Let's talk about replacing GWBush in 2004.

How could your last sentence be true? How could a rational and clear statement contain less meaning than a confused statement?

We had words for guys like that.

Excessively patronizing postures are often an indicator of those whose self-images exceed their ability.

Yes, easy to understand and full of meaning.

I would say his words don't mean much.

However I don't buy your proposition that complex words or expressions are necessary to deal with complex ideas; or that the presence of such words and expressions implies either understanding or truth; or even that a uniform emphasis on all the nuances of an idea or problem analysis, particularly on the part of a leader, is either useful or beneficial.

The complexity surrounding an important idea is certainly important to an ordinary academic mind, but an excess focus on that is an impediment to one who must deal with events. Even in the academic world, it is the creators who cut throuch the complexity to find the essential truth.

Unfortunately Kerry has not attempted to address the central issues, and that suggests to me that he is at best a mere practicioner of complexity. Hardly a leader.

blatham wrote:

How could your last sentence be true? How could a rational and clear statement contain less meaning than a confused statement?

Depends on the speaker, his consistency, the relationship between his behavior and his words, and the concrete meaning of the words and references themselves. Kerry takes multiple sides on many issues, and (deliberately I think) uses vague, non-specific references and verbs, perhaps designed to mislead.
Then you aren't talking about 'meaning' at all. Incoherent statements, which the quoted statement by Bush certainly is a fine example of, are effectively meaningless (Bird drip down Tuesday, you betcha). Incoherence, or sloppiness in speech as in writing are clear and dependable indicators of incoherent and sloppy thought, of unfamiliarity with the subject matter or of poor grasp of the notions involved. These are failings of intellect, not important in a movie usher but very important in the Presidency. You weasel out of confronting this self-evident truth about Bush when, if one of your children were to speak such confused and incoherent 'statements' in their areas of professional learning, you'd be very troubled by the observation of such.

You suggest earlier to another that Bush's statements can be attributed to poor rhetorical skills (even adding in the notion that such lack of sophistication is evidence of a solid, practical and dependable sort of fellow). It is puzzling how you might then differentiate, say in a pub conversation or in reading a book, between the statements of someone who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about and one who does if knowledge and clarity of conceptualization are not determinable by speech or written word.

So, of course, you shift to 'character'. Bush can't talk, but he has good character and that is the important thing. The evidence you provide is Kerry. Or rather, it is the Rove strategized and focus-group tested 'flipflop' button you use for evidence. And then you suggest that Kerry 'poses' but, implied, Bush doesn't. There's irony for ya, the flight suit, the constant "as a war president, I...", the flags and soldiers used as props for darned near every photo op and speech, the convention in New York, the surveyed buttons that Rove brought to Camp David shortly after 9-11 harvested so as to market Bush including 'firm leader' and 'resolve', the revelations from DiIulio that this white house was unconcerned and unfamiliar with policy and political notions other than those associated with re-election.
He wears his aviator's leather jacket to every campaign stop to maintain the warrier illusion he has created. Years after the Vietnam war, as a sitting Senator, he lobbied (successfully I am sad to report) to get the Secretary of the Navy to issue him a Silver Star for his service in swift boats some 15 years earlier. He claimed to know much more about aircraft carriers than Bush. Odd because Kerry has never been on an aircraft carrier and Bush, a qualified aviator, has. He wrote himself up for three Purple Hearts in Vietnam, yet suffered no serious wounds. We had words for guys like that.

I would say his words don't mean much.

A top Republican congressman has broken from his party in the final days of his House career, saying he believes the U.S. military assault on Iraq was unjustified and the situation there has deteriorated into "a dangerous, costly mess."

"I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action," Rep. Doug Bereuter wrote in a letter to his constituents.

"Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action," he said.

Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He is stepping down after 13 terms to become the president of the Asia Foundation effective September 1.

In addition to "a massive failure or misinterpretation of intelligence," Bereuter said the Bush administration made several other errors in going to war despite warnings about the consequences.

"From the beginning of the conflict, it was doubtful that we for long would be seen as liberators, but instead increasingly as an occupying force," he said. "Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess, and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world."

Bereuter said as a result of the war, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened."

