grylliade.org Free minds. Free markets. Free beer.

He probably had to leave sports after his father told him "I'm sick of bailing your business-failure ass out. Get another job."

I heard on NPR that it was revealed that one of the most annoying things GWB found in cabinet meetings is that he was always being ignored. No one would ask him questions, consult, etc. Everyone just went for Cheney.

See, Bush didn't have that problem back when he was in the sort of job where he could command respect for his expertise. If somebody wanted an opinion on which brand of beer to sell at the stadium, they knew that he would be all over that shit, and they trusted his expertise. If they had questions on formulating spirit-building activities for the crowd, they knew that the former Yale cheerleader could handle it. And if a baseball player was caught doing something compromising, Bush could totally find a way to deal with that.

He needs the sort of job where he can draw on his core competencies to achieve mission-critical objectives. Then he'll be able to count on the respect of his co-workers.

Actually, from what I've read, the baseball team was less about him doing something he enjoyed and more about sticking it to his dad. Bush the Greater's lifelong dream was owning a baseball team, and had he not been so drawn to public service, he'd probably have used his oil money to buy a team and retire. Bush the Lesser got bailed out of Arbusto, had a few million in his pocket, and, faster than you can say unresolved Oedipal issues, had parleyed his money and family name into lead investorship on the Rangers. The sad thing is that he wasn't even any good at it; he just didn't have the mind for details, nor could he tolerate people who did. Which meant he held onto players that he liked but who sucked, and traded really good people (*ahem* Sammy Sosa) who he didn't, without even getting his money's worth.

If we wanted to put him in something he was good at, we'd have to make him the first contact on major contracts. Put his apparently amazing recall for names and ability to make people feel good in person to work getting the foot in the door, then hand it off to details people.

I dunno, I question Bush the Greater's motives a lot less than that. The entire goddamn family is one big psychodrama, with fathers making their sons into hopelessly stunted adults who feel a near-pathological desire to "serve." Hence Bush TG's service in a fighter plane, even though he could have gone somewhere much safer. The desire to "serve" in that family comes from, psychologically, an incredibly unhealthy place, but I don't question that it's genuine, or think that it's a facade for something else. At least not in the case of the Elder Bush.

Those sons, on the other hand...

all i can think of is robert downey jr. in less than zero.

speaking of which, i heard heath ledger was offered a shot at a remake of less than zero but remarked "i don't want to work in a documentary right now" ho ho ho ho ho.

This thread made something possibly obvious occur to me: you don't get to be President without being rather talented. The talents you have may not be the talents we want to see in a president: you may be talented at deception and political hardball (Nixon); you may be talented mass-mob demagoguery (FDR, Hitler if we want to leave the US); you may be talented at cultivating an envied image (JFK); you may be talented at standing around, looking presidential, and letting other people worry about the details (Harding). You may be all of these things, but hopeless at leadership, political maneuvering, and policy details. But these are still talents. I think what you're seeing, Thoreau, is exactly what circa-2000 pundits meant when they said Bush was the one we'd like to have a beer with.

Yeah. I'm not saying that this is a good reason to pick someone as President. I am saying it is a reason people use, it helps you to become president, and if Bush wasn't very talented at that he wouldn't have become president.

Which is I think basically what you were saying in the original post. "Now I see what he's good at. Can we send him back to doing something where that's the relevant skillset?"

What Kerry had going for him:
1. He was a Democrat. (Seriously, the Democrats could run a potted plant and get 40% of the popular vote.)
2. He had a good name: "John Kerry". Good, solid, American-sounding.
3. His opponent was the remarkably feckless George W. Bush.

What Kerry had against him:
1. He was a senator, and a long-time one at that. Senators don't usually do well, because they have too much of a record on which they can be attacked.
2. He reeked of Northeastern liberal elitism.
3. He wasn't what you'd call a compelling public speaker.

All in all, I'm not terribly surprised he lost. The really interesting race will be the upcoming one. Both candidates are senators, so that's kind of a wash - in this case, Obama's short tenure may be a plus. The race usually goes to the younger and more Southern candidate, which is split in this case: Obama's younger, McCain more Southern. The only battleground on which McCain clearly wins is his name: "John McCain" sounds far more American than "Barack Hussein Obama".

I'm sorry, Bush is talented? At what exactly? We should not confuse natural retardation at birth with being humorous, funny, or whatever. People make fun of Bush because he is a retard, not because he's good at making jokes.

And it takes talent to be able to do that? That's certainly one talent I don't, or at least hope not to, have.

Which is like, what, really low?

