IN THE COMMENTS: Meade says:
...and when my campaign and what's left of my manhood gets to Wisconsin, there'll be one smart-mouthed little lady law perfessor who'd better be GONE!
Uh... uh... Ann something.
November 16, 2011
I'm in the NYT, suggesting that Rick Perry is... maybe... dumb.
Here.
IN THE COMMENTS: Meade says:
IN THE COMMENTS: Meade says:
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79 comments:
Simple Demo slogan. Progressives are intelligent; conservatives are stupid. Perfect example of the defamation: Richard Hofstadter, "Anti-intellectualism in American Life."
You see, then, that Obama is brilliant by definition, despite the truth.
Since when do you care about intelligence in a president? You still think that George W. was one of the best presidents evah!
You still think that George W. was one of the best presidents evah!
Cite please.
...and when my campaign and what's left of my manhood gets to Wisconsin, there'll be one smart-mouthed little lady law perfessor who'd better be GONE!
Uh... uh... Ann something.
Cite please.
You're kidding, right? You want me to provide evidence that Althouse was, and continues to be, a huge fan of, and apologist for, George W. Bush. You've been around here long enough that she had an excuse for every mistake of the Bush era, including the torture of U.S. citizens and lies that led to the Iraq war.
Shorter Frderson:
My source is somwhere in my lower colon.
You made a very specific statement, Freder. I'll post it again for your convenience.
You still think that George W. was one of the best presidents evah!
Regardless of the platitudes you're reaching for otherwise, I'm asking for specific info you may have that AA thinks Bush was the best president we've evah had.
Perry wants the Texas experience to metastasize. That is a domination thought... almost as radical as Obama's redistributed incomes at Animal Farm USA.
Perry will act dumb as a rock if that will get him the starring role in Texas-USA, a comedy of errors.
And once Ricky wins, then the standard issue Army uniforms will change to 10 gallon hats and snakeskin boots.
So calling Ricky dumb is like calling Cecil B. DeMille dumb.
Perry declined to debate White in the last gubernatorial campaign. Bill White, the Democrat Perry faced, went from being an arguably nondescript lawyer to someone who threatened the position of Rick Perry and pivoted, if you will, from a position at the Department of Energy, a department that, though Perry wanted to remember, Perry might also have wanted to forget as it was associated with a rival and rivals have now, perhaps again, become something Perry would rather forget about. It's not so much intelligence. I suppose we want in a president someone more with the attitude of Muhammad Ali; he didn't seem to need to forget about his challengers. This also gets back to the masculinity argument.
And welcome to the opening salvo of the 2012 election edition of "Cruel Neutrality"
Well, cruel at any rate. Your mileage may vary on the neutral part of it.
Dumb? Maybe so.
But the smartest guys in the room have Sanduskied the economy, and now stand a little embarrassed, though denying guilt.
Their advice is more showers.
Sooper geniuses all.
This also gets back to the masculinity argument.
If the left were in it for masculinity, they would have elected Hillary.
I'm asking for specific info you may have that AA thinks Bush was the best president we've evah had.
First off, I didn't say "best", I said "one of the best".
Secondly, by deliberately misspelling "ever", adding an exclamation point, and not enclosing the statement in quotes, I thought it would be obvious to all but the dimmest of us (but then again, look who I am explaining this too), that the "quote" was meant to be hyperbolic.
No I can't find a cite where Althouse explicitly calls George W. Bush "one of the best presidents evah!" But she has certainly spent over ten years (since 9/11) lauding him and telling us what a good and wonderful man, as well as a what a good president, he is.
I'm asking for specific info you may have that AA thinks Bush was the best president we've evah had.
First off, I didn't say "best", I said "one of the best".
Secondly, by deliberately misspelling "ever", adding an exclamation point, and not enclosing the statement in quotes, I thought it would be obvious to all but the dimmest of us (but then again, look who I am explaining this too), that the "quote" was meant to be hyperbolic.
