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The Emperor's New BrainGeorge W. and the stupidity issue.

By Michael Kinsley
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2000, at 3:00 AM ET

George W. Bush's handling of the stupidity issue has been nothing short of brilliant. A Martian watching the last presidential debate might have concluded that this man would be well-advised not to put quite so much emphasis on mental testing. But Earth-based commentators mostly shied away from such a conclusion. The rule seems to be that if a candidate can recite half a dozen policy positions by rote and name some foreign nations and leaders, one shouldn't point out that he sure seems a few whereases shy of an executive order.

The problem is probably laziness or complacence rather than actual inability, and journalists' reluctance to call someone who may well be our next commander in chief a moron is understandable. But if George W. Bush isn't a moron, he is a man of impressive intellectual dishonesty and/or confusion. His utterances frequently make no sense on their own terms. His policy recommendations are often internally inconsistent and mutually contradictory. Because it's harder to explain and impossible to prove cold, intellectual dishonesty doesn't get the attention that petty fibbing does, even though intellectual dishonesty indicts both a candidate's character and his policy positions. All politicians, including Al Gore, get away with more of it than they should. But George W. gets away with an extraordinary amount of it.

On Social Security, he continues to say he'll get the trillion dollars needed for his partial privatization "out of the surplus." Does he not understand that the current surplus is committed to future benefits, which will have to be cut to make the numbers work? Or does he understand and not care? When he compares the "paltry 2 percent" return on Social Security with an alleged 6 percent return on private investments, does he know he's leaving out that trillion dollars in one case and including it in the other? Or has this fact failed to penetrate despite repeated exposures?

When he calls the estate tax unfair, especially to farmers and small businesspeople, because it "taxes people twice"—meaning first when they earn the money and again when they die—is he aware that the value of farms and businesses in estates has almost never been taxed as income? Or have his advisers and fellow businessfolks deceived him on this basic point? When he criticizes his opponent for cutting taxes through the use of tax credits, then gives an example of his own tax plan in which most of the cut is through tax credits, is he fooling us? Or is someone fooling him?

When he repeatedly attacks his opponent for "partisanship," does he get the joke? When he blames the absence of a federal patients' rights law on "a lot of bickering in Washington, D.C.," has he noticed that the bickering consists of his own party, which controls Congress, blocking the legislation? When he summarizes, "It's kind of like a political issue as opposed to a people issue," does he mean to suggest anything in particular? Perhaps that politicians, when acting politically, ignore the wishes of the people?

How does he figure? If at all.

When he repeatedly says he has a "clear vision" about the Middle East but never gives a hint what it is, should we assume he has one he's not telling us about? When he complains that there is no general "strategy" for America's role in the world and promises that he'll ask his secretary of defense to come up with one pronto, should we be reassured? When he criticizes the Clinton administration for misusing American soldiers as social workers and promises to get other countries to use their soldiers that way instead, does he notice the logical flaw here?

In the debate, he declared, "I don't want to use food as a diplomatic weapon from this point forward. We shouldn't be using food. It hurts the farmers. It's not the right thing to do." When, just a few days later, he criticized legislation weakening the trade embargo on Cuba—which covers food along with everything else—had he rethought his philosophy on this issue? Or was there nothing to rethink?

When he promises that if he is elected, "we will have gag orders" on doctors and "100 percent" of people will "get the death tax," it's easy enough to figure out that he means we won't have gag orders and nobody will pay the estate tax. But what does he mean when he says that "insurance" is "a Washington term"?

When he promises "to have prescription drugs as an integral part of Medicare," does he comprehend that the exact distinction between his plan and his opponent's is that his is not an integral part of Medicare?

When he says that local control of schools is vital, criticizes his opponent for wanting to "federalize" education, promises as president to impose various requirements on schools, complains that federal money comes with too many "strings," calls for after-school funds to be used for "character education," endorses a federal law forbidding state lawsuits against teachers, and so on, does he have a path through this maze of contradictions? When he promises a federal school voucher program and then deflects criticism by saying "vouchers are up to states," is he being dense or diabolically clever?

In short, does George W. Bush mean what he says, or does he understand it? The answer can't be both. And is both too much to ask for?

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Michael Kinsley is a columnist for Time and the founding editor of Slate.
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Reader Comments from The Fray:


[Notes from the Fray Editor: Defenses of GWB: 1) grades at Yale 2) Gore says strange things too 3) doesn't matter if he makes verbal stumbles, he'll still be a good President. That covers 90% of the many many posts arguing with the article, though the death tax issue is given the usual going-over, for example by Will Allen here.

On the pro-Gore side--also many, many posts--Joseph Perez has his own list of Bush problems here, and Aaron Lisman made an enjoyable attempt to distinguish between the two parties, concluding that Republicans under their own religious rules are "going straight to hell".]


I'm not a special fan of Bush's. But one reason why the "stupid" charge won't stick to him is that those held up as intellectual giants in American politics are so frequently in the habit of saying things that are obviously dumb. We have a ruling class (and that's what it is) that, frankly, isn't very bright. Oh, they have good SAT scores, but anyone who has ever sat in on a faculty meeting knows that that is no guarantee of judgment. Fortunately, the academic and political elites in this country are just a froth floating on top. We can afford their stupidities, because they just don't matter much. Perhaps what they hate about Bush is that he's a reminder of this.

--A.G.Android

(To reply, click here.)


I've wondered why analysis of the 3 debates has sounded more like drama criticism than political analysis. Do the media hate Gore, or are they afraid to analyze his ideas and statements, or is the analysis so poll driven that the media doesn't care what Bush says? Those seem to be the options, but they are all depressing options. Thank you for the trenchant analysis

--Tim Matthewson

(To reply, click here.)


I don't know why people are saying that Bush is stupid. He is not. He is a very smart man and here is why I think so. He got together the most conniving communications teams to put out information that he was stupid. The Gore camp jumped on it as well as the media because that is what they expect form Republicans: bumbling, Quayle-like, Ford-like figures. They were on Bush's every verbal mistake. Bush knows what his shortcomings are and he punched them up. Of course he doesn't know how to run a Presidential office but you know what, he has the best people money can buy to clean him up, spruce him up, tutor him, school him and be around him to make that apparent stupidity look like a virtue. Bush hasn't really done anything for himself yet. He's got his father's administration behind him, he's got the RNC's Communication team running interference, he's had Cheney on his butt daily to school him on names and dates relevant to where he is, he's got his mom and wife out tooting his horn and making him look like "America's son." He's got the best speech writers to write what we want to hear, all he has to do is mouth the words. Bush dumb? Not on your life.

--Suzy from California

(To reply, click here.)

(10/27)

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