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George W. Bush is Smart

keithhennessey.com

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Re: George W. Bush is Smart

#2

Post by headShrinker »

Smarter than most? Maybe. That's not saying much. The president needed to understand fractional banking, highly-complex social-economic models, world politics and most of all he needed to know the people he was dealing with. He didn't understand these things. His presidency is littered with all the evidence. I could give you a list of the screw ups but we all know them. The question is did he understand the economic collapse as it was happening, no, he didn't. It took economists a few months to understand.

Re: George W. Bush is Smart

#3

Post by [deleted] »

headShrinker wrote: post #2

Smarter than most? Maybe. That's not saying much. The president needed to understand fractional banking, highly-complex social-economic models, world politics and most of all he needed to know the people he was dealing with. He didn't understand these things. His presidency is littered with all the evidence. I could give you a list of the screw ups but we all know them. The question is did he understand the economic…

[deleted]

Re: George W. Bush is Smart

#6

Post by Vivtek »

Pfft. If he understood what he was doing, I hate him more. So far I've always given him the benefit of the doubt when considering the results of his actions on 9/11, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, with the banking crisis, with Katrina, with secrecy, with making torture American policy, with No Child Left Behind, with the Patriot Act, and with turning a surplus into the worst recession in decades.

I'd hate to see what a mess a real genius would have made with all that.

All this story shows me is a man preternaturally gifted in terms of understanding the people around him, and bullshitting.

Re: George W. Bush is Smart

#7

Post by jamesaguilar »

I seem to recall him getting bad grades in school too, right. I'm not totally convinced by this article. In any case, does it really matter how smart the guy was when he made so many really bad decisions on important issues like attacking countries for no reason?

Re: George W. Bush is Smart

#8

Post by loudmax »

It shouldn't be a surprise that GW Bush is smarter than his public image. By the end of his second term, his public image was that he is a complete moron. So the bar is set pretty low.

But the speeches and stumbles are only part of the reason for his poor public image. More significant is that his policies and decisions were catastrophically disastrous. We're still recovering from the mess that he made.

Re: George W. Bush is Smart

#9

Post by sp332 »

Vivtek wrote: post #6

Pfft. If he understood what he was doing, I hate him more. So far I've always given him the benefit of the doubt when considering the results of his actions on 9/11, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, with the banking crisis, with Katrina, with secrecy, with making torture American policy, with No Child Left Behind, with the Patriot Act, and with turning a surplus into the worst recession in decades. I'd hate to see what a mes…

You should check out his autobiographical book Decision Points, wherein he apologizes for a lot of that crap.
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