The Incredibly, Unbelievably, Stupendously, Incurious George Bush

By Cenk Uygur
Created Dec 9 2006 - 9:20am

Never has there been a public official more unequipped to be President of
the United States of America than George W. Bush. The man is simply not up
to the job. Even if he really wanted to be or cared to be an effective
president, he ... could ... not ... do ... it.

He can't do it on a boat, he can't do it with a (pet) goat. He can't do it
in the Green Zone, he can't do it back at home. This man cannot be a good
president, Sam-I-Am.

He flat out does not have the intellectual capacity to carry out the
requirements of the job. This is not some mean-spirited speculation as to
the level of his intelligence. The facts are in. There is nothing left to
speculate on. And today we have yet another example of his sheer inability
to form a cognitive thought.

Lawrence Eagleburger is a Republican. He was the Secretary of State under
George H.W. Bush and was a prominent figure in the Reagan administration. He
is a party stalwart and one of the bastions of the Republican establishment.
This man obviously wants George W. Bush to succeed. When he met with
President Bush, along with all of the members of the Iraq Study Group, he
said that after they presented their findings - Bush asked no questions. [1]

Eagleburger remarked, "I don't recall, seriously, that he asked any
questions."

Stop. Think about that for a second. [2] There are 79 recommendations made
by the group. They took nine months and talked to everyone involved about
the situation in Iraq. They have interesting, sometimes controversial
positions, some of which Bush theoretically agrees and disagrees with - and
he asked absolutely no questions. Not one.

That is beyond unbelievable. You would have to be stupendously stupid,
mentally stultified and intellectually inoperative not to be able to come up
with one question to this group who has presented the most important report
of your presidency to you.

No one can be that callous. Forget his legacy, there are people dying on the
ground every day. Even if you don't care at all about your own presidency
and you don't care about the thousands of Iraqis dying every month, you have
to care about the American servicemen and women you sent in to die in Iraq.
You'd have to be inhuman not to care about that. No one could be callous
enough to receive incredibly important recommendations on how to rescue this
mission and not ask a single question.

You know why he didn't ask anything? Because he's stupid. He is afraid that
he is going to ask a dumb question, or it's possible that he doesn't even
have the capacity to formulate one in his tiny, little mind. So, instead he
sits there like a bump on a log. The ISG members must have been at a loss
for what to do. I can't imagine any of them anticipated that there would be
no interaction with the president. That he would just sit there with a dumb
look on his face and not make one comment or have one question.

That might explain some of their harsh comments [3] about the president
afterward. Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson intimidated that Bush is
so stubborn that he stinks of it. The dude is clearly aggravated.

Later Bush actually bragged about reading the report. He said that most
reports don't get read by anyone in Washington, but that he went through the
trouble of reading this one. Would you like cracker, Mr. President?

Bush often brags about doing the simplest things related to his job, like
meeting with the commanders. He is often fond of saying that he has met with
his commanders and his advisers. Of course!!! That's what you're supposed to
do. Everyone, except you apparently, already knew that. That is the
beginning of the job, not the end.

If this was just one incident, you could rightfully say I might be blowing
it out of proportion, but this is part of a very clear pattern in most of
the important moments in George Bush's presidency.

Remember the famous meeting before Hurricane Katrina where federal officials
warned that the levees might not hold. His response? Not one question. [4]

Remember what Paul O'Neill, the former Treasury Secretary, said about him
during their first one-on-one meeting. After O'Neill spoke for an hour about
all of the important budgetary and domestic issues in the country, he turned
to the president. His response? Not one question. [5]

Remember when he received the Presidential Daily Briefing warning "Bin Laden
Determined to Strike in U.S." His response? Not one question. [6] But in
this case, to rub salt into the wounds, he added to the CIA official giving
the dire warnings, "All right. You've covered your ass, now."

Wow.

His contempt for and ignorance of the necessities of the job are stunning.
At first when Michael Moore made a big deal about how President Bush read
"My Pet Goat" for seven minutes after he was told the nation was under
attack, I thought he was being a bit unfair.

I thought at the time that Bush was thinking about what to do and didn't
want to freak out the kids by rushing out of the room. But now the weight of
experience leads me to realize that it was no such thing. The tiny wheels
inside that vacuous mind were turning and churning, and in the end he had
nothing to show for it. Zip. He had no idea what to do.

He didn't ask Andy Card who attacked us? What hit the buildings? What
precautions we should take? What actions and reactions we should engage in
immediately? How do we go about defending ourselves? What's happening on the
ground in New York?

When he was told we were under attack on 9/11, what was his response? Not
one question.

The Young Turks [7]

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson