Easy Question
(Although it is a funny pic.)
posted by Smorgasbord @ 3:17 PM
10 comments
Notes From a Patriots Fan
I am a Neo-Liberal. I advocate taxpayer funded social programs to effect a better country. However, I acknowledge that every time we let government pass a law we restrict our liberty. We must therefore be vigilant in keeping government as small as possible and wholly accountable for its actions. Corrupt representatives and an apathetic citizenry have started a trend toward fascism. I aim to slow that tide by energizing my fellow Americans through open political discourse. I am a patriot.
Monday, August 15, 2005
(Although it is a funny pic.)
10 Comments:
Smorg, awesome blog! The Patriots are God's team (and bear in mind Im agnostic) and its 4 of 5 after this year! Name a team, any team, that will slow down Jesus reincarnate Bill Belichick... go ahead, try.
Go PATS!!
Back on topic:
But newly released records show that Bush and Kerry had a virtually identical grade average at Yale University four decades ago.
Guess we can put to bed that whole "Bush is an idiot chimp" thing. They received the same grades - despite the fact that Bush was a party animal. I'd say we did get the one with the brains. Kerry's grades stunk even with his apparent studying. Imagine that!
I used to spend a lot of time hanging out at MIT. There's a lot of smart people there. The thing about all those smart people, however, is that many of them are REALLY stupid.
My point is many times grades have absolutely no correlation to intelligence. I went to school with a few people who graduated summa cum laude but can't reason their way out of a paper bag.
Bush isn't a complete idiot, I acknowledge that, but Kerry is definitely smarter, period. All one has to do is listen to each of them speak.
Bush is by no means an idiot. Yes, like Kerry, he was priveleged to say the least. I do equate one's ability to speak and articulate with intelligence- Bush can lack in the presentation dept. However, the man can make some sound arguments when he needs to- for example, when pro-life/pro-choice arguments came up in the first debate last fall, I was far more impressed with Bush's pro-life argument than I was with Kerry's pro-choice. All Kerry could say was "what if a girl gets raped by her father?" It happens, but I did a research report on abortion in college, and (I am pro-choice here too) those cases are very rare. Point is, Bush can be articulate and make good arguments, its just that he is only recognized when he makes a speaking blunder, and never seems to be recognized for making a good point outside of Fox news.
When he sticks to a script he's mostly fine. When the teleprompter malfunctions or he's asked a question that wasn't already answered for him by staffers he sounds like garbage. Supposedly that's one of the qualities people liked about him though - his "every man" quality.
Hi Smorg,
Didn't you see the Kerry grades? They were worse than Bush's!
HA!
-Jack
(Mean picture!)
I agree that a person's ability to speak well gives the appearance of intelligence. I just disagree that it proves actualy intelligence resides in the speaker.
Plenty of very intelligent people sound like bumbling idiots when they're in front of a microphone. That's why Toastmasters International is in business, and doing quite well.
Bush's opponents saw/see him as a bumbling idiot because they want to. It makes it easier to deride his and his party's viewpoints and arguments.
Don't you think someone who was governor of a large state for eight years should already be a proficient public speaker? Don't you think he would have gone to a Toastmasters type organization long ago? As I said, I don't think he's a complete idiot. I don't underestimate him in that sense. He did a FANTASTIC job selling himself to the American people when it really counted - during the election. Now I think America is getting a bit fed up with his "guy next door" image. He's been at the head of enough corporations, been in enough high ranking public offices, that he should be able to come off like a poet by now.
A. He really isn't that bright, relatively speaking. He doesn't read papers (or anything else), for one. There are numerous accounts of people visiting the different offices he's had over his lifetime and almost every one notes the absence of books or scholarly material of any kind. He isn't into details - he runs by delegation and only wants to be presented with two or (maybe) three possibilities by his staffers with all the pros and cons already worked out. They basically make his decisions for him before he even knows what the problem is.
B. He likes the fact that, relatively speaking, he isn't that bright. He revels in it. It's one of the reasons he's been so popular over the years. He lost his congressional run in the late 70's because the other guy painted him as an Ivy League Connecticut Yankee! He's been moving farther and farther away from that image ever since.....
Holding the presedency, Kerry waits in vain for the catch...
Indeed.
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