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The Emperor's New Brain George W. and the stupidity issue.
By Michael Kinsley
Posted Monday, Oct. 23, 2000, at 4:00 p.m. PT
George W. Bush's handling of the stupidity issue has been nothing short of brilliant. A Martian watching the last presidential debate might have concluded that this man would be well-advised not to put quite so much emphasis on mental testing. But Earth-based commentators mostly shied away from such a conclusion. The rule seems to be that if a candidate can recite half a dozen policy positions by rote and name some foreign nations and leaders, one shouldn't point out that he sure seems a few whereases shy of an executive order.
The problem is probably laziness or complacence rather than actual inability, and journalists' reluctance to call someone who may well be our next commander in chief a moron is understandable. But if George W. Bush isn't a moron, he is a man of impressive intellectual dishonesty and/or confusion. His utterances frequently make no sense on their own terms. His policy recommendations are often internally inconsistent and mutually contradictory. Because it's harder to explain and impossible to prove cold, intellectual dishonesty doesn't get the attention that petty fibbing does, even though intellectual dishonesty indicts both a candidate's character and his policy positions.
All politicians, including Al Gore, get away with more of it than they should. But George W. gets away with an extraordinary amount of it.
On Social Security, he continues to say he'll get the trillion dollars needed for his partial privatization "out of the surplus." Does he not understand that the current surplus is committed to future benefits, which will have to be cut to make the numbers work? Or does he understand and not care? When he compares the "paltry 2 percent" return on Social Security with an alleged 6 percent return on private investments, does he know he's leaving out that trillion dollars in one case and including it in the other? Or has this fact failed to penetrate despite repeated exposures?
When he calls the estate tax unfair, especially to farmers and small businesspeople, because it "taxes people twice"—meaning first when they earn the money and again when they die—is he aware that the value of farms and businesses in estates has almost never been taxed as income? Or have his advisers and fellow businessfolks deceived him on this basic point? When he criticizes his opponent for cutting taxes through the use of tax credits, then gives an example of his own tax plan in which most of the cut is through tax credits, is he fooling us? Or is someone fooling him?
When he repeatedly attacks his opponent for "partisanship," does he get the joke? When he blames the absence of a federal patients' rights law on "a lot of bickering in Washington, D.C.," has he noticed that the bickering consists of his own party, which controls Congress, blocking the legislation? When he summarizes, "It's kind of like a political issue as opposed to a people issue," does he mean to suggest anything in particular? Perhaps that politicians, when acting politically, ignore the wishes of the people?
How does he figure? If at all.
When he repeatedly says he has a "clear vision" about the Middle East but never gives a hint what it is, should we assume he has one he's not telling us about? When he complains that there is no general "strategy" for America's role in the world and promises that he'll ask his secretary of defense to come up with one pronto, should we be reassured? When he criticizes the Clinton administration for misusing American soldiers as social workers and promises to get other countries to use their soldiers that way instead, does he notice the logical flaw here?
In the debate, he declared, "I don't want to use food as a diplomatic weapon from this point forward. We shouldn't be using food. It hurts the farmers. It's not the right thing to do." When, just a few days later, he criticized legislation weakening the trade embargo on Cuba—which covers food along with everything else—had he rethought his philosophy on this issue? Or was there nothing to rethink?
When he promises that if he is elected, "we will have gag orders" on doctors and "100 percent" of people will "get the death tax," it's easy enough to figure out that he means we won't have gag orders and nobody will pay the estate tax. But what does he mean when he says that "insurance" is "a Washington term"?
When he promises "to have prescription drugs as an integral part of Medicare," does he comprehend that the exact distinction between his plan and his opponent's is that his is not an integral part of Medicare?
When he says that local control of schools is vital, criticizes his opponent for wanting to "federalize" education, promises as president to impose various requirements on schools, complains that federal money comes with too many "strings," calls for after-school funds to be used for "character education," endorses a federal law forbidding state lawsuits against teachers, and so on, does he have a path through this maze of contradictions? When he promises a federal school voucher program and then deflects criticism by saying "vouchers are up to states," is he being dense or diabolically clever?
In short, does George W. Bush mean what he says, or does he understand it? The answer can't be both. And is both too much to ask for?
I tried to read the whole thing without blinking. Couldn't do it.
Sorry if you lost your lunch over this piece...