Blatham,

I was rather fond of the little essay I posted, and you have found fault with it. You know, I have feelings too!
george...I am truly sorry. This has happened before. You do write fine little essays for me which are always a treat to read, think about, and then create a response for. The problem is merely that you hold such a curious loyalty to man and party even in the face of the descending avalanche of reasons why you ought to be rapidly traversing out of harm's way. I find myself in the position of a ski patroller waving madly and yelling "Look above you! Run! Run away, you bloody numbskull!"

I think you are looking for 'meaning' in the words themselves, rather than evaluating them as well in the context in which they are given, and in the light of the pattern of actions of the speaker in relation to his words. I will readily agree that one gifted with greater rhetorical skill could, in his words, capture the moment, the context, and the ideas all together. This level of skill is rarely seen. We do not see it on the part of John Kerry either. (He avoids regular malapropos, but spews out endless rotund, ponderous, but essentially meaningless, empty phrases - a more common and less jarring rhetorical fault, but a fault nonetheless.)
I was referring simply and precisely to the relationship between confused speech and confused thinking/inadequate knowledge. This ought not to be, it definitely ought not to be, evidenced in the leader of your nation, particularly at this point in time. There are, for certain, an array of characteristics which are desireable in a leader, but the balance of those characteristics will change depending upon what leadership role is in question. But the presence of positive characteristics is not enough. Hitler and Savonarola were both resolved and self-certain.
Certainly a facility with words and rhetorical competence is, as you say, an indicator of a component of intelligence. However its presence does not guarantee all that we mean by 'intelligence' any more than its absence ensures the opposite. I do not mean to suggest that an absence of rhetorical skills is itself an indicator of anything desirable - character or otherwise.
I agree. The standard IQ measurement or any other such singular measurement details a sliver of what may be valuable in a leader or neighbor or citizen. But again you slip into talking about 'rhetorical skills' claiming Bush is without them and Kerry in possession. But you grossly misuse the term 'rhetorical' when you make that claim. Rhetoric is not speaking coherently or knowledgeably, it is speaking persuasively. For you (and many others) then, it is Bush who has rhetorical skills and Kerry who is without. Rhetoric has nothing to do with adequate understanding or competence in subject matter. It has everything to do with convincing people of something.

I do indeed take character, or something like it, in consideration in evaluating the 'meaning' of the words the candidates offer us. Moreover, we use the words and ideas as part of our evaluation of the character and the likely future actions of the men in question if put in a leadership position of great consequence.
OK, but only if you stipulate that 'meaning' means that for you. In the sense that what a person says is 'meaningless' if he has no intention of hewing close to the truth or doing what he says he'll do.

But how in God's name can you bring that criterion in as an aid to backing Bush? "I intend to be a uniter, not a divider". "I have no plans on my desk for war with Iraq". "WOMD? We've found them". Or the 'Clear Skies" initiative, or the "Healthy Forests" initiative. You, in the US, may never have had such an example of a Machiavellian understanding of what 'truth' means.

History (and literature) provides us many examples of leadership failure on the part of gifted figures. Yes, I'm a paradigm example. I believe the central lesson there is that both success and failure are often the result of a resonance between elements of the character of the leader and the situation he faces. No leader can be effective in every situation, and different situations call for different qualities. (Fabius and Caesar were both great Roman generals, but for very different - almost opposite - reasons.). A reluctance to take clear positions on issues is a very common fatal flaw in leaders.
Any port in a storm? Sure, there are bloody good reasons for firmness and resolve in leadership, but you entirely ignore how precisely and strategically this portrayal of Bush is a creation of the marketing machine which Rove has designed to forward that notion above all others. How true is it really? Do blondes have more fun? Perhaps the greatest rhetorician of classical times, Cicero, utterly failed in this area during the interregnum between the death of Caesar and the formation of the Second Triumvirate - he could not decide what to do and lost his life - and the Roman Republic -- for it (the spirits of my dead Jesuit teachers are smiling now.).
Well, certainty on the optimum shape for the republic wasn't an easy question. And he was up against a array of interests and forces which one man, even a Canadian, might tilt towards with little visible effect. Poor bugger. The soldiers who caught up with him hacked his hands off before killing him, just as a little message about the dangers of clear prose.

I think John Kerry would fail as a leader.