The Misunderestimated Man
How Bush chose stupidity.
By Jacob Weisberg
Posted Friday, May 7, 2004, at 6:54 AM PT
Adapted from the introduction to The Deluxe Election-Edition
Bushisms, published by Fireside
Books/Simon & Schuster. Reprinted with
permission; © 2004 Jacob Weisberg.
The question I am most frequently asked
about Bushisms is, "Do you
really think the president of the United
States is dumb?"
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is yes and no.
Quotations
collected over the years in Slate
may leave the impression that George W. Bush
is a dimwit. Let's face it: A man who cannot
talk about education without making a
humiliating grammatical mistake ("The
illiteracy level of our children are
appalling"); who cannot keep straight
the three branches of government ("It's
the executive branch's job to interpret
law"); who coins ridiculous words
("Hispanos," "arbolist,"
"subliminable,"
"resignate,"
"transformationed"); who habitually
says the opposite of what he intends
("the death tax is good for people from
all walks of life!") sounds like a
grade-A imbecile.
And if you don't care to pursue the matter
any further, that view will suffice. George
W. Bush has governed, for the most part, the
way any airhead might, undermining the fiscal
condition of the nation, squandering the
goodwill of the world after Sept. 11, and
allowing huge problems (global warming,
entitlement spending, AIDS) to metastasize
toward catastrophe through a combination of
ideology, incomprehension, and indifference.
If Bush isn't exactly the moron he sounds,
his synaptic misfirings offer a plausible
proxy for the idiocy of his presidency.
In reality, however, there's more to it.
Bush's assorted malapropisms, solecisms,
gaffes, spoonerisms, and truisms tend to
imply that his lack of fluency in English is
tantamount to an absence of intelligence. But
as we all know, the inarticulate can be
shrewd, the fluent fatuous. In Bush's case,
the symptoms point to a specific malady—some
kind of linguistic deficit akin to dyslexia—that
does not indicate a lack of mental capacity
per se.
Bush also compensates with his non-verbal
acumen. As he notes, "Smart comes in all
kinds of different ways." The
president's way is an aptitude for connecting
to people through banter and physicality. He
has a powerful memory for names, details, and
figures that truly matter to him, such as
batting averages from the 1950s. Bush also
has a keen political sense, sharpened under
the tutelage of Karl Rove.
What's more, calling the president a
cretin absolves him of responsibility. Like
Reagan, Bush avoids blame for all manner of
contradictions, implausible assertions, and
outright lies by appearing an amiable dunce.
If he knows not what he does, blame goes to
the three puppeteers, Cheney, Rove, and
Rumsfeld. It also breeds sympathy. We
wouldn't laugh at FDR because he couldn't
walk. Is it less cruel to laugh at GWB
because he can't talk? The soft bigotry of
low expectations means Bush is seen to
outperform by merely getting by. Finally,
elitist condescension, however merited, helps
cement Bush's bond to the masses.
But if "numskull" is an
imprecise description of the president, it is
not altogether inaccurate. Bush may not have
been born stupid, but he has achieved
stupidity, and now he wears it as a badge of
honor. What makes mocking this president fair
as well as funny is that Bush is, or at least
once was, capable of learning, reading, and
thinking. We know he has discipline and can
work hard (at least when the goal is reducing
his time for a three-mile run). Instead he
chose to coast, for most of his life, on
name, charm, good looks, and the easy access
to capital afforded by family connections.
The most obvious expression of Bush's
choice of ignorance is that, at the age of
57, he knows nothing about policy or history.
After years of working as his dad's
spear-chucker in Washington, he didn't
understand the difference between Medicare
and Medicaid, the second- and third-largest
federal programs. Well into his plans for
invading Iraq, Bush still couldn't get down
the distinction between Sunni and Shiite
Muslims, the key religious divide in a
country he was about to occupy. Though he
sometimes carries books for show, he either
does not read them or doesn't absorb anything
from them. Bush's ignorance is so transparent
that many of his intimates do not bother to
dispute it even in public. Consider the
testimony of several who know him well.
Richard Perle, foreign
policy adviser: "The first time I met
Bush 43 … two things became clear. One,
he didn't know very much. The other was that
he had the confidence to ask questions that
revealed he didn't know very much."
David Frum, former
speechwriter: "Bush had a poor memory
for facts and figures. … Fire a question
at him about the specifics of his
administration's policies, and he often
appeared uncertain. Nobody would ever enroll
him in a quiz show."
Laura Bush, spouse:
"George is not an overly introspective
person. He has good instincts, and he goes
with them. He doesn't need to evaluate and
reevaluate a decision. He doesn't try to
overthink. He likes action."
Paul O'Neill, former
treasury secretary: "The only way I can
describe it is that, well, the President is
like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people.
There is no discernible connection."
A second, more damning aspect of Bush's
mind-set is that he doesn't want to
know anything in detail, however important.
Since college, he has spilled with contempt
for knowledge, equating learning with
snobbery and making a joke of his own
anti-intellectualism. ("[William F.
Buckley] wrote a book at Yale; I read
one," he quipped at a black-tie event.)
By O'Neill's account, Bush could sit through
an hourlong presentation about the state of
the economy without asking a single question.
("I was bored as hell," the
president shot back, ostensibly in
jest.)
Closely related to this aggressive
ignorance is a third feature of Bush's
mentality: laziness. Again, this is a
lifelong trait. Bush's college grades were
mostly Cs (including a 73 in Introduction to
the American Political System). At the start
of one term, the star of the Yale football
team spotted him in the back row during the
shopping period for courses. "Hey!
