The Pathetic and the Pedestrian

Well, ex-President George W. Bush has surfaced again, one of his relatively rare appearances since he left the White House in disgrace. During an interview he said something to the effect of, “I got out of the swamp and have no desire to get back in. Being President, I was famous and had power, it was awesome.” I suggest that if that is all he has to say about being President of the most powerful nation on earth for eight years that is pretty pathetic, even hopelessly so.

During his Presidency I believed that he must surely be borderline retarded. I have no reason now to change my mind. If not borderline retarded at least the most pedestrian President we have probably ever had. I like my Presidents to be intelligent, more intelligent than the ordinary run of the mill American citizen, certainly more intelligent than me. Bush fails that test miserably. He was pathetic as President and remains pathetic even now. I quite frankly don’t believe he really wanted to be President in the first place, and I believe this is true because he recognized his own intellectual limitations. No truly intelligent person would have said many of the things he is reported to have said, even omitting those things that were grammatically incorrect or perhaps even accidental slips of the tongue.

“I think we agree, the past is over.

They want the federal government controlling Social Security like it's some kind of federal program.

America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused – preferring greatness to power and justice to glory.

I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here."

We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease.

You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.

I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport.

You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."

I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president.

I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family.

I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully.

I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound largemouth bass in my lake.

This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating.

If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.

See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.”

I could go on, there are literally dozens of statements like these. While Bush was President these kinds of absurd comments we were led to believe were just Bush’s tendency for malapropisms, just a kind of cute speech. I don’t believe that. I think if you analyze these and the dozens of other examples you can find they reveal the truth about Bush as an uninformed, not very bright individual, who was completely out of his depth and should never have been elected President. If you can find anything of substance, any semblance of statesmanship, any insightful remark of any kind, you can be sure it was given to him by some speechwriter and he most probably did not understand it. They betray an awesome lack of thought or understanding and are comments so pedestrian they could have been uttered by anyone.

Bush’s remark that he managed to get out of the swamp indicates to me that he at least knew he was in over his head and expresses his relief over his Presidency being over. We should all be relieved that his Presidency is mercifully over. It is commonly understood by most that he was one of the worst, if not the worst Presidents of all time.

"People say, how can I help on this war against terror? How can I fight evil? You can do so by mentoring a child; by going into a shut-in's house and say I love you."

George W. Bush