Why is ANYONE listening to this man?
Why ISN’T anyone listening to this man?

January 15, 2007 by mugsy.

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“Listen what the man says.” - song by Paul McCartney and Wings.

George W. Bush is not a bright man. Yes, he graduated from Yale University and earned his MBA at Harvard. But he got into Yale as a “legacy” (admitted because his father is a Yale graduate, not due to grades or achievement), and into Harvard though his father (again), who was a powerful US Senator. Neither was achieved through his own merit. And so has been his entire career as failed businessman, mediocre Texas Governor (in Texas, the governor has little power. All budgetary power in Texas is in the Lt. Governor… which at the time was a Democrat… the late great Bob Bullock), and now as a disastrous President.

…people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble — that means not tell the truth.” - In a speech about interrogations at Gitmo, May 31, 2005

The word President Bush is reaching for here is probably “dissemble”, not “disassemble“. But the word was new to him, ergo, it must be new to us too, and therefore needs explaining. And is so often the case with him, he likes to try and explain things he himself doesn’t know, trying (and failing miserably) to appear smarter than he really is… a big flashing neon sign of insecurity over people finding out that he really isn’t smart… a poser that shouldn’t be in the position he’s in. Dubya is “the bosses son who comes in and fires you.” (Bill Maher)

And now as President, it has been painfully obvious that he relies heavily upon the decisions of the people under him, believing that they are more experienced and thus know better than he… which we learned long ago is quite evidently false. On the few occasions where they dare let Little George out of his box and speak publicly, when he strays off script… look out! Embarrassment and hilarity often ensue. This has occurred so often, they even have a name: Bushisms. But more than that, the truth has a tendency to leak out when he does.

Listed here are some of my favorite Bushisms over the past few years. On the surface, many are just plain dumb. But when you actually stop and actually THINK about the thought process that goes into some of Bush’s verbal acrobatics, we learn a lot about what he believes and just what he thinks of the rest of us:

For example, here is one EXTREMELY telling quote:

o As you know, these are open forums; you’re able to come and listen to what I have to say.” - Washington DC, Oct 28, 2003

At first read, it sounds like a simple feux-pas. But it’s not. In BushWorld, an “Open” forum is one that is OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, not a private meeting only a select few are permitted to attend. Allowing just anyone to not only attend, but actually speak is a novel concept in BushWorld. The General Public are “the rabble”, and only enjoy the rights given to them by those in authority. So if you were wondering why it seems so easy for Dubya to violate The Constitution and trample the rights of U.S. citizens, it’s because you only have those rights because THEY let you have them. Those rights are a privilege that they have the right to take away if they believe it serves a “greater good”.

You may of heard this one:

o “All in all, it’s been a fabulous year for Laura and me.” - Dec 21, 2001

Three months after 9/11, this seems incredibly insensitive. But consider how something like 3,000 Americans dying just three months earlier as a direct result of YOUR incompetence could just “slip your mind”. Now, I have no doubt that if you are a close personal friend of George W. Bush, he would be very sad over news of your demise. But if you’re not a “Social Equal”, he wouldn’t loose a moment’s sleep over it. He can not have empathy for anyone he does view as an equal. 3,000 people may have died, but you could have replaced those 3,000 with ANY 3,000 people plucked out of society at random and the balance of society would not have been affected because to him, those lives were no more consequential than 3,000 sanitation workers or 3,000 office managers. Just cogs in a machine. Remember, this is a man that used to stick firecrackers up frogs butts and blow them up for fun when he was a kid. “Empathy”: thy name is NOT George W. Bush.

Under normal circumstances, most people would consider it important for an employee to actually KNOW something about their job and their line of work. But not in BushWorld:

o “I am mindful of the difference between the executive branch and legislative branch. […] and that difference is: they pass the laws and I execute them.” - Not-quite President-Elect Bush, Dec 18, 2000

Anyone that has ever taken a Junior High School level civics class knows that the Legislature WRITES the laws and the President passes them (unless the Congress overrides his veto). But before you think this is a simple error in wording, one month before, he had a DIFFERENT (and more revealing) interpretation:

o “The legislature’s job is to write law. It’s the Executive Branch’s job to interpret law.” - Still not-quite President-Elect Bush, Austin, Nov 22, 2000

Okay, this is more disturbing. One month before, he correctly identified the Legislature’s job. But once again, his view of the Executive’s job as one where laws can selectively be enforced and open to interpretation remains. In BushWorld, “law” is not a hard and binding rule. “Law” is something “fluid” that may or may not need to be adhered to. So any law he regards as “an inconvenience” can be summarily dismissed. If the President has the power to “execute” laws, then ipso-facto, he has the power NOT to execute them for whatever reason. And if laws are “open to interpretation”, then the President has the power to read any law in a manner that suits his needs. We actually have real world evidence now to support this interpretation. It’s not just a matter of my opinion.

Freud called such misstatements “slips of the tongue that inadvertently revealed the most innermost thoughts that a person is actively trying to conceal.” In Freud’s honor, we call them “Freudian Slips”. Here’s an innocent, though equally revealing one:

o “One of the great things about books is, sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.” - Candidate Bush, Jan 3, 2000.

I suspect here that Dubya was trying to encourage those young people that don’t like to read (like him), that they can find something interesting in books too. But who encourages a person to pick up a book based upon it having pictures? No encouragement to dare attempt “War and Peace” here. George is obviously speaking from experience. As a child, he did not like to read. To a kid, the books that are the most difficult to read are those with no pictures in them. They are usually long, 300 page tomes like “Catcher in the Rye” or “To Kill a Mockingbird”… any of a number of classic novels assigned to us in high school. But every once in a while, we find a book like “Huckleberry Finn”, with a few illustrations thrown in between the pages “to break up the monotony”. Those were obviously the type of books young George sought out.

I’ve barely scratched the surface here, and I’m forced to omit many many more quotes that I feel equally reveal to us the innermost thoughts of our Commander in Chief. But armed with the knowledge that every verbal feux-pas should been examined for hidden truth, hopefully you will now listen a bit more closely when he says something “off the cuff” for hidden truth. For a plethora of additional “Bushisms”… far more than I have room to cover here, I highly recommend DubyaSpeak.com, with literally hundreds of quotes, many of them with the audio attached so you can hear for yourself.

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