No I can't find a cite where Althouse explicitly calls George W. Bush "one of the best presidents evah!" But she has certainly spent over ten years (since 9/11) lauding him and telling us what a good and wonderful man, as well as a what a good president, he is.
So, not just bad snark, but poorly worded? I freely admit I'm among the dimmest (thanks for the recognition, btw), but at least my snark works. Yours is mangled and tragic.
How many stories were ther in the NYT implying or declaring that Reagan had never been very bright even before senility set in? Was it dozens, or hundreds?
Surely, everyone on the Upper West Side knew that Reagan was a dolt! And the NYT also said so. What more would anyone need to know?
I think that Rick Perry guy is, like, really too dumb to be president! You know?
Pogo sinks the three pointer.
It's the "smart" guys who cause the most damage.
Mark O said...
Simple Demo slogan. Progressives are intelligent; conservatives are stupid
=============
Conservatives are by and large smarter than liberals other than the Ivy/NYC/SF elites. The progressives, remember, the AVERAGE Progressive ....is someone likely drawn from liberal arts students, government workers, undereducated minorities.
Hardly a brain trust there...
But some "movement" conservatives do embarass us considerably - by *hearting* really stupid red meat tossing candidates, denying evolution, celebrating ignorance, and calling the Wall Street ripoff artists "The Jobs Creators".
Well, under Perry and his predecessor -- George something or another -- Texas has become almost the entire engine of job growth in the USA. When you contrast how Texas has done under allegedly dumb governors with how California and New York are doing under (allegedly) really smart guys like Brown and Cuomo and Spitzer, well ... maybe what blue states need to recover their footing is to elect "dumb" governors for a couple terms.
I admit that my first notion was that a law professor would obviously be antagonistic towards a governor who introduced malpractice caps and "loser pays" -- if stuff like that spread to Wisconsin then her students would lose their dreams of ambulance-chasing their way to McMansions and luxury cars.
But I think I agree with the Professor -- the lapse almost certainly means that Perry didn't really think about the changes that need to be made to the federal government. And that's something he needs to do before he announces that a whole bunch of agencies will be "gone."
I think if that's all the effort Perry puts into it, the new iron triangle of entrenched special interests, politicians of both parties that need to placate those interests, and bureaucracies with an insatiable desire to grow to absurd sizes would chew him up and spit him out.
Well, Rick's smart enough to stay out of the way of the job creation engine in Texas. And hold the Dems in check while they try to put sand in the gears.
"lauding him and telling us what a good and wonderful man, as well as a what a good president, he is."
George W. Bush IS a good man. And he was a good president. He received poor intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and it was dumb to let go out the photo of him flying over Katrina. Intelligently, he acknowledges those mistakes in his book.
I agree with Meade.
And it should be noted that Bush at least looked out of the window -- when Barack Obama flew over the flooded areas of the Mississippi River valley last May on his way to a fund-raiser in Texas he couldn't even be bothered to go to the window and look.
You thought Obama was brilliant. What's that say about your current opinion?
Here are all 286 posts of mine with the "Bush" tag. Check them out. See if they say anything that can be summarized as "George W. was one of the best presidents evah!" See if you can find "an excuse for every mistake of the Bush era, including the torture of U.S. citizens and lies that led to the Iraq war."
Your memories are a crazy cloud, Freder. They're all about what you believed you saw, what you feared, what you wanted. See if it's possible to read with all that infusion of you. See if accurate reading is within your capacity.
On the other hand, Barack Obama thinks Hawaii is in Asia. Which is sort of dumb.
Well, he is kinda dumb or at least a slow learner. He was a democrat in Texas until the 1990's when he was in his 40's.
Either intelligence is a negative indicator of the economic success of an administration, or it has nothing to do with it, or intelligence is not what academics think it is. It has to be one of those, or all three.
Considering how wrong academics often are about free market economics, while at the same time judging themselves the most intelligent, I'm guessing they don't know what intelligence really is, but they do have a hell of a monopoly going on selling the stuff.
