From Paul Krugman, an explanation of the reason Bush trips over his own tongue:
Of course, minimizing and mocking the suffering of others is a natural strategy for political figures who advocate lower taxes on the rich and less help for the poor and unlucky. But I believe that the lack of empathy shown by Mr. Limbaugh, Mr. Kristol, and, yes, Mr. Bush is genuine, not feigned.
Mark Crispin Miller, the author of “The Bush Dyslexicon,” once made a striking observation: all of the famous Bush malapropisms — “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family,” and so on — have involved occasions when Mr. Bush was trying to sound caring and compassionate.
By contrast, Mr. Bush is articulate and even grammatical when he talks about punishing people; that’s when he’s speaking from the heart. The only animation Mr. Bush showed during the flooding of New Orleans was when he declared “zero tolerance of people breaking the law,” even those breaking into abandoned stores in search of the food and water they weren’t getting from his administration.
You know, that’s absolutely right. How scary is that?
I’m pretty sure we all know that Bush is neither caring nor compassionate. Althought this observation is kinda cool, I don’t thimk most people would have caught this.
I can think of two that don’t make fun of poor people per se his “speaking Mexican” also the “country Africa”
But then again in his mind non-white people probably equal poor so this doesn’t really refute that hypothesis.
Wow. Dismissing problems is one thing, but finding them funny? Being poor, being sick, being uninsured, that’s a joke? Isn’t that sociopathic?
What else do they find funny? Misogyny and racism? Rape, domestic violence, hate crimes, nooses, burning crosses? Katrina?
I read the article, and I find it impossible to wrap my head around Rush Limbaugh’s comments.
I’m also having trouble finding a context where this is remotely funny:
Anyone recall the context for that “joke?”
Answering my own question.
QLH: Thaks for the link. This is why I can’t understand (or stand) the Goldwater nostalgia that some progressives have expressed—that he was a “decent conservative” or some such nonsense.
I’ve even heard a few tiny ripples of such sentiments around Reagan. God help us.
What about the “fool me once…won’t get fooled again” thing?
I’m just trying to stay in some state of sensory deprivation until January 2009. I’m so sick of him and I just can’t wait until he’s gone.
Wow, that is very, very true. And maybe I’m just unobservant, or maybe I just don’t notice because I don’t find anything Bush says to be sincere, I did not notice it on my own.
Tata, he tripped over that because he was peddling his lie about wanting peace in the Middle East.
If he had been speaking about shocking an awing Iraqis into submission to take their oil—i.e., the truth of what he wanted—then he wouldn’t have stumbled. But he got caught up in his own bullshit about this war being some harbinger of peace.
holy shit that is an excellent observation.
What about the “misunderestimated” comment?
QLH says: Isn’t that sociopathic?
I’m sorry are we only NOW figuring out that a bunch of sociopaths that Dexter would go hunting are running the place?
I mean, one of the shot a man in the face, and made the guy apologize!
That made my stomach flip and I feel sick now. I think I blocked from my memory the zero tolerance for people fighting to survive by getting basic needs from stores. Oh dear lord I think we are on to something….
chad, the snopes article might help.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/piehigher.asp
I actually think the misunderestimate quote there needs even more context to know if it’s a “faked compassion” quote; but if you’re generous in interpreting the concept, I think it is.
Did Mr. Miller actually run any numbers on that claim?
Another topic on which Bush is much, much more articulate is baseball, both from playing it and from owning the Texas Rangers. Catch him talking about baseball and you see none of the selective aphasia. He doesn’t have to fake baseball talk, unlike talk about poor people or about government; government and poor people are for losers in Bush’s world but winners like him are in the baseball world.
