{"id":77,"date":"2003-10-27T19:14:00","date_gmt":"2003-10-28T00:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=77"},"modified":"2003-10-27T19:14:00","modified_gmt":"2003-10-28T00:14:00","slug":"stupid-like-a-fox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=77","title":{"rendered":"Stupid Like A Fox"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the kind of articulate extrovert who tends to go into politics or the<br \/>\nmedia, it can be very difficult to believe that a stumble-tongued,<br \/>\ninarticulate man can be other than an idiot.  As an articulate extrovert<br \/>\nmyself, I&#8217;ve had to struggle with this.  Like most of our media and<br \/>\nchattering classes, my instinct too was to write George W. Bush as an<br \/>\nidiot who had stumbled into the Presidency through no merit of his own.<\/p>\n<p>Events have forced me to nearly the opposite conclusion.  George W. Bush<br \/>\nis no idiot.  In fact, he now appears to me to be an extremely cunning man<br \/>\nwho makes repeated and effective use of his opponents&#8217; inability to take<br \/>\nhim seriously.<\/p>\n<p>Over and over again we&#8217;ve seen the pattern.  Bush says he&#8217;s gaing<br \/>\nto do something.  Opponents rant and rave and scream about what an<br \/>\nidiot he is.  Amidst all the name-calling, an effective opposition<br \/>\nfails to materialize.  When the smoke clears, events unfold pretty<br \/>\nmuch according to the Bush script.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s pretty much been that way on every issue bigger than judicial<br \/>\nnominations.  Now, mind you, in this essay I&#8217;m not going to express<br \/>\nor even imply a judgment about whether or <em>should<\/em> be that way.<br \/>\nWhat I&#8217;m trying to point out is that even the U.N. has pretty much<br \/>\nended up dancing Bush&#8217;s tune.  All of the Franco\/German\/Russian talk<br \/>\nof thwarting that mad cowboy has come to this in the end: U.S, troops<br \/>\nin control of Iraq, Saddam gone, and the U.N. formally committed by<br \/>\nresolution to support the U.S. reconstruction without either a timeline<br \/>\nor any U.N. authority over Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>Once or twice could be luck.  But Bush <em>keeps doing this<\/em>.<br \/>\nHe is such an effective political operator that his opponents find<br \/>\nthat their ability to block him has quietly vanished while they<br \/>\nweren&#8217;t looking.  The pathological rage now endemic in Democratic<br \/>\ncircles is fueled by impotence.  They know they were suckered,<br \/>\nswindled, <em>had<\/em> somehow, but they can&#8217;t pin down why or how the<br \/>\nmajority voters stopped listening.  Bad enough to have Reagan pound<br \/>\nthe crap out of them &mdash; they thought he was an idiot too, but at<br \/>\nleast they could console themselves that he was a <em>glib<\/em> idiot.<br \/>\nBeing shellacked by a Republican who sounds like a moron behind a<br \/>\nmicrophone is more than their blood pressure can take.<\/p>\n<p>Well, Democrats, I&#8217;ve got news for you.  Bush is using your rage to<br \/>\nmake <em>you<\/em> into idiots.  I think, early in his political<br \/>\ncareer, he somehow learned how to push this button reliably, and has<br \/>\nbeen sucker-punching his opponents ever since.  Clever of him &mdash;<br \/>\nbut then, as I belatedly realized when I was thinking this through. he<br \/>\n<em>has<\/em> to be brighter than he looks.  The dude flew fighter<br \/>\nplanes!  Simpletons can&#8217;t do that; the Air Force screens pilots for<br \/>\nintelligence because it <em>has<\/em> to.<\/p>\n<p>Want to stop Bush?  Then, Mr. J. Random Democrat, call Dubya evil if<br \/>\nyou want &mdash; but accept that, on his record, he is pretty damn<br \/>\nbright.  Stop screaming, take his brains seriously, and outsmart him.<br \/>\nThat is, if you can.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/enetation.co.uk\/comments.php?user=esr&amp;commentid=106731087946688284\">Blogspot comments<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the kind of articulate extrovert who tends to go into politics or the media, it can be very difficult to believe that a stumble-tongued, inarticulate man can be other than an idiot. As an articulate extrovert myself, I&#8217;ve had to struggle with this. Like most of our media and chattering classes, my instinct too&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/?p=77\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Stupid Like A Fox<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/esr.ibiblio.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}