Um, that sounds pretty stoopid, man.

Stupid Is As People Perceive
By Joseph Walther

This past week our beloved President and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom held a joint press conference that dealt with some very serious stuff. They answered questions posed by members of the international press corp concerning, primarily, the chaos going on relative to Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon. Of course, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea crept into the question and answer session, as well. They used the term “terrorism” a lot, too.

Bear with me on this. I’d like to share a perspective that, while as yet not discussed by the international press corp and only secretly by the Republicans, probably bears a great deal of the blame for the negative way a growing percentage of the world sees us as a nation. I’ll get right back to this after a short, pointed digression into what precipitated the press conference in the first place.

A quick chronology…

The United Nations established the State of Israel by approving the Palestine Mandate on 05/14/1947.
Israel’s Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion accepted the Mandate but the Arab League rejected outright.
Worldwide time bomb began ticking.
In 1950, Israel declared Jerusalem as its capital, countermanding the Palestine Mandate. Tick…tick…tick…
In 1980, Israel passes a Knesset Law (religious declaration) that Jerusalem is its “eternal and indivisible capital. TICK…TICK…TICK…TICK…
On 08/20/1980, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 478, making the Knesset “null and void.” The vote was pro 14-0 with the United States abstaining.
The Israeli Government has steadfastly ignored the Resolution. TICK!...TICK!...TICK!...
Israel’s enemies have vowed to annihilate both Israel and its citizens by whatever means at hand. TICK!...TICK!...TICK!...TICK!...
Israel has defeated every attempt its enemies have made in carrying out their vow. TICK!...TICK!...TICK!…TICK!...TICK!...

I don’t have a peaceful solution to this problem because religious dogma is at the very heart of the issue. On all sides but the ocean side, Israel is surrounded by her enemies. All of them have sworn to wipe her and her people off the world map. Israel continues to defend herself aggressively. It seems, however, that no matter how accommodating the Israelis try to be, it isn’t good enough for their Arab neighbors. There also seems to be a growing number of morons in this country who also think that Israel is the culprit! Tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…

Back to my original point…

During the press conference with Tony Blair and George Bush, I noticed something. Every time the Prime Minister answered a question, everyone in the room listened intently. They all seemed genuinely enthralled with what Mr. Blair had to say. The Prime Minister attracted the collective attention span in the pressroom to every word he spoke. It was the pinnacle of bilateral respect, downright polite and respectful. Then, George Bush would speak. Oh, how the attitude changed! The collective pressroom attention span splintered all over the place. The reporters paid little attention to what our President had to say because they were formulating their next questions, seemingly ecstatic at the prospect of catching him saying something stupid.

Tony Blair does not rise to the oratory competence level of a Winston Churchill. On the other hand, Mr. Blair does not currently face the same level of problem, as did Mr. Churchill. But, he is eloquent. He is inspiring in his speaking. Meticulously accurate in his command of English and the spoken word, he commands respect. Such speakers can stimulate audiences to heights of consensus beyond common imagination. They challenge and lead their constituencies.

In this country, some of our leaders, minus the British accent, have done likewise. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and William J. Clinton all demonstrated remarkable speaking ability. All of these leaders had a solid command of the English language and used it to demonstrate their understanding of and empathy for all of us as it applied to the problems this country faced during each of their administrations.

Each of these men were able to convince us, as well as the rest of the world, that everything would be fine and not to become paralyzed with fear. We all just knew that, somehow, they felt our pain. In fact, Bill Clinton was the utter personification of a man who could feel your pain from thousands of miles away. Of course, in Bill Clinton’s case, he liked to feel other things, too.

The ones I’ve listed above represent the superior speakers. The other presidents during my lifetime, with the exception of George W. Bush, all had a good grasp of the English language and demonstrated it. It didn’t matter whether they were delivering prepared speeches, answering press corp questions, or delivering impromptu remarks, they could all speak in complete sentences, using vocabulary in its proper context and appropriateness.

Then there’s George W. Bush. While Tony Blair makes me reminisce about high-caliber speakers like Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, George Bush reminds me more of Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane from the old Dukes of Hazzard television sitcom of many years ago. There are just two differences between those two. George Bush is not quite as sophisticated as Sheriff Coltrane was and George IS the President of the United States.

He cannot complete an impromptu sentence. He murders the English language in every respect. Even when he somehow manages to utter an occasional seemingly coherent sentence, it still ends up sounding ridiculously stupid.

“The jury’s still out on evolution.” This would be fine coming from Sheriff Coltrane, but not from the President of the United States. Here’s another one. “Whether it be ministry-building or training of law enforcement officers, those are invital contributions.” How’s this for clarity. “Any time of the year it’s a time of sorrow and sadness when we lose a loss of life.” Here is one of my favorites. “In other words, the formula that has uh, enabled them to, uh, to extent, to the extent, to uhh—to a certain extent, to—the formula they’re relying on won’t change, let me put it that way. I was trying to be really brilliant.”

These represent a few of his verbal blunders. There are between 3,000 and 5,300 of these gems. Humor writers have made millions from them. Writers have compiled them into several well-selling humor books.

Worse, he says all of these things with one of the stupidest looking grin-like facial expressions that I’ve ever seen. Why doesn’t Karl Rove tell him that whenever he’s on national television talking about a war that is becoming exponentially unpopular by the hour, and he mentions those brave youngsters who have died in our nation’s service, he can’t have a stupid, smile-like smirk on his face. Laura, how about giving us a hand here?

Whether you agree or disagree with George Bush, is not my point. How much more receptive would the rest of the world have been if, given the same political policies and economic agenda, they had been articulated by the likes of FDR, or JFK, or Ronald Reagan, or even Bill Clinton? Right now, I’d settle for anyone who can have a coherent thought and express it in a complete sentence.

Perception is a major component of reality. The voters in the United Kingdom who are criticizing Tony Blair are doing so, not because they think their Prime Minister is stupid, but because they hate George Bush, whom they think is remarkably stupid. Mr. Bush, seemingly, does not attempt to change this perception. In fact, his mouth continues to confirm it.

Have a great week.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send your comments. Just click here.