Bush Is A Dummy?

07 Jan, 2003 by John Hawkins

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Bush Is A Dummy?: I was reading Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire and I came across a post about a book called, ” Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George…”. Apparently, the theme of this book is that George Bush is nothing but a puppet in the hands of Karl Rove. Here are a few quotes from the book description on Amazon…

“Many Washington insiders believe that the strength of the Bush machine lies not in its leader but in Karl Rove…”

“…Political journalists James Moore and Wayne Slater offer a rare glimpse into the man who has become the single most important advisor to George W. Bush–and the person who many think is calling the shots at the White House.”

Of course, Karl Rove is a competent and smart guy, that’s why Bush has him as an adviser. But the idea that Rove is actually running the show is laughable. Keep in mind, Bush’s had another influential adviser when he started in the White House, Karen Hughes, and she’s now sitting at home in Texas. If Rove had left and Hughes were still in Washington, guys like Moore and Slater would be writing a book about her. You know why? The left can’t admit that they misjudged George W. Bush.

You see the left stereotypes someone in every Republican White House as, “stupid”. They said Reagan was stupid, they said Quayle was stupid, and when Bush came in they claimed he was an idiot too. It’s just another standard play in the big book of Democratic game plans. It’s like claiming, “that tax cut only benefits the rich”, “the Republicans are going to cut your social security”, “Republicans are racists,” all the same bilge that they repeat like parrots no matter who’s in office. In Bush’s case, they focused incessantly on little gaffes in his speeches to try to prove their theorem correct. Then we were treated to a bunch of numskulls screaming “Bush is an idiot” over and over just like they yell, “It’s a war for oil” today. Eventually, there was enough repetition of the whole, “Bush is brainless” theme that the left became convinced it was true.

But, there was one problem…Bush kept outsmarting the Democrats again and again. Bush’s popularity grew to astronomical levels after 9/11 and never went below 60% and then suddenly nothing the Democrats tried was working. They repeated “Enron, Bush & Scandal,” cried “tax cuts for the rich”, and then eventually complained that Bush needed to go through Congress to go to Iraq — which they didn’t think he was going to do. So then, Bush pulls off one of the most impressive feats of political aikido I’ve ever seen by doing exactly what the Democrats wanted. He went to Congress & he went to the UN & got exactly what he wanted. Then he hit the campaign trail for his party and helped usher in Republican control of the House.

So now the Democrats have a problem — because they might think Bush is dummy, but even they have to admit that he sure doesn’t act like it. So do they admit that they were wrong? Oh no, instead they’ve decided that Karl Rove is the puppeteer who’s pulling W.’s strings. That way they can account for the fact that W. keeps pulling off these deft political maneuvers and they can keep their little fictional persona of “W the Dummy” alive. Hey, that works for me. The more the Democrats underrate W., the more opportunities he has to take advantage of it. So let the left keep writing their books about Rove is pulling W.’s strings & creating their little urban legends, it makes it that much easier for the right to keep winning elections.