George Bush is in this class!" Calvin
Hill shouted to his teammates. "This is
the one for us!" As governor of Texas,
Bush would take a long break in the middle of
his short workday for a run followed by a
stretch of video golf or computer solitaire.
A fourth and final quality of Bush's mind
is that it does not think. The president
can't tolerate debate about issues. Offered
an option, he makes up his mind quickly and
never reconsiders. At an elementary school, a
child once asked him whether it was hard to
make decisions as president. "Most of
the decisions come pretty easily for me, to
be frank with you." By leaping to
conclusions based on what he
"believes," Bush avoids
contemplating even the most obvious basic
contradictions: between his policy of tax
cuts and reducing the deficit; between his
call for a humble foreign policy based on
alliances and his unilateral assertion of
American power; between his support for
in-vitro fertilization (which destroys
embryos) and his opposition to fetal
stem-cell research (because it destroys
embryos).
Why would someone capable of being smart
choose to be stupid? To understand, you have
to look at W.'s relationship with father.
This filial bond involves more tension than
meets the eye. Dad was away for much of his
oldest son's childhood. Little George grew up
closer to his acid-tongued mother and acted
out against the absent parent—through
adolescent misbehavior, academic failure,
dissipation, and basically not accomplishing
anything at all until well into his 40s.
Dubya's youthful screw-ups and smart-aleck
attitude reflect some combination of protest,
plea for attention, and flailing attempt to
compete. Until a decade ago, his résumé
read like a send-up of his dad's. Bush senior
was a star student at Andover and Phi Beta
Kappa at Yale, where he was also captain of
the baseball team; Junior struggled through
with gentleman's C's and, though he loved
baseball, couldn't make the college lineup. Père
was a bomber pilot in the Pacific; fils
sat out 'Nam in the Texas Air National
Guard, where he lost flying privileges by not
showing up. Dad drove to Texas in 1947 to get
rich in the oil business and actually did;
Son tried the same in 1975 and drilled dry
holes for a decade. Bush the elder got
elected to Congress in 1966; Shrub ran in
1978, didn't know what he was talking about,
and got clobbered.
Through all this incompetent emulation
runs an undercurrent of hostility. In an
oft-told anecdote circa 1973, GWB—after
getting wasted at a party and driving over a
neighbor's trash can in Houston—challenged
his dad. "I hear you're lookin' for
me," W. told the chairman of the
Republican National Committee. "You want
to go mano a mano right here?"
Some years later at a state dinner, he told
the Queen of England he was being seated far
away because he was the black sheep of the
family.
After half a lifetime of this kind of
frustration, Bush decided to straighten up.
Nursing a hangover at a 40th-birthday
weekend, he gave up Wild Turkey, cold turkey.
With the help of Billy Graham, he put himself
in the hands of a higher power and began
going to church. He became obsessed with
punctuality and developed a rigid routine.
Thus did Prince Hal molt into an evangelical
King Henry. And it worked! Putting together a
deal to buy the Texas Rangers, the
ne'er-do-well finally tasted success. With
success, he grew closer to his father, taking
on the role of family avenger. This
culminated in his 1994 challenge to Texas
Gov. Ann Richards, who had twitted dad at the
1988 Democratic convention*.
Curiously, this late arrival at adulthood
did not involve Bush becoming in any way
thoughtful. Having chosen stupidity as
rebellion, he stuck with it out of
conformity. The promise-keeper,
reformed-alkie path he chose not only
drastically curtailed personal choices he no
longer wanted, it also supplied an
all-encompassing order, offered guidance on
policy, and prevented the need for much
actual information. Bush's old answer to hard
questions was, "I don't know and, who
cares." His new answer was, "Wait a
second while I check with Jesus."
A remaining bit of poignancy was his
unresolved struggle with his father.
"All I ask," he implored a reporter
while running for governor in 1994, "is
that for once you guys stop seeing me as the
son of George Bush." In his campaigns,
W. has kept his dad offstage. (In an
exceptional appearance on the eve of the 2000
New Hampshire primary, 41 came onstage and
called his son "this boy.") While
some describe the second Bush presidency as a
restoration, it is in at least equal measure
a repudiation. The son's harder-edged
conservatism explicitly rejects the old man's
approach to such issues as abortion, taxes,
and relations with Israel.
This Oedipally induced ignorance expresses
itself most dangerously in Bush's handling of
the war in Iraq. Dubya polished off his old
man's greatest enemy, Saddam, but only by
lampooning 41's accomplishment of
coalition-building in the first Gulf War.
Bush led the country to war on false
pretenses and neglected to plan the
occupation that would inevitably follow. A
more knowledgeable and engaged president
might have questioned the quality of the
evidence about Iraq's supposed weapons
programs. One who preferred to be intelligent
might have asked about the possibility of an
unfriendly reception. Instead, Bush rolled
the dice. His budget-busting tax cuts
exemplify a similar phenomenon, driven by an
alternate set of ideologues.
As the president says, we misunderestimate
him. He was not born stupid. He chose
stupidity. Bush may look like a well-meaning
dolt. On consideration, he's something far
more dangerous: a dedicated fool.
Correction,
May 7, 2004: This article originally
misstated the date of the Democratic
convention where Ann Richards twitted
President George H.W. Bush. It was 1988 not
1992. Return
to the corrected sentence.
Related in Slate
For more, see "The
Complete Bushisms."
Jacob Weisberg is editor of Slate
and co-author, with Robert E. Rubin, of In an Uncertain World.