Perry is smart enough to be good president. Give me a man with decisiveness and an eye for talent with merely above-average intelligence over the indecisive, dithering, high-IQ fellow any day.
The problem is that Perry is not smart enough to decisively beat Obama in today's media climate.
So did his campaign get to Wisconsin yet? Is it on trail just a day or so from town?
This is like "High Noon" or "High Plains Drifter. Is deputy Meade on the roof? Steady there. Let him make make his move to draw first or it's not legal.
"Your memories are a crazy cloud."
I like that one.
No I can't find a cite where Althouse explicitly calls George W. Bush "one of the best presidents evah!"
So in other words, you were lying.
We're all shocked by this development.
Freder Frederson said...
First off, I didn't say "best", I said "one of the best".
You lied, loser.
glenn's point about Perry being smart enough not to mess with success is a good one. Willie couldn't leave well enough alone and felt his genius hadn't been suitably displayed until he gave us subprime mortgages.
Freder Frederson said...
Since when do you care about intelligence in a president? You still think that George W. was one of the best presidents evah!
At least Dubya knew you pronounce it corman, not corpseman, it was the Transcontinental, not the InterContinental, Railroad, and we have 50, not 57, not 60, not 59 (60 minus HI which is apparently in Asia), states.
A Harvard degree should be an automatic disqualifier for government service.
They clearly teach the most dangerous and erroneous theories this side of Lysenkoism.
Their graduates do the same dumb shit over and over. They're all multisyllabic, and their pants are well-creased, but snake oil crapola it is.
I want one of the Presidential debate questions to be - "Mr President, how come half of the jobs you created wound up in Texas?" A great question from the redoubtable Iowahawk.
Perry may not be the brightest bulb in the firmament, but at least he's joined the head of a parade, instead of a rout.
"Since when do you care about intelligence in a president?"
As she voted for Little Black Jesus, I'd say the evidence for her caring speaks for itself.
Since you can't justify your vote on the merits of the SCOAMF's supposed intelligence, I expect the excuse for your vote to be damp panties or fused synapses or BDS or some other nonsense.
I want a politician to be reasonably smart but not so caught up in their own intelligence that they're intimidated by having other bright people around them.
None of the presidents during my lifetime are what I would call "dumb" but some have been better at finding good people to advise them than others have been. Good ideas won't come from the ones that feel that they have to be the smartest person in the room.
It's said that in football the best line-backers are B+ students--smart enough to instantly analyze the play and move to the point of attack for the tackle, but not so A+++smart that they play Hamlet in "over-determining" (thought I'd throw in some academic-speak) the whole thing and stand frozen in in-action. Perry completed USAF pilot training.At the time he did so only 50% of those applying (a highly select group to begin with) were selected and the wash-out rate for those who were accepted into UPT in those days was 60%. Clearly Perry is smarter than your average bear..
See if they say anything that can be summarized as "George W. was one of the best presidents evah!" See if you can find "an excuse for every mistake of the Bush era, including the torture of U.S. citizens and lies that led to the Iraq war."
Well, this one comes close, especially when you add in some of the comments by you in the thread.
As for supporting torture. I know you don't like that word (you refuse to define it), but show me one post where you even mildly criticized Bush for approving torture of detainees. And of course I am referring to your infamous comment in a thread on Padilla when you justified and excused putting blacked out goggles on him when he was being escorted to the dentist. (You claimed that there was a legitimate fear that he could have blinked messages to Al Qaeda confederates)
Well, this one comes close, especially when
Spoken like a true child.
where you even mildly criticized Bush for approving torture of detainees
Bush approved no such thing.
And if this isn't unqualified praise for Bush, I don't know what is:
"Bush — despite his reputation for simplicity — did understand the complexity of the problem, and he had a solution. There was stability. After posturing about "change" in his political campaign, Barack Obama seemed to think that he could apply the immense power he had won to changing things in the real world. And there is no blaming Bush for failing to know the difference between what sounds good and what works well.