I'm glad I'm on Mountain Time, I haven't eaten my lunch yet. There is plenty of valid criticism of Bush's proposals floating around, but Kinsley is just throwing manure here and calling it a column. Here is just one small example:
On Social Security, he continues to say he'll get the trillion dollars needed for his partial privatization "out of the surplus." Does he not understand that the current surplus is committed to future benefits, which will have to be cut to make the numbers work?
Kinsley's hypocrisy is astonishing here - he in the past has come out in defense of spending the Social Security surplus - but this year, for the first time there is a small, non-Social Security surplus that is projected to grow significantly over the next few years. Also, the Social Security surplus by its definition does not affect current recipients, and using it for private investment instead has been supported by Moynihan and Kerrey - so maybe Kinsley wants to call THEM morons as well. What a Clymer.
Kinsley wonders if George W. Bush is a moron
I've wondered if Michael Kinsley is a man.
Kinsley wonders if George W. Bush is a moron
At least with Kinsley, there's no need to waste time wondering. He is.
There is no question in my mind which one is the moron. Or the arrogant, condescending jerk.
Kinsley wonders if George W. Bush is a moron
Freepers NO LONGER wonder if Michael Kinley is an idiot. He has laid that question to rest.
Should've kept your mouth shut Mickey.
Can Kinsley fly a F14 fighter jet? W can.
"taxes people twice": "is he aware that the value of farms and businesses in estates has almost never been taxed as income?"
This is precisely the kind of intellectual dishonesty Kinsley is supposed to be railing against. Is the "almost never" some sort of CYA device? When someone buys land for a farm, does Dick, I mean Michael, think that the purchaser hasn't been taxed on the money used to buy it? Does he think that the farmer doesn't pay taxes on revenues he receives or the property he owns?
It is impossible to conduct a rational argument with these people.
When their initial premise is that conservatives are demented, as well as evil, and when they argue that 2+2=5, therefore, the grass is blue and the sky is green, it is exceedingly difficult to respond to that kind of "logic".
If they are otherwise sane and intelligent people, they must necessarily start each day by lying to themselves.
If you have to write this long an article to demonstrate that someone is stupid, they aren't. This article equals "I favor Gore over Bush." Thank you for the revelation, Michael.
mikey is impenetrably liberal
he spent all those years hanging around with bill buckley on firing line and never learned a thing
BLAH,BLAH.BLAH...Let Kinsley and the others bray like the asses that they are. I expect GW will be elected, and that is when the liberal flailing will begin in earnest. Pull up a chair and watch the fun; they're hilarious when they're desperate.
It is impossible to conduct a rational argument with these people.
That's the truth and it should be understood before one even begins to attempt to argue logically with a liberal. They tried the same garbage on Reagan in 1980; ("senile", "dumb", "can't talk without a script", "dangerous in foreign policy") and it never played in Peoria and it doesn't play now, with GW Bush in 2000. These libs are just talking to themselves at this point, and doing some whistling past the electoral-vote graveyard. Not sure why we even bother with this liberal bilge anymore. Gore is toast.
Everytime I see that man (?) on TV it makes me wonder if he really needs to go take a piss someplace. Who's the moron?
BULLSEYE!
Stop wondering, kinsley is asexual though leaning to young amerasian, pre-pubescent boys.
No one needs to wonder if Kinsley is a moron - he proves it minute by minute.
The thing with Kinsley has always been he's so damn dumb he doesn't know he's dumb.
You know, I'm glad to have been able to read this post. I always wondered if Kinsley was a moron. I always knew he looked like one and talked like one. Now I know that was just because he is one. Thanks, meandog!
Question:
Who is the moron? GW is running for POTUS, what is Kinsley running for or from?
Mike Kinsley is again trying to stir the SH*T - This has worked for the Demo's in the past - No Not Today!
Michael, old boy, doesn't this ever grow wearisome?
Ahem. I think it was an F4. Don't think the F14 Tomcat was in operations during the Vietnam era and certainly not with the National Guard.
Good for you! Finally someone has brought up the fact that W graduated
from the Air Force jet pilot program. DOes anyone think that can be done if one
is dyslexic, or dumb?
I've wondered if Michael Kinsley is a man.
Great one!
That's the truth and it should be understood before one even begins to attempt to argue logically with a liberal. They tried the same garbage on Reagan in 1980; ("senile", "dumb", "can't talk without a script", "dangerous in foreign policy") and it never played in Peoria and it doesn't play now, with GW Bush in 2000.