I actually agree with Shem. You don't get to be President without some talents, and you don't get there by being stupid, either. The talents he has may not be the ones we want in a President, but that doesn't mean they're not there. Believe me, in this city (and this neighborhood in particular), I'm surrounded by people who sneer, "Bush is stoooopid." To which I am always tempted to reply, "Ah, Bush is stupid and you are smart. This is why he has a law degree from Yale and is president of the US, while you are an unwashed hippie street vendor." The man may be possessed of a very unsuitable philosophy for a president, and he may be psychologically unable to listen to anyone else, but he isn't "stupid".

Bush got into Yale because of his connections. If you doubt me, look up his SAT scores and grades. I'm sure he's at least average, but that's not saying much, is it?

Edit: Even if the man could reach Mensa levels on standardized tests, the fact is that he clearly refuses to think, to question, or to consider that the axioms that guide his actions could be wrong. IOW, his thinking actions are indistinguishable from those of a stupid person. What his IQ may or may not be doesn't really matter.

OK, not stupid. Moron, may be?

Seriously though, I think I use the word "stupid" on the scale of presidents. When I describe someone as smart or not, I put in context. For example, in my business a measure os smart (writing good papers, getting research money, etc) is different than someone else who works as a street vendor. Some street vendors are smart, some aren't. We have to compare apples and oranges here, right? So as far as presidents go, Bush is stupid, err, ok just a moron? Or is moron worse than stupid?

Either way, I like the thought of describing Bush as a moron. I'll stick to that.

Huh? This comment makes no sense to me. When did anyone mention Iraq? Or what it says about Bush's intelligence?

I mentioned Iraq because it's the most significant decision that he made, and it should have been blindingly obvious from the start that it was the wrong decision. His inability to get the blindingly obvious says something about him.

We all know your feelings about Iraq. We've heard all about them, in exquisite detail, dozens of times. There's absolutely no reason to bring it up every single time something (barely!) tangentially related to the war is discussed. Christ, I agree with you and even I'm getting tired of it.

To get away from Iraq, I think that repeatedly making the same type of mistake (e.g. covering for incompetent cronies like Jadagul describes) is functionally equivalent to stupidity. If you don't learn from the mistake after the 100th repetition, it is equivalent to being too dumb to learn.

Seriously, I thought we had a ruling class watching over things, which is why we're for free trade and internationalism when the majority of the population has never been for either. Why are they letting Bush do this? Can't they, I dunno, arrange another hit like they did when the Irish attempted to take over before we found out they were really white in 1980?

word the fuck up.

Maybe Dubya has INT 18 (though I suspect it's much lower), but he clearly used WIS as his dump stat. I give him WIS 5 at best.

STR 12. He clears a lot of brush.
DEX 9. You've all seen the African tribal dancing.
CON 15. I don't remember hearing anything about illness in the White House, so he must have spent a lot of points on this, probably assuming it would boost his ability to lie without detection. He therefore has a lot of bonus hit points.
INT 11. Maybe a bit smarter than Joe Average, but not by much. The fancy degree comes from rote memorization and Daddy's money, and maybe he assigned a Feat to education.
WIS 5. His crappiest stat roll went here. It shows.
CHA 10. Not good enough to make a difference when his low WIS score leads him to think his lies are believable, but not bad enough to keep him from seeming folksy when his D20 is running hot.

What are the implications of The Pretzel Incident for his character stats?

Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
Intelligence
Wisdom
Charisma

They are character statistics from the fantasy role-playing game Dungeon & Dragons.

I don't know if Jake did but actually I have seen sites like the type you mention.

For example, here is one: http://www.kevinhaw.com/add_quiz.shtml

EDIT: Not particularly praising the quality on this particular test since I just glanced at it briefly. Google 'D&D stats quiz' for various similar sites.

I just made up the numbers based on my misspent youth.

Depends whether you're using 3.5 D&D's choking rules or not. Because, if it took less than about four minutes for him to pass out from it, his Con can't be that high.

Constitution 15?!

Given his record, I would have assumed a negative number.

Oh. You meant physical constitution!

I see someone else has already been thinking along these lines...
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2008/03/politics_as_she_is_played.html

I got a good laugh out of McCain's "SPECIAL DEFENSES: +3 or better weapon to hit. In event of combat, 20% chance of heart attack per round, followed by the swearing in of President Santorum. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

No, he's totally a high level thief. He even runs a massive criminal enterprise.

The thief is the guy on the ground who actually steals shit. The aristocrat is the guy who sits in the nice office, charms people, and calls in favors so that the guy who actually steals shit gets away with it.

The whole point of the aristocrat class is that he doesn't physically get his hands dirty.