Debate Over "Is Bush An Idiot?"

But let's pretend for a moment that we don't know the answer.

Scarborough builds his case through jaw-dropping clips of Bushisms. But then he asks if inarticulateness is the same thing as stupidity.

John Fund of the neo-fascist Wall Street Journal editorial page insists they are different, and says we have to judge Bush by his policies rather than his incoherent words. Of course Fund can be answered with a simple 4-letter word: IRAQ. If there was a stupider Presidential policy in all of American history, I can't think of it. So if we apply the Forrest Gump test - stupid is as stupid does - Bush is clearly a lesser ape.

But it's silly to argue Bush is an utter moron. After all, he was clever enough to steal two elections and to trick two nations (U.S. and U.K.) into war.

Bush has certain kinds of intelligence. He's very smart about people - his cutesy trick of giving people nicknames charms the pants off many otherwise smart people. He also surrounds himself with extremely smart people like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and then, knowing his brains are inferior, gets out of their way.

The problem isn't that Bush can't think. The problem is how Bush thinks. And he thinks like a Mafiosi.

George Bush thinks he can force people into doing exactly what he wants through threats of physical violence.

He thinks he can do this because he sits on top of the most powerful military force the world has ever seen. This military force is backed up by the most pervasive spy network the world has ever seen - the NSA and the CIA. And it is backed up by the most effective propaganda machine the world has ever seen - FOX, MSNBC, and CNN.

The only problem with Bush's thinking is that the people he wants to dominate can think too.

As recent events have made clear, Bush's thinking is closest to rightwing Israeli thinking. Within the Middle East, Israel has overwhelming military superiority. Like Bush, Israeli leaders think they can use their military superiority to dominate their region.

The problem is that the people of the Middle East refuse to be dominated. And where there's a will, there's a way - whether it's car bombs, suicide bombs, or Katyusha rockets.

America should have learned that lesson in Vietnam. But Nixonites like Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the PNAC crowd convinced themselves that we lost Vietnam only because the "liberal media" stabbed Nixon in the back - not because millions of Vietnamese were willing to fight us with whatever weapons they could devise to drive us out.

So now we are learning the same painful and expensive lesson in Iraq.

Of course, we are learning it slowly - very slowly. If we listened to the soldiers who are fighting in Iraq, we would leave Iraq today. But we never hear their voices, thanks to Bush's propaganda machine of FOX, MSNBC, and CNN.

http://www.democrats.com/is-bush-an-idiot