We Were All Wrong

We were all wrong about Bush. He's not stupid; he's a master rhetorician, and his "duh" show was all a part of his campaign rhetoric. Damn him, he's a genius! It took rare insight to discern that a stupid American would want to vote for another stupid American like himself.

I remember having this conversation with Jake R back in November, and I remember being incredulous when he suggested that Bush just might be brilliant. But now that the president is done worrying about reelection, I see that he's slowly starting to unleash his full rhetorical power. I was struck the other day when I read an article about the filibuster, and Bill Frist kept repeating his obtuse statement about a "straight up or down vote" - what does that even mean anyways? - but then Bush stepped in and summed it up with the simple elegance of: "I expect them to get an up-or-down vote. That's what I expect. And I think the American people expect that as well - people to have a fair hearing."

Ah! The American people. Fair hearing.

Evidently Bush is stirring up some more drama with the House approving a stem cell research bill. This is from a nytimes photo caption:

"President Bush appeared at the White House with babies and toddlers born of test-tube embryos, some wearing shirts that read 'former embryo.'"

Damn him!

Okay, some might say that I'm giving the president too much credit, and that all this is the brainchild of the people working for him. That's somewhat true. I've heard numerous reports on different issues, like poverty, that reveal that Bush really has no fucking clue. But the important point is that Bush has no fucking clue about the REAL WORLD - and this is exactly what makes his "duh" act so brilliant! He's in an ivory tower pretending to be a blue-collar neighbor (kind of like Bruce Springsteen, eerily enough). I think the part we've underestimated is Bush's capacity to conceptualize things on the academic, theoretical level.