Thursday, August 12, 2004

stupidity should hurt

Majority Report Radio has a report about Bush speaking to the minority journalism conference... it's so awkward that it's hard to listen to. I mean, more than usual. The journalists actually laugh at Bush's response to a Native American journalist's question on what Bush thought about the sovereignty of the Indian tribes in this country.

Reading his response doesn't do it justice... you need to hear it [MP3, 472KB] to fully appreciate it. It's like when someone asks Homer Simpson a question, and you can see that Homer is thinking "donuts... donuts... donuts...". Bush could hardly have done worse if he had stuck to the official administration reply ("go fuck yourself") to difficult questions.

Does anyone remember the first big Clinton press conference? He answered a bunch of questions rather intelligently, and then a reporter from New Zealand asked him if he would reconsider Bush I's take on New Zealand's anti-nuclear stance (New Zealand law prohibits nuclear powered naval vessels in their ports, and the US felt that this restriction showed New Zealand to be unfit for participation in the ANZUS military alliance). Clinton started to answer, looked thoughtful for a moment, and said "I must admit that I haven't given that question a moments thought."

Bush could learn something from this (assuming for the moment that he is capable of learning at all... work with me people) - a strong and sane leader isn't afraid to say "I don't know". Instead, Bush just spouts whatever comes to mind, or in many cases, sadly doesn't come to mind. Despite the rhetoric you hear from the Bushies about Kerry, Bush's tendency to speak without thinking results in "flip-flops" at best, babble at worst.

I'd like an intelligent president again (an intelligent electorate would be nice too), but failing that, could we at least have one that can fake it better? This is just fucking embarrasing.