"I have appreciated your emails regarding politics. I am learning about the issues and enjoy the debate that can be seen.
"I have a question for you, which I feel a little strange about, but thought you might have some ideas. I am listening through the internet to the NPR interview with President Bush. I am struck (often) by how "simpleton" his answers are to the questions. There are jokes about him being a "tool" and not being very smart. Other people say that he is very smart and knows exactly what is going on. What do you think? I am struck by how often Clinton is referred to as "brilliant", this is very different from what Bush is portrayed as. Just curious! I am realize that I should perhaps ask a spectrum of people, but you were the first person I thought of."
To which I responded:
"It is nice to hear from you and even nicer to receive an interesting and difficult question from you.
"I say difficult because we use so many terms that have multiple meanings. What is the meaning of smart? Is it one's IQ? Is it based on how well educated they are? When Bush went to Yale college he was a C student. By that measure he is not smart. Kerry had similar grades. By that measure he is no smarter. I don't know what kind of grades Clinton got but as I recall he was a brilliant student. They say he was a brilliant politician but he didn't get his health plan through a Democratic Congress and after two years into his Presidency he lost Congress.
"But I come back to what is smart? A long time ago I knew a young women who was a refugee from Ecuador. She was not well educated though she was fun to be with. She set out to become very rich by marriage. In a series of moves, the details of which I will not bore you with, she married a very rich man and became an international socialite. Diplomats and Senators are delighted to be entertained by her. She had three daughters one of whom married a prince in London attended by all the royalty from around the world, another married a Getty and the third married a von Furstenberg. Was she smart?
"Was Reagan smart. He lived in a world of make-believe in which the movies he had had seen were his reality. (See the Reagan Biography by Lou Cannon) and yet he changed the whole political landscape in the US.
"Bush has difficulty speaking the English language. But he won the Governorship of Texas and the Presidency of the U.S. Well, he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. But so did FDRs and Eleanor Roosevelt's sons and they went nowhere.
"He has been quite successful in effectuating his policies, pushing enormous tax cuts through the Congress and destroying many environmental protections. He has extended the Reagan policies successfully far beyond anything Reagan would have dreamt of or possibly even approved of. Can a dumb man be that successful? I don't know. I don't even know that his poor speech is not an affectation which it was judged would appeal to those who speak no better than he does. His success may be due to having smart people about him, but it takes a kind if smartness to pick people who will effectuate what you want.
"Is he a tool. No, the President is never a tool. Cheney and Karl Rove may be doing the thinking for him but they can only function within the broad parameters of the policies he advocates, which was also true of Reagan or any President.
"I think his policies are outrageous but that goes to belief not smarts.
"All that is a long non-answer to a short question. The greatest difficulty is that our language is so imprecise."
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