Bush Vs. Kerry in a battle of IQ

Okay, dang it, I have to reply, only cause I’ve kept hearing stuff like this all week long (well more than the usual amount from the past 4 years). I usually keep all my political type opinions to myself unless asked, but I depart from my usual filtering. And this is not directed at peloquin3 with any malice, just an open question/response for the audience.

What is the deal with the profound belief among Bush-bashers that Bush is dumb or lacks intelligence? First off, I have a supreme respect for the Office of the President and no matter how much I agree or disagree with the person who holds the office, I will not claim to know any personal facts, such as relative intelligence of the office holder, nor remarks about his habits, or whatever since I have not had the fortune of meeting any of the men who have held the Office thus far. When I don’t know someone personally, I tend not to make personal attacks. Second, as anyone who deals with any number of people should know, there is sometimes a vast difference between how someone is perceived and how they may actually be. We get a very filtered look at the President (no matter who it is) from both the staff of the White House and the general media, not missing the fact that even visuals will have their ‘spin’ put on it by the grand political and media machines. Disagreements and debates about issues and the evaluation of the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of polices concerning those is definitely something that should be actively done at all levels of government, but it seems to me, to follow a loud section of those who disagree and call Bush dumb, is to fall into a classical Ad Hominem fallacy, and according to my trip though a required Logic class, you don’t win arguments or debates with fallacies. Whether they are founded in some ‘truth’ or not.

Now, to say all that, I will agree that there have been pics of the President with some pretty dumb looks on his face. But who in the human race has never had a dumb look? And given prejudices about how someone from Texas is supposed to act/look/speak, I’m not surprised to find people that buy into that ‘chart’. My dad’s parents, who were born in Louisiana, have spent their adult years being very articulate and clear, trying to override the common accents and mannerisms of most of their hometown neighbors, in an effort to escape stereotyping of the southern-born person as an uneducated hick who couldn’t form a complete sentence if it was spelled out for them in alphabet soup. It seems