George Bush — the extreme contrast to Barack Obama — knew that he was doing a lot of things that didn't sound good and left him open to harsh criticism, but he made a decision early on to accept that and to do what he thought was right. He didn't get enough credit for that. Maybe he will some day. But he also avoided the torrent of justified criticism that would have fallen on him if there had been further terrorist attacks."
That was from Jan. 31, 2010.
Somebody tell Freder that Pelosi & Co didn't think waterboarding was torture when they signed off on it to see how much could be gotten out of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Of course, this was when they were all scared purple their lazy asses were on the line and somebody might send another jetliner crashing into the Capitol.
Once they felt safe enough to use it as a sleazy, hypocritical method of undermining the War on Terror for purely partisan political gain, only then was it reprehensible.
Bush approved no such thing.
He made up a new definition of torture which is contrary to the definition in U.S. and international law (including treaties to which we are a party). Althouse consistently refused to even address the definition of torture.
It is like saying Paul Ryan is trying to save Medicare, just because he is calling the voucher program he wants to replace Medicare with "Medicare".
He made up a new definition of torture
No he didn't, you silly little liar.
Freder Frederson said...
And if this isn't unqualified praise for Bush, I don't know what is:
Notice how
You still think that George W. was one of the best presidents
Became "Unqualified praise"
Want to guess why you did that you silly little girl?
That was from Jan. 31, 2010.
That is a compare and contrast between the previous POTUS and the current. It is hardly holding the previous POTUS up as the best evah against all those that came before and after him. Please try again.
Praising some things that a president does is not equal to thinking he is one of the best presidents ever.
Even when you disagree with someone on most things, you should be able to find a couple of things that you agree with. If not, you are too caught up in your own ideas to really consider theirs.
Became "Unqualified praise"
Fine, you and Ann have convinced me. Ann didn't think was a good president. She personally thinks that Bush was a mediocre president and wishes that someone else besides Kerry had run against him so that she could have voted for a reasonable alternative in 2008.
Rereading her posts she was consistently critical of Bush and his decisions. Her claim to "cruel neutrality" was well justified.
It turns out Mick is right!!!
Thanks to Howard Portnoy for pointing this out, but if the United States is in North America and Obama himself believes that Hawaii is in Asia (as he asserted yesterday in a speech) and not North America, then Obama is basically agreeing that he was born outside the United States.
Q.E.D.
Praising some things that a president does is not equal to thinking he is one of the best presidents ever.
Some things?! Ann provided a link to 296 posts. Point out the ones after 9/11 that reveal that she had serious policy differences with Bush.
Freder Frederson said...
Some things?! Ann provided a link to 296 posts. Point out the ones after 9/11 that reveal that she had serious policy differences with Bush.
But again, you can provide no evidence for your idiotic assertion that Ann thought Bush was one of the best Presidents ever.
So you're reduced to providing an example of praise and pretending there were no policy differences.
You do realize all the other dipshit "facts" you post fall into the same category as your assertion you made re: Ann & Bush in this thread, right?
It is like saying Paul Ryan is trying to save Medicare, just because he is calling the voucher program he wants to replace Medicare with "Medicare".
If you actually think that Medicare can remain intact, you can't possibly be familiar with the most basic facts about the program.
There's no way to "save" a program that's guaranteed to explode in the future. You can impose the kinds of caps the Dems favor, or you can institute a Ryan-style plan. Period.
If your point is that Ryan doesn't propose to save Medicare™, but just Medical-Care-for-Retirees, well, your pedantry is duly noted.
And I’m gonna ride into Omaha on a horse,
Out to the country club and the golf course,
Carry The New York Times, shoot a few holes, blow their minds
-Bob Dylan
@Freder, there are precisely two ways to save Medicare: Ryan's plan or some variation thereof, or health care rationing. Clearly Obama comes down on the side of rationing, as evidenced by his appointment of Donald Berwick -- an outspoken advocate of rationing -- to head up the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and his recent nomination of Henry Aaron -- another advocate of health care rationing -- to head up the Social Security Advisory Board. I presume that you and other Democrats are in full agreement with that as there has been no push-back from within the Democrat ranks.
