"escapee" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 22 Jul 2004 12:03:45 -0400, "Jean B." opined:

Well, some things I thought were odd:

Bush clowning around before the camera (officially) rolled to make
him look stupid.

Bush did look stupid because he is relatively stupid. He's not a
president I'm
proud to call my own. He can barely speak without coaching. He uses
terms, but
he uses them incorrectly.

This is an important issue. I don't think that Bush truly is retarded. He
may be average or slightly above average. He seems to have some verbal
problems that make him appear to be more stupid than he probably is.
However, the stupidity is appealing to his supporters. They don't feel
threatened by complexities that require thinking or that might lead to an
ambiguous conclusion. The neo-cons are all about emotion. If you listen to
any of the talkers like Hannity and Limbaugh they constantly appeal to
emotions. This is bad, that is good. This is God's way, that is the
devil's way. There is a lot of feel-good flag waiving. Groups are
scapegoated, leading to polarization. Our foreign policy reflects the
good-evil model. One the other hand, liberals are seen as unexciting and
too intellectual. They talk about data points and nuance. Nothing is
completely bad or completely good. Liberal allow for data to be considered
in context and for that context to change. Change leads to an evolution in
opinion (AKA - "flip-flopping.") This is all too much for people who want
the black and white version of things to be handed to them in a pre-digested
form. Sadly, we have become a nation of people who vote based on whether a
candidate looks "French" (what ever the hell that means) or if they have
good hair (but not TOO good.) Intellect scares people. Universities are
evil black boxes that turn out bad people (except for the people who develop
weapon systems.)