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by volandovengo
4803 days ago
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There are similar accounts on quora citing that bush is extremely intelligent. The challenging things about all these accounts is that not only in public did he seem like an idiot but the decisions that he made in office were similarly inept. To cite a few:
- Spending increases while incurring tax cuts
- The Iraq War + the willful deceiving of the public
- The lack of remorse of any decision made in office Malcolm Gladwell cites that (in life) the people who really excel aren't just the ones who are the most intelligent but the ones who posses other factors as well which make them a success. Perhaps this provides some of the explanation for the discrepancy between the personal accounts and the actions of his administration. |
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> - Spending increases while incurring tax cuts
Regardless of whether you agree politically, this was intentional. The strategy is called "starve the beast" and the goal is to strategically force austerity cuts. As a bonus, you force it to happen when a democrat is in office. And guess what? It appears to have worked (somewhat).
> - The Iraq War + the willful deceiving of the public
It wasn't willful. There were intelligence reports of WMDs. Colin powell got quite pissed about it really. Truth of the matter is that some messed up stuff happened in the intelligence community and Colin was lead to believe there was a real threat in Iraq. How much Bush was involved in the whole deal is unclear. Also, Hussain did try to kill his dad, so it may have been slightly personal.
> - The lack of remorse of any decision made in office
Remorse for what? Politics is politics. There's blood on everyone's hands. For example, policy changes made during the Bush Sr and Clinton administrations appear to have contributed significantly to the housing crash in 2009. Regardless, even if he isn't remorseful, that doesn't make him dumb. Heartless maybe, but not dumb.
Disclaimer: I'm not a republican. I think democrats and republicans alike spend too much time playing politics these days and not enough actually trying to fix things. I also think the worlds problems can be solved without war. The one thing I did like about Bush is that he appears to have really wanted to reduce the size of government, which appeals to my (mostly) libertarian beliefs.