But speaking as a 65 year old, I will do everything in my power to back Republicans in 2012 and for the foreseeable future.
Obama is so intelligent even the famed Lovenstein Institute can't measure it.
USAF pilots like Perry and Bush are a kind of athlete. They have to pass rigorous academic tests to get in, but they are trained to the point that their body reacts automatically without their thinking about it. I worked for several USAF commanders who were highly intelligent but almost inarticulate verbally. The verbal part of their brains were devoted to controlling their muscles. Whether they are good leaders or decision makers depends on other factors.
".... Secondly, by deliberately misspelling "ever", adding an exclamation point, and not enclosing the statement in quotes, I thought it would be obvious to all but the dimmest of us (but then again, look who I am explaining this too), that the "quote" was meant to be hyperbolic...."
So in other words, you didn't have anything of substance to contribute. But then again look who I am talking to.
But then again look who I am talking to.
Why do people keep talking to me?
Oh, for heaven's sakes.
I have no doubt that GOP voters are going to declare Perry too "dumb" for the nom. The only guy in the race with a real record of conservative accomplishments in an executive position. Anybody with that kind of record and a Texas twang is dumb. This is just so pathetically old and self-destructive that it's beyond words.
It is much smarter to trick oneself into voting for Obama or Mitt Romney!
The GOP should definitely continue along this line of thinking until they are indistinguishable from the Democrats except for their snappy social con catch phrases. Those are brilliant.
I don't have a party.
You have to admit, Darcy, even given everything you say, that freeze up in the debate didn't help him one iota. It's the sort of thing you wish your happens to your opponents, but never really does.
Yes, it was awkward and embarrassing, Scott. I'm not using a momentary lapse in train of thought to assess a man's intelligence, though. But what do I know?
"Anybody with that kind of record and a Texas twang is dumb."
Darcy, did you ever hear the old Lenny Bruce routine about southern / western accents? "The Germans we've forgiven twice, the Japs once, but we've kicked the South's ass ever since the Civil War." He was using LBJ as an example:
"Folks, Ah thank nucl'r fission - "
"Shaddap. You don't think nothin', schmuck."
LOL, Christopher. Exactly.
I don't think you can use that lapse to inveigh against his intelligence.
I think you can use it to question how tightly he holds to his campaign proposals.
It's the height of lazy thinking to proclaim a politician 'dumb'. Dumb politicians are the ones you've never heard of. To get elected to a statewide or national office requires a certain kind of smarts that I can admire regardless of the party. The politician might hold "dumb" ideas, but that's a far cry from being dumb.
@MadMan, does health care rationing qualify in your opinion as a good idea, or as a dumb one?
And are you in your sixties yet?
I am not in my 60s. I am a child of the 60s.
Health care rationing is a dumb idea. However, health care costs and availability have to be addressed in some way. I give politicians credit for breaking the status quo. Getting from here to the ideal there is rarely a straight line, especially when the ideal there is a moving target. I'm not sure what the ideal there is. Is anyone?
@MadMan
Unfortunately,I doubt we'll be able to "address" the health care cost problem if by addressing it we mean believing it is rational to ask for *more* government involvement with regard to a solution. Government involvement is a large part of why we are in this mess.
More government involvement is just a jog in one direction on the line from here to there.
I'm not sure if voters will permit a jog back in the other direction. I'd like to think they would, but politicians are pretty good at promising things we can't really afford if it gets them 4! More! Years!
And I'll add: We might be able to afford it, but it would mean cutting other things that people might object to.
If by affording "it" you mean health care, I don't want the government to afford it. I want their hands offa it.
;-)
You're kidding, right? You want me to provide evidence that Althouse was, and continues to be, a huge fan of, and apologist for, George W. Bush.
When one makes a claim, evidence of the claim is usually offered without others having to request it.
