his mispronunciation of the prison's name demonstrates his ineptitude in current affairs. it also shows he didn't prepare his speech well enough. likewise, a student who didn't do the readings and didn't prepare for his presentation is a bad student.
ttiwed, well, again, i'm not taking a partisan stance on any of this, although you seem to be. that's totally understandable, of course, and i'm in no way faulting you for it. politics is such a touchy issue. by the way, it's so hard to intone other people's meanings via electronic text, so please forgive me if what i just said came off offensive or something (and likewise for me if i "read" you wrong or whatever); i honestly don't mean it to be. that said, i think you brought up a few good points, too, but i wasn't arguing whether or not bush is doing a good job as president. i was just pointing out that it's sort of sketchy to imply that mispronounced words and a lack of intelligence make for a bad president. maybe they do, maybe they do not. but there has to be more clarification as to what is meant precisely in order for someone to objectively judge that. that's all i was saying.
biased quote. holmes was a conservative justice appointed by a republican president. fdr was a democrat. i'm sure rehnquist and scalia wouldn't have the nicest things to say about bill clinton either. yet clinton was a self made man who went to georgetown and yale law school (obviously a bright guy).
the quote from holmes actually was saying that fdr was a great personality. but it doesn't really matter anyway what holmes said. other people, both his enemies as well as those close to fdr, said more or less the same thing: intelligence aside, fdr had a charm and charisma that in great part helped to bring our nation through one of her darkest periods (the great depression, ww2). he was a tremendous president because of this, and not necessarily because of his intelligence or lack of intelligence. so that at least in one president's case, some things count for more than intelligence alone. (although i suppose one could make the argument that an intelligent president would better know how to be charismatic. jfk would be an ideal in this case, i think. then again, not sure how you'd explain other charismatic but not actually intelligent presidents like reagan, or those who were intelligent but were not very charismatic such as carter. although these days carter seems to be doing quite well on both fronts. too bad he didn't do better during his actual presidency.)
i don't think that's necessarily true about republicans tending to say not-so-nice things about democrats or vice versa. many members of each party, even today, respect one another even if they do not agree with their politics. and are willing to say so. more than that though, and if you think about it, there also has to be more bipartisanship than we the public are perhaps aware of, since otherwise nothing would be accomplished in government. and, again, as for holmes' quote above re: fdr, it might not have been the most flattering words he could've mustered, but it actually was at bottom a commendation of fdr for his outstanding, charismatic personality.
i don't care if bush is mr. casanova or an even smoother player than friggin' snoop D O double G. i care about the president's (along with all other elected official's) ability to get this country out of the downward spiral that its been going on for the past few years. the bush admin isn't doing that.
well this would assume that there is a downward spiral in this nation. which again may or may not be the case. i'm not straight up disagreeing or agreeing with you, but just pointing out what i pointed out before: these sorts of remarks are just remarks, but nothing more. without further support, they're unhelpful statements, unfortunately, just like the previous statements made by others that bush's lack of intelligence automatically equate to being a bad president. again, maybe it does mean something, maybe it doesn't. whatever the case we need more clarification of terminology and so forth in order to better understand what you're getting at exactly.
however, that was a good point about elected officials bearing some share of the responsibility for the direction our nation is headed. so here's perhaps something else to consider, along with attempting to somehow measure "intelligence." a president (fortunately) doesn't lead alone, by himself. he has to pick a solid group of advisors, secretaries, etc. in order to help him make hopefully sound decisions for the nation. so i would think that if we were faulting a president for a lack of intelligence, then we would necessarily have to include in that his selection of his cabinet. an obtuse president would more likely than not have a poor cabinet while an intelligent one would have "chosen wisely." i don't know what most people's thoughts are on the current bush cabinet (probably not good, especially now with rumsfeld and the fallout from abu ghraib), but that'd certainly have to factor in somewhere when trying to judge bush's intelligence or lack thereof. just another thought anyhow.
21 Replies
6147 Views