August 29, 2006
BUSH JOKES
Many people have commented about the episode of Bill Maher's show where Christopher Hitchens gave the audience the finger. But no one has said anything about the other brilliant things Hitchens brought up. Really, I just couldn't get over how danged witty his jabs were; it always took the audience a second to realize they were being ridiculed. You should watch his performance here at
The Malcontent.
Maher made joke after joke after joke about how dumb and religious Bush is. Seriously, he beat that horse. And I personally think Hitchens' best bit was getting fed up with it. At about ten minutes into the segment, he said:
I've been on the Jon Stewart show, I've been on your show, I've seen you make about five George Bush IQ jokes per night, there's no one I know who can't do it. You know what I think? This is now the joke that stupid people laugh at. It's a joke that any dumb person can laugh at because they think they're smarter, they can prove they're smarter than the President. Like the people who make booing and mooing noises in your audience.
My husband and I both agree that we will be relieved when Bush leaves office for the simple reason that hopefully we can put an end to the idiot jokes. No matter how many times someone points out that Bush's IQ is in the 90th percentile, probably slightly higher than Kerry's, no matter that Bush has degrees from Harvard and Yale, every yahoo with a computer likes to pretend he's oh so much smarter than Bush. I think Hitchens is right: people like to think Bush is stupid because it makes them feel better about themselves.
But it truly takes a simple man to think himself grand because he can make chimp jokes.
Posted by: Sarah at
08:29 AM
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1
The Bush-is-an-idiot jokes may come to an end...but what follows will be worse. Succeeding Republican presidents will be lambasted as "not even as bright as George W. Bush."
If you don't believe it, consider this: During his time in the public eye, Dan Quayle's intelligence was kept under constant attack, remember? But hearken to what Senator John "I served in Vietnam, and don't you forget it!" Kerry said during the 2000 presidential campaign:
"All over this country people are asking whether or not George Bush is smart enough to be president of the United States....the scary thing is, one of the people asking me was Dan Quayle."
Democrats and their media allies have two approaches to a Republican of stature: 1) call him a fascist, or 2) call him stupid. They'll never tire of either.
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto at August 29, 2006 12:11 PM (PzL/5)
2
I think what this is really about is not IQ, but rather certain verbal mannerisms that serve as in-group markers. Here are a couple of posts I did on the topic before the election:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_photoncourier_archive.html#109422760433909117
and
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/archives/2004_10_01_photoncourier_archive.html#109863184095038005
Posted by: david foster at August 29, 2006 12:26 PM (/Z304)
3
He looks stupid. He sounds stupid. Hence the jokes.
Posted by: bob at August 30, 2006 12:31 PM (gwkri)
4
On a tangent here: did you see the episode of Penn and Teller where Hitchens is one of their experts (on Mother Theresa...the episode about holiness being Bullshit)? It's on Google video. He is so funny, because he doesn't give a crap about what people think of him and was just smoking and drinking through the interview...it was priceless!
Posted by: calivalleygirl at August 30, 2006 09:35 PM (rbquN)
5
A friend of mine who supports W told me that you could not blame him for the failure to put a defensive air cap over the pentagon or activate anti-aircraft guns for almost an hour after the 2nd plane hit in N.Y. because "no one told him(W) to do this" I do not think W is at all dumb but often he and his supporters have no better explanation than something like this for obvious failures.
Posted by: john henry at September 01, 2006 10:34 AM (hxDMK)
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