I don't think Reagan compares with Bush. Reagan was clearly understood by his advisers to be the spokesman for the policies that they formulated. Bush takes considerable policy advice from his advisors and mulls it over briefly to formulate his positions. He's not as much a spokesman as the chairman of the board. He lets the underlings put the details together and then he assesses and critiques the plan. This process is described in the Washington ComPost's piece on Bush's governing style in the Sunday, 10/22 edition. It also includes this:
"And yet he has built one of the best policy shops any presidential candidate has assembled and relies on a network of advisers that includes some of the brightest conservative thinkers in the country. He is frequently in touch not only with his policy director, Josh Bolten, and his trio of policy advisers - Lawrence Lindsey on economics, Condoleezza Rice on foreign policy, and Stephen Goldsmith on domestic policy - but also with many of the younger aides."
Clearly the Presidency is not just about the President. When electing a President, you have to trust the judgment of the man who would be President in his choice of staff and Cabinet, who will administer the Executive branch. So Kinley's opinion here is off-target: worrying about whether Bush knows what he's talking about is secondary to whether his policy advisers and potential Cabinet appointees know their stuff.
Kingsley used to be the "attack dog" on CROSSFIRE instead of Bill Press. He is known for his brainy remarks. He also proves that one can be intelligent and still should look in the mirror once in awhile before calling someone else an "idiot".
Kinsley's not a man; he's a rectal aperture.
For some reason, the "idiot" word got stuck in my poor, overworked brain. According to the article, should have been "moron". Not much difference after all.
Well, at least GW has proved he is smarter than Kinsley. These liberals are grasping at straws in a last minute effort to prop up the failing Gore campaign. I think it is falling on deaf ears.
Gee I thought that this dnc whore excuse of a mag had gone belly up!
Any conservative that reads anything smeared in Slate has too much time on their hands and loves to be abused by the DNC whores like Kinsey!
I did not read any of the article after I saw that it came from the dung pile called slate and was authored by Kinsley, your typical elite socialist liberal operative posing as an oped writer!
Talk about intellectual dishonesty. If we currently need $10 to pay all S.S. benefits, but collect $15, what is intellectualy dishonest about putting that extra $5 in higher yielding investments as opposed to lending it to the govt. for a paltry 2% return. Am I missing something here.
I cannot wait until liar sycophantic gibbering idiots like Kinsleystutter are relegated to obscurity they deserve. What a class A maroon!
is he aware that the value of farms and businesses in estates has almost never been taxed as income?
In Kinsley's world, farm equipment grows on farm equipment trees. In the real world, a farmer will usually pay tens of thousands of dollars of his revenue stream to purchase a single piece of farm equipment, which the government will then consider to be part of his estate.
Get a life, Kinsley.
I miss the good 'ole days when Buchanan would tear Kinsley apart on CROSSFIRE. Kinsley always showed himself to be an elitist, liberal snob in the finest academia tradition.
I saw Kinsley on C-SPAN a few weeks ago with Drudge and I was struck with how sickly Kinsley looked. I even wondered if Kinsley had AIDS.
Wow...you folks may think me a bit daft...but I am sincerely enjoying these hit pieces.. In my head, I have been rating them on a scale of 1 to 10. The meaner the piece, the higher the rating...To rate in the top 80 percentile, the author has to be both one sided and mean-spirited, while still incorporating in the talking points of the Gore Campaign at that particular time.
This one (in my mind) is just over the cusp...8 out of 10. I haven't ranked many up that high.
On Social Security, he continues to say he'll get the trillion dollars needed for his partial privatization "out of the surplus." Does he not understand that the current surplus is committed to future benefits
Those "future benefits" will go to the same people who would be opening the savings accounts now.
There's a moron around here, and it ain't Dubya.
These libs are just talking to themselves at this point, and doing some whistling past the electoral-vote graveyard.
Trying to whistle up some of their loyal constituents, no doubt.
"he spent all those years hanging around with bill buckley on firing line and never learned a thing."
Yeh, and he's spent the last few years hanging around Bill Gates and the Microsoft whiz kids, and he hasn't learned anything about free enterprise either. I think the word for him is Stooopid!
He attended the most elite, liberal school here in Michigan...Cranbrook. He has never had to actually work a day in his life.
An intellectual fraud.
Sideshow Bob wonders if Michael Kinsley should be allowed to handle sharp objects
People like Kinsley are fair weather liberals. That is, they can pontificate in the absence of stress but when called to the test they fall apart and defer to conservatives to handle the crisis. That is why we need a regular world war. It serves to weed out the phonies and weaklings and makes the Michael Kinsleys come down out of their slate roofed ivory towers to face the real world.