Secondly, by deliberately misspelling "ever", adding an exclamation point, and not enclosing the statement in quotes, I thought it would be obvious to all but the dimmest of us (but then again, look who I am explaining this too), that the "quote" was meant to be hyperbolic.
...hyperbole you attempted to back up, unsuccessfully, before deciding it was "hyperbole".
But she has certainly spent over ten years (since 9/11) lauding him and telling us what a good and wonderful man, as well as a what a good president, he is.
One can be a good man and not be a good President. Not always synonymous.
It is like saying Paul Ryan is trying to save Medicare, just because he is calling the voucher program he wants to replace Medicare with "Medicare".
If we do nothing, it dies. You can't ignore math.
The Democrats have, thus far, decided to do nothing...except raid it to pay for Obamacare.
So, uh, WHO, exactly, is killing Medicare?
Hawaii is in Asia so it is not one of the 57 states.I will tell it again in austrian, the language spoken in Austria.
I'm in the NYT, suggesting that Rick Perry is... maybe... dumb.
Interesting. But, Miss Obama voter, you'll never ask that question of yourself. Just like the MSM. Be brave:
American Idol, Lady GaGa, Madonna, Obama (you're a "rube" according to your buddy, Glenn) a feminist (who, by all indications, probably got where she is with some special pleading) I could go on.
Really - are YOU smart, Ann?
You duck almost every serious challenge to your thinking, so I have reason to wonder,...
So Rick is dumb... just got a degree from A&M. Flew transports in the Air Force.. Governor of Texas.
Bush was dumb.. got M.B.A. from Harvard, flew F102 fighters, Governor of Texas...
Must be that Governor thing the NYT thinks makes them dumb.
But we all know Al Gore is super smart. He graduated with B.A. from Harvard in government and was a journalist in Vietnam!
If Rick was dumb at all it was backing Al Gore when Rick was a Democrat. But Rick says he saw the light when Al went off the deep Global Warming end.
Well, the Bloggingheads, this time, was fantastic.
Glenn Loury hit the nail on the head ... when he said Perry should have listed WHAT THE AGENCIES DO ... that he wants to cut. Instead of trying to memorize "chairs."
As to "YOU'RE FIRED" ... Donald Trump OWNS THAT! And, he's said "if he were president, he'd have experienced businessmen advising him." Politicians, and their prey would get FIRED.
So, Perry was on the right track. But his advisers stink. If he had Donald Trump's advisors ... he sure would be able to tell ya whose testicles he'd snip off.
It's not about "dumb."
Americans are turned off by "egg heads." Dukakis lost. Adlai Stevenson lost. And, Obama has managed to take a giant crap on Harvard's credential.
Yeah. People thought Obama was smart. Lots of people no longer think this at all. I'd even bet lots of people think Obama got used. Because he could appeal to voters, untried.
Jimmy Carter did, too. So it's not a black or white thing.
But "just any condendah" doesn't guarantee the republicans a single thing.
At the GOP convention? Maybe, it will be operated as a "slam dunk?"
Maybe, it will go wild?
And, there's also the possibility that Sarah Palin is just waiting to roll out her ONE NATION bus ... After we find out who gets to "race for 3rd place" ... when we get to know the GOP pick.
A funny thing on this "Obama is bright," meme.
Back when the youthful Obama was at Occidental ... he was photographed smoking a joint. And, going to a college that is NOT famous for "intellectualism" at all.
The moves to Columbia and Harvard? They sure looked like "insider trading." For all we know Obama got supported by the Saud's?
The Saud's own the Bush Family. So why not having them grooming Obama?
Obama does everything he can to hide his Muslim connections. And, you can't find any of his records!
If he was really a brilliant student ... wouldn't you have seen all his A's?
As Sherlock Holmes would say: "It doesn't appear that Obama was all that bright during his student years."
"Bright" comes early.
Rick Perry isn't a good pick for the top spot.
And, yes, Ann, his brain freeze dissolved his leadership acumen.
And, then Herman Cain went south.
You know you can pick a contendah who is NOT one of the 8!
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