Why does Dubya (Good bye and good riddance) claim to be a good ole' boy from Texas, when he is from somewhere ridiculously WASPy like Maine.

[moondog]

Huh?

Is it vicarioulsy via Laura?

Because he's a twunt? I hate him too much to know stuff about him.

Think the Bush family is from Texas, but have had a long-time summer home in Maine.

heh heh.

Maine doesn't want him though.

PS he was Gov of Tex and other reasons i'm sure. wonder if texas still wants him.

Don't they all do that? I imagine a whole team of people saying "hmm we need the Irish-american vote. Can we say he once kissed a girl in Dublin?"

Tony Blair went through a phase where he started adding to his hobbies so that if someone liked parachuting or spelunking his PR people would nip in and say he liked those too. Or baking "yes Tony likes nothing more than getting a fresh loaf from the oven in between bombing Iraq"

I always think it's a bit sad really. Honesty gets my vote, but that never occurs to any of them.

It is because he is monstrously stupid.
And in Texas they call really stupid fuckwits 'plain speaking' and find it endearing.

Ah.
We need Expat (a Texan) to give her take on this.

well pag, everything is big in texas so i guess so are their fuckwits.

"It is because he is monstrously stupid"

always found it funny/odd that people believe that it is an accepted "truth" that a man who graduated from yale and got an mba from harvard is dumb.i'd wager he's a damn sight sight smarter than most.

but mayorquimby what about some if the things he comes out with? The words he just makes up? His bushisms?

politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushisms.htm

politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushisms.htm

Hoochie's right, Daddy got him his university places. And even if he had been reasonably intelligent back then, the years of heavy drinking probably didn't help.

And Daddy helped him dodge the draft, of course. Funny how someone who avoided risking his own neck was so keen to send other people off to fight a stupid war.

It's not even his grades at university, but that he had no recognition of the words coming out of his mouth

Those speechwriters have a lot to answer for!

Education and stupidity are not mutually exclusive.

One ofthe most ridiculously dumb people I ever met had a degree in history from a red brick.
She still made the act of standing up seem like an achievement.

Very true, pagwatch. Many of those people in the City and international finance who have bankrupted banks and caused worldwide chaos would rate themselves as clever and came from 'good' universities...

Dubya played the 'man of the people' card a ridiculous extent, which is ridiculous considering the privilege he enjoyed. Born in Connecticut, educated at a private Massachusetts high school, followed by Yale and Harvard. The way that some Republicans tried to turn the electorate away from the likes of Obama by scathingly damning them as the 'liberal elite' (I'd love to be described as this! but somehow this is considered an insult in the USA) is absurd, considering the elitism of Bush and his cohorts.

"but mayorquimby what about some if the things he comes out with? The words he just makes up? His bushisms?"

obviously some of them are atrocious but in other speeches he made fun of himself and the slip ups he makes when speaking. i'm not saying he's mensa material, i just think it is a sympthom of the last few years where "bush-bashing" became the lowest common denominator of comedy and went completely unchallenged.
i'm not a bush supporter but i just think it would be akin as labelling obama as stupid because he couldn't even successfully repeat lines being said to him yesterday, which is patently untrue.
as i say i'm no bush fan, i just think the portraying bush as a moron is a bit lazy.because if you paint him as a moron then how can you also attribute his decisions to him and give him the full blame for the horrible and evil things he did during his terms as well as the brilliant things he did.

"i'm not a bush supporter but i just think it would be akin as labelling obama as stupid because he couldn't even successfully repeat lines being said to him yesterday, which is patently untrue."

sorry i meant to add on this point that it is a classic example.had bush made such a slip up it would have been raked over in a "bush is so stupid/moron/can't do anything right" because people in general don't like bush. but as could be seen on threads here yesterday when obama did it it was a case of "oh god look how nervous he is/i'm so proud we'll forgive him this slip/ the great ones always fluff their lines"

and that's my only point, that this polarising and almost cartoonish characters that we make of politicians is not helpfull in my opinion.

Can you elaborate on the brilliant things he did please? I'm interested to know what you are refering to here mayorquimby.

He's not a great orator. But he has disarming charm, and I liked him as a person, even while vehemently hating much of what he did. It's an easy way to be popular, chucking out a few contemptuous words about him, but I think it's a little close-minded.

This is a fair appraisal of what he did actually acheive, and for that, I say well done to him.