Intellectually Curious George

``'Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).''

Bush-bashing for sport has never lacked fans in the blogosphere, but questioning the president's intelligence lately has gone mainstream.

Joe Scarborough, former Republican congressman and host of MSNBC's ``Scarborough Country,'' recently tossed his beanie into the ring, running a 10-minute segment titled: ``Is Bush an 'Idiot'?''

Scarborough wasn't calling Bush an idiot, mind you. He was just quoting that renowned American intellectual, Linda Ronstadt. Recently, Ronstadt had commented on the president's performance while attending an international summit of heads of state.

No wait, my mistake, she made those comments to reporters and audiences while touring in Canada. But never mind. When Ronstadt talks, people listen. Citing other leading American intellectuals -- The Dixie Chicks, Peter, Paul & Mary, and Joan Baez -- Ronstadt said:

I'm embarrassed George Bush is from the United States. ... He's an idiot. He's enormously incompetent on both the domestic and international scenes.

Scarborough said he felt compelled to explore whether the president is sufficiently intellectually curious, not just because of Ronstadt, but because there have been no shark attacks all summer. No, sorry again, I said that. What Scarborough said was that even conservatives had been making comments similar to Ronstadt's, as reported last week in The Washington Post.

To debate the topic, Scarborough rounded up two intellectually curious commentators -- John Fund of The Wall Street Journal and Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC senior political analyst. He also provided a video collection of Bushisms in which the president repeatedly trips over his own tongue and otherwise appears to be playing himself on ``Saturday Night Live."

Fund said that Bush is not dumb, just inarticulate, while O'Donnell suggested that Bush is out of his league. They both may be right, but I'd like to submit an alternative explanation for Bush's linguistic deficit.

This theory occurred to me not long ago at an off-the-record luncheon with Bush and a hundred or so of his supporters. I was the guest of a guest, and welcomed the opportunity to observe the president in his natural habitat.

What I witnessed was revealing. Not only was the man fluent in the English language and intellectually agile, he was knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects raised during a 90-minute Q&A. Someone apparently had been slipping intellectual-curiosity tablets into Bush's cola.

Toward the end, one of the guests said, ``Mr. President, I think if Americans could hear you speak the way you have today, you'd have a 95 percent approval rating.''

I think that's almost true. Not 95 percent, obviously, but he'd surely have a higher than 30 percent approval rating were he better able to explain what he's thinking. Bush does know; he just can't seem to say.

My theory dovetails with something one of his most acerbic critics, columnist Molly Ivins, once wrote: ``George W. Bush sounds like English is his second language.'' That's because it's true. ``Washington English'' (BEG ITAL)is(END ITAL) a second language for Bush; ``Texas English'' is his first.

When he tries to speak Washington English, which is the way Bush thinks presidents are supposed to speak -- over-enunciating and sprinkling his comments with awkward aphorisms -- he fumbles. He forgets what he's saying because the thoughts and words are not his own.

This is also when his annoying sibilance kicks in. The ``terroristsssssss," he says when ``terrorists" would do. My guess is he over-enunciates to cover his prairie accent, but the effect is, well, sssssstrange.

Tapes of Bush as governor of Texas reveal none of the malapropisms for which he is now infamous. That's because in Texas, he speaks his native tongue -- dropping syllables and esses without fear of criticism or embarrassment. That kind of freedom seems to liberate the man's mind and his mouth.

Anyone who speaks before cameras knows the taste of humility and can relate to the agony of being George Bush.

Even, perhaps, Joe Scarborough, who wrapped up his idiot segment, saying: ``And that is a big question, whether George W. Bush has the intellectual curiousness -- if that's a word -- to continue leading this country over the next couple of years."

My dictionary confirms that ``curiousness" is a word (just barely), though Joe's expression suggested it wasn't the one he meant to use. No worries. Sometimes in the excitement of a moment, even the curiouser and curiouser quite forget how to speak good English.

I don't think that anyone who went to Yale for his undergraduate work and then did an MBA at Harvard's B-school is stupid. But as the article observes, Molly Ivins is, for once, correct.

My brother is like this. Very bright man, went to engineering school but is also quite cultured, well-travelled, and well-read, knowledgeable about art, classical music, architecture, and history. Quite an astute person. But he trips over his own tongue and people don't initially realize how very intelligent he is.

It's like the commercial says: "People judge you by the words you use." They also judge you by your accent. And in much of the US, particularly in the Northeast, if you have a Southern or Texas accent and speak a little slower than people do in New York, there is a belief that slower speech = slower thinking. So when the president speaks with a Texas accent and stumbles over the Washingtonese language provided by his speechwriters, the intelligentsia takes him for a fool and then writes articles about how stupid he is. Then the rest of America interprets his malapropisms as evidence of stupidity.

I argue this with a friend constantly. It's simple "Bush is NOT a good public speaker. Period.

My wife, who formerly worked for Dale Carnegie Training is the same way - despite 12 years of training. In front of a group, she is "almost horrible" - and scared to death. Now, put her one-on-one or in a small group and she is incredible.

I, on the other hand, am the opposite. Put me on a podium in front of a large group and I am funny, informative, and totally comfortable. Make me meet somebody and talk to them one-on-one....I seize up. Hate it.

It's just personality.

Never did watch the show. Saw the graphic as I was channel surfing and moved right on by. Is Bush an Idiot.

Saw about 30 seconds of the re run last night and there he was making that dreadful comment.

There is nothing on MSNBC that even comes close to be worthy of my time.

Two of the smartest guys I ever knew spoke like that. SSG Lynch sounded like Goober, Gomer's relative, and was the slickest wheeler dealer I ever saw. He made Phil Silvers Sgt Bilbo character look like an amateur.

He'd leave in the morning with a jeep full of trash, like half empty paint cans and ratty moth-eaten blankets and come back with all kinds of goodies for the platoon. Even got us a TOW missile at Graf one year so the platoon could qualify.

Other fellow was a Texan with one of those high nasal voices. When he was working in a market in Boston while doing to an electronics course the locals would, he said, automatically deduct 30 points from his IQ when he opened his mouth.

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