George W. Bush is Smart • Hacker News Board

Re: George W. Bush is Smart

#21

Post by dmlorenzetti » Wed, Apr 24, 2013, 7:38 PM UTC

danielrm26 wrote: post #16

I think a lot of this confusion comes from what appears to be a mismatch between how he was when he was up and coming, vs. how he was in his later time as president. If you watch his older speeches and ad-hoc interactions, he was extremely sharp. And if you watch him later he seemed easily confused and steeped in dogma. I almost feel like he was poisoned, or beaten down, by the pressure of the presidency and the vari…

I read an analysis somewhere that claimed this degeneration was a symptom of alcohol and drug use in his early years. However, that analysis was on a partisan website, and I took it with a big grain of salt.

The main thing that struck me about the analysis was that it showed some of his earlier speeches, which I had never seen before, and he did indeed come across like a completely different person.

Re: George W. Bush is Smart

#22

Post by te_platt » Wed, Apr 24, 2013, 7:39 PM UTC

Politics aside, this is a good reminder on the importance of when confronted with an opposing viewpoint to consider "Why would a smart person think that?". They may in point of fact not be smart but it's too easy to use that as an excuse to stop thinking. Ever notice how hard it is to hear someone you respect say something you disagree with?

Re: George W. Bush is Smart

#23

Post by bicknergseng » Wed, Apr 24, 2013, 7:40 PM UTC

I wish media would stop portraying people or ideas in positions of prominence as "idiotic," or "insane," or what-have-you. All that does is drive political agendas by dividing people into us and them groups, while discouraging productive dialog.

That said, I wonder why, if Bush was as intelligent as this guy claims, he made so many catastrophically bad decisions. Does high intelligence not correlate with the ability to make intelligent decisions? I'm sure Kahneman would have an interesting analysis.

Re: George W. Bush is Smart

#24

Post by andrewtbham » Wed, Apr 24, 2013, 7:41 PM UTC

The reason I like HN is because stuff like this doesn't often get on here. This is flame bait. Unfortunately, I have been sucked in.

I don't think George Bush was stupid. I think he was incompetent and arrogant. The two biggest public examples are "Mission Accomplished" and "You're doing a good job Brownie." I think he built a bad team and promoted loyalty over competence. Like Condi Rice... Steve Jobs would have fired the national security advisor after 9/11. George Bush promoted her to Secretary of State. Terrible leader. I felt a sigh of relief when he left office.

Re: George W. Bush is Smart

#25

Post by russnewcomer » Wed, Apr 24, 2013, 7:43 PM UTC

This is a common story that many personal observers have told about Mr. Bush and other presidents, or CEOs. See, for example, http://theamericanscholar.org/dubya-and-me/ as a story from another observer about Mr. Bush. I remember a similar story about Bill Clinton, and really, anyone who has watched the Frost/Nixon tapes (not the movie) realizes how fiercely intelligent Nixon was, even if he didn't come across the best.

Then there's Steve Yegge's ( https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/AaygmbzV... ) comments about Jeff Bezos and Joel Spolsky's ( http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/06/16.html ) about meetings at Microsoft when Bill Gates was heavily involved.

I also have a friend who worked briefly as a speechwriter for the president of a Central Asian country, and he has said that before he went to work for the Palace, he thought that all of the people there were just lazy, unintelligent, corrupt, and didn't do anything. When he got there, he realized that they were some of the hardest working, smartest, and least corrupt people there.

I think that my point (and the point the author is trying to make) is that people in positions of high power are usually smarter and usually understand more than we who are outside that position and outside those corridors think that they do. I think anecdotes like the ones linked above go to prove that.

Re: George W. Bush is Smart

#26

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Apr 24, 2013, 7:44 PM UTC

An interesting read, although I think he has a bit of a chip on his shoulder.

The press and his opponents highlighted President Bush’s occasional stumbles when giving a speech. President Obama’s similar verbal miscues are ignored.

Oh nonsense, I could reel off a list of Obama gaffes from the present to back before he became President, largely because people who oppose the President repeat them endlessly. Those same people seem to think Obama's the first President ever to use a teleprompter, or at least are pretend they do.

Now, I never thought Bush was unintelligent; he ran his father's election campaigns, and you don't get to be governor of a large state, or President, without any smarts. I do think that Bush and many of his administration suffered from some alarming cognitive biases, and the smarter a person is the easier it is for them to fall into the trap of believing in their own inevitable correctness (I've done so myself many a time). I can't help feeling that he's treating the financial crisis and some structural deficit issues as unforeseeable events that just happened to fall out of the sky during the tenure of the Bush administration.

I suppose what I'm saying is that I consider Bush's tactical intelligence to be a lot higher than his strategic intelligence; he's a very skilled politician but a pretty poor show as a statesman. History may prove me wrong but I'd be willing to put a bet that it won't.