Those who have engaged in effort to recover from addictions or have worked with or suffered through addicts’ self-centeredness will recognize the 60-year-old frat boy style all too well. Forget about left-right issues. When you compare Bush as a man to other conservatives – Bob Dole, Gerald Ford, even Nixon – it’s easy to tell who the stuck-at-age-20 frat boy is. A more mature, less sociopathic man would be more interested in engaging people, bringing out their best, receiving their useful feedback at least in some contexts to help him achieve his goals. For the frat boy, it’s all about the fraternity loyalty. This low-level of morality and engagement with life is common among non-recovered addicts and dry drunks – still the 0.19 asshole with (presumably) 0.00 blood alcohol content.
Mature, non-sociopathic men and women have to deal with constraint, have to cope with both the fallout from bad decisions and fallout from no-fault misfortunes that cannot be avoided in life. Bush’s family, cash and addictive psychology have allowed him to reach retirement age without having to experience the things that actually turn college-age drunks into grown-ass adults. Bush got to avoid real war, avoid real business failure (unlike his investors), avoid consequences from being a drunk driver (can you imagine Bush picking up litter on the side of the highway with the local DPW on probation? of course not.) We have not seen one piece of evidence showing that he exerted effort to instill good character to his hard-partying daughters; had there been any, he or Rove would have trotted it out to pander to us or to his religious base.
He is a politically successful, dangerously powerful failure at life.
“People of cover” is a perfect example.
i heard something similar to this before, and i thought it was a pretty clever armchair psychoanalysis of him. basically, the author concluded that the bushisms reveal our president to be a sociopath.
i personally think he’s really a sociopathic idealist in that he wants to do the right thing, but doesn’t get that he’s hurting all these innocent people in the process.
Bruce you nailed it. I have also noticed that not only dry-drunks or ‘clean’ addicts exhibit this permanent retardation of maturation, but also trust fund kids and like, who have never had to suffer for anything or take responsibility for any portion of their bad behavior or decisions.
It is a chronic sickness of the well-begotten and those people have no business running so much as a pet store, much less a country.
My husband pointed out that Patton Oswalt mentioned this in one of his routines, speaking about the difference between stupid and evil. We think it’s off his 2-2-2 album (sorry no links).
Ah, this, I remember this being addressed before Bush got ‘re-elected’ again too.
Bush isn’t a Moron,
He’s a Cunning Sociopath
By Bev Conover
December 5, 2002 — If any of us are to have a future worth having, the world’s leaders, the members of Congress, the US corporate media and people of all political persuasions who value freedom and democracy had better start seeing George W. Bush for what he is: a sociopath and a passive serial killer.
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/conover01.htm
I don’t know if that’s the same article, Firefox ate my favourites, but I think it’s the same title. It’s got that bit with the frogs and firecrackers though…but I distinctly remember it being on a different site.
…and AHHHH!!! For the ones not getting off on cruelty, but are thinktanking themselves into ‘believing’ it doesn’t exist; Ghost of Christmas Present, where art thou? I’ve always thought it’ll be educational for those in the ivory tower to be dragged down and put face up against the lives of the people they usually stand on.
…something ate my earlier link, but I read an article on this back in 2002 as well;
Bush isn’t a Moron,
He’s a Cunning Sociopath
By Bev Conover
Online Journal Editor & Publisher
December 5, 2002 — If any of us are to have a future worth having, the world’s leaders, the members of Congress, the US corporate media and people of all political persuasions who value freedom and democracy had better start seeing George W. Bush for what he is: a sociopath and a passive serial killer.
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/conover01.htm
wow, i had never thought of that (the idea his articulate when expressing hate or anger), that is VERY scary.
Interesting observation. However, I have never heard him say anything that I thought was particularly articulate. I keep wondering why the hell there isn’t at least one person fact checking his speeches and writing in correct pronunciations. I know he goes “off script” a lot and that explains a lot of his mistakes, but at the recent UN meeting he was reading a speech and referred to Myanmar as Burhma. WTF? NO ONE caught that before he reached the podium?
Olivia, that was a deliberate choice, since the US does not recognize the name change.