His utterances frequently make no sense on their own terms
Al Gore's closing statement in the last debate..."If you think that the accomplishments of the past eight years were something, you ain't seen nothing yet, and that's a promise I will keep".
Now that is profound....WOW!!!
Neither the F14, nor the F4, it was an F-102 Delta Dagger.
Extremely tasty during the SAC/TAC glory days.
Kinsley's photo is in the dictionary next to pencil necked sniveling leftist geek.
Thanks for the correction, but the point is Kinsley can't fly a fighter jet, nor can Gore. In fact, Kinsley or Gore did not graduate from Yale as Bush did either.
Of course Bush Jr. is a moron--"But he's our moron!", quoth the RINO's...
Look, I wouldn't read this idiot's column in that (or any) paper, why should I read it here? We're taking up precious space (or bytes) putting this professionial moron's words out. I'm off to another topic....
I've wondered if Michael Kinsley is a man.
Well we know for sure that some of the anatomy is absent. I'll never forget the time that David Duke was on Crossfire and he called Kinsley a pencil necked geek. I'm not crazy about Duke, but it was one of the funniest things I ever saw.
>...and I was struck with how sickly Kinsley looked.
Probably one of them vagitarians.
Better to keep quiet, Michael, than to remove all doubt.
When he calls the estate tax unfair, especially to farmers and small businesspeople, because it "taxes people twice"—meaning first when they earn the money and again when they die—is he aware that the value of farms and businesses in estates has almost never been taxed as income?
Actually, the value of the farm or business HAS been taxed as income and taxed as property (if in Missouri), in addition to licensing fees and other fees, licenses and taxes paid as a direct result of value of the farm or business property.
Farm and business valuations are based largely on the INCOME producing value of the underlying property thus the INCOME produced by the business or farm is directly related to the value of the farm or business which is in direct relation to the ESTATE TAX levied on that property.
Think of the farm or business and its underlying properties, real, intelectual and other...each has an INCOME element. For instance an acre of land in my father-in-laws town in SW Missouri can sell for 2500 an acre based on a FARM USE VALUATION which has a certain INCOME element. That SAME PROPERTY can be sold for light industrial use for 10,000 and acre based on the INCOME element of light industrial use.
THE IRS HAS FIGURED THIS OUT!!!!! The IRS uses a doctrine called the best and highest use (no I don't have the cistation)which if my father in law passed away, the property would be valued at the B&HU value unless it is clear the property would continue to be used for farming. So the IRS has figured out that they can base the ESTATE TAX levied on a farm at a value based on the FUTURE INCOME ELEMENT of the property.
Thus the property Can be taxed twice and can be taxed based on INCOME...PRIOR TO ANY INCOME BEING PRODUCED>
Any questions class?
If Bush is so stupid how come he is beating an incumbent in a strong economy ?
But there's no doubt that Kinsley is a Clymer, BIG TIME
GWB has a graduate degree from the same institution Kinsley does.
Yeah, just another moronic fighter-jet pilot with a Harvard MBA.
Thank heavens for trusts......
BibChr mentions that Kinsley is a Pencil-necked Geek
BibChr, AKA "Classy Freddie Blassie!"
;-)
When electing a President, you have to trust the judgment of the man who would be President in his choice of staff and Cabinet, who will administer the Executive branch.
Of course Bush isn't Ronald Reagan, but the DNC attacks on his intellgence and understanding of the 'issues' is similar in many ways; some folks just don't recall that election after 20 years, but I still do. I resented the 'dumb' label the Dems tried to pin on Reagan and I resent it now, with George W. Bush.
Bush chose Cheney, Rice and other knowledgable people who will do much to aid his administration.
This speaks volumes to his discernment and executive abilities, so we agree there.
Thanks for the correction. Looks like a lot of fun to fly. I wish the RNC would run spots with this picture and the one of Algore looking down the business end of the barrel of his rifle, with a caption along the lines of " The US military evaluated the two cadidates and assigned them their appropriate weapon system"
Kinsley might be equivalent to Gore in intelligence. I wonder if he thinks Gore is smart?
We thought he had died! Thought one on those veins in his little pencil neck had burst.
I no longer wonder if Michael Kingsley is a moron.
I no longer wonder if Michael Kingsley is a moron.
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