaking of inflammable passions - grab your ankles, the Germans are just a couple of countries away ....
:)
Posted by: beth at August 26, 2006 01:30 AM
Nice page you guys have here. (see, you linked to RCP and now look at the shmucks who come by!)
Not to go off topic, but if Fred K was so bright, how come he's a journalist? Gonna go on a limb here and say that posterity isn't going to keep him around very long.
GWB managed a 2.4(?) at Harvard Bus. School...not too shabby, back before they handed out A's like cotton candy at a country fair... He was the CEO of 14 (?) corporations over the years, and was governor of the 2nd largest state (Texas, pop.). Sounds like a decent track record...btw, how does Gore fare by comparison? hmm...
Can someone tell me how to become as "stupiderer" as GWB, as I would prefer not to be as intelligent as Fred K.
Posted by: Rich at August 26, 2006 08:51 AM
Not to mention the fact that President Bush did have a higher GPA than Mr Nuance himself, John Kerry. If GWB is such a moron like you intellects on the left like to claim, then why did you lose to him twice? And if you are losing to a stupid man, what does that make you?
Posted by: Bobbyd at August 26, 2006 09:10 AM
It's not easy, being beaten twice by an illiterate Chimp who incompetently coordinated a vast national conspiracy to steal 50 separate state elections, many of which were held in swing states where the polls were controlled by Democrat election officials (somehow, inexplicably, the entire DNC was caught off-guard after it happened the first time).
But then you know the old saying: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on the BusHitler.
Posted by: Cassandra at August 26, 2006 10:58 AM
Speaking of the Bushisms, I dismember reading that Kathleen Parker analyzed his speech during the time he was governor of Tejas and found no evidence of any malapropisms. How 'bout that?
It's funny. I'm about as good with words as a person can get. When I was 15 I scored off the charts in vocabulary - I was at the 99th percentile for a 45 y/o professional with a Master's degree. Yet when I am tired, if you place me in a sales situation or one where I feel I'm being called on to equivocate or say something I don't believe, I find that I will often have trouble speaking. This happened to me late in life.
I have noticed the same phenom in senior Marines at about the O6 level - I call it the 1000 yard stare problem. Sometimes people just get overwhelmed if they have a conscientious personality and are the type who don't like BS. That is why these guys often have EAs - they need someone to keep track of the crap for them - no one can keep all that stuff in their head, yet journalists delight in "catching" them out on some trivial detail: "Aha! He forgot the name of the PM of Lukebeckistan! What a moron!" as though tired people never get brain farts.
News flash - the human brain gets overwhelmed. That is why executives only get briefed and they have wonky types who live down in the weeds. TMI breeds indecision - this is why Carter was an ineffective leader - he tried to read everything. Effective leaders cut to the chase.
This is not a sign of stupidity or a lack of capacity to deal with detail. It is a sign of an organized mind that understands that more information, in all cases, does not always lead to better decisions. The important thing is to make sure your briefers are giving you the right information, at the right level of detail.
Sure, there's a certain risk there which must be balanced against the risk that if you try to do it all yourself you'll drown in information and never see the forest for the trees. Plus, one man simply cannot do it all.
Posted by: Cassandra at August 26, 2006 11:10 AM
What's the big deal of 100 pages per day? Approx two hours a day devoted to leisure reading?
My world lit class was 9 novels in 16 weeks ... and such "light" tomes as the aforementioned The Stranger as well as Don Quixote, Last Temptation of Christ, Madame Bovary, and Hard Times among others.
Really, the idea that Bush is "dumb" is said by people who REALLY mean Bush is "dumb" because he doesn't immediately accede to their obviously superior opinions.
Posted by: Darleen at August 26, 2006 11:31 AM
Just to quickly jump on the bandwagon for a moment, my personal favorite refutation of the erroneous "Bush is dumb" crowd is the fact that he was graded as an excellent jet pilot. I was pretty good academically and think I could have matched or exceeded his college record (directly comparing my gradepoint at a small midwestern college to his Ivy League grades would be comparing apples to oranges). However, I know that any attempt to turn me into a pilot would lead to my sudden and violent demise. Having worked for two aviation museums, I can tell you that flying the aircraft that he did requires not just a great deal of knowledge but extremely rapid calculation and decision making ability.
Kind makes you want to vote for another military pilot in a couple of years...
Posted by: RRD at August 26, 2006 12:38 PM
I don't think Bush is stupid. But a 2.4 even at Harvard Business School sucks. Bushs problem was probably one of effort not intelligence. Same for Kerrys lower GPA. But let's not pretend that there is some magic to Harvard. The curriculum in its business school and other so called elite schools is 90% the same as 100 other schools with lesser reputations and business connections.
Duke sucks.
Posted by: man riding unicycle naked at August 27, 2006 05:45 PM
The more expensive a school is the better the education.
Now, for $500 I will explain why.
Posted by: Pile On® at August 27, 2006 07:00 PM
I don't get too hung up on grades.
I had a pretty crappy GPA as an youthful undergrad majoring in beer, boys, and partying in that order. That's why I quit the Ivy League school I was attending - I wasn't serious and I was wasting my time and theirs. Of course later I had no trouble earning a 4.0 while overloading in a technical major and working 40 hours a week. It's just a matter of maturity.
Bush didn't do so well when he was younger, but then he grew up to be the President of the United States. I'd say he managed to focus when it counted.
Posted by: Cassandra at August 27, 2006 07:25 PM
I dont get too hung up on clothes.
Of course I got good grades and I know I dont want to be president of the united states. Of course I think only a person who couldnt get a 3.0 in college would want the job. The last several president prove I was right.
Posted by: man riding unicycle naked at August 27, 2006 10:05 PM