Ayoon wa Azan (Up to the Readers)
Jihad Al Khazen Al-Hayat 2004/10/15
Is He a Dope? This was the Los Angeles Times' editorial headline last week. I put it aside, and then I remembered it with the uproar following the news saying that the President was hiding a radio receiver under his jacket during his first debate with John Kerry.
I will go back to the alleged receiver in a while; however, I have a question: would anyone have believed this were it not for Dubya's legendary stupidity? In other words: would anyone believe that there was a receiver dictating Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton what to say?
The editorial said, "Although neither group likes to say so, some Americans who support President Bush and many who don't support him have concluded over four years that he may not be very bright."
I tend to believe the books by people from inside the administration concerning this subject; for he may, or may not, be dumb. However, he certainly lacks the necessary intellectual curiosity for his position; he does not know, and does not want to know (and if he is dumb, he cannot learn).
In the absence of intellectual curiosity, Bush's ideologies turned into principles and then into stubbornness, because he did not change or adjust them in the face of strong proof about the mistaken justifications for the war on Iraq.
What would have Bill Clinton, who is considered the smartest American President, done if he found himself in W.'s impasse? No need for an answer because Clinton is smarter than falling like his successor, and there is a famous saying, which says that getting into something, is easier than getting out of it.
Bush does not have an "exit strategy" from Iraq, hence, he was stupidly stubborn; we would have considered his stubbornness funny had it not been for the tragic situation in Iraq, he is still saying that Iraq is "a success story." This idiocy explains why people believed that the bulge in his back under the jacket might be a wireless receiver, through which his political advisor Karl Rove dictated the answers for him.
Salon magazine was the first to deal with the subject, I am not adjudging that the set existed; however, I reviewed all available pictures and there is enough to be suspicious about, the bulge is clearly shaped like a rectangular box.
Can the bulge be a simple "wrinkle" in the jacket? Bush's tailor George de Paris said the shape was caused by "a pucker along the back seam" of the $5,000 suit. However, is it possible for a $5,000 suit, weaved by the tailor of American presidents since the days of Lyndon Johnson to wrinkle in this cheap way?
Those who advocate conspiracy theories went back to the debate tape, and they quickly noticed that the President sometimes stopped while talking as if he was waiting to hear the rest of the answer through the wire. Once he looked at John Kerry and asked him to let him finish although Kerry did not interrupt him. So was he actually answering his secret speaker through the wireless set?
Scott Stanzel, press secretary for the Bush 2004 re-election campaign, denied the presence of any wire and he said that this is another conspiracy, and then he sarcastically added: "Did you hear the one about Elvis moderating the third debate?"
Nicole Devenish (Communications Director, Bush-Cheney Re-Election Campaign) and Mark McKinnon (Media adviser to GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush) also denied the presence of a wire. In my personal dictionary, official denial asserts what is denied; however, this time I do not assert anything although I read that technology is easily available and a very small ball can be put inside the ear that catches what a neighboring wireless set catches.
Some tried to babble about the subject, Bush's assistants suggested sending the pictures to documents' experts at CBS. Terence Micallef of the Democratic National Committee said that if there was a wire, all those who answered the questions should be fired because of Bush's bad performance during the debate. Some journalists said: it seems that George W. Bush was the Karl Rove "channel" during the debate.
Can George W. Bush be accused of stupidity although he graduated from Yale and Harvard? Kerry is also a Yale graduate, and like Bush he joined the students' committee. However, both men's colleagues say that Bush was a lazy student who does not care about studying as much as he cares about drinking, while Kerry was a hardworking sober student.
Joining the National Guards in Texas, where he spent the Vietnam War years, does not deny Bush's notoriety in drinking alcohol, unlike Kerry who fought courageously and won five medals. When veterans criticized Kerry's performance and undermined his courage, other veterans told stories of Bush's drunkenness and how he moved to Alabama to protect it after he guaranteed that the Viet Cong would not attack Texas. They benefited from Bush's record in both states and from the times he was given speeding tickets, and it was also drunk driving.
The Americans are equally divided between the Republican and Democratic candidates; which means that at least their half does not care if George W. Bush is dumb. When I was attending the UN General Assembly session last month in New York, I saw a shirt decorated with the pictures of George Bush, father and son, and underneath them was written "dumb" for papa Bush and "dumber" for Baby Bush; in allusion to the movie Dumb and Dumber.
I do not think that Bush Sr. was dumb. I leave it to the readers to judge whether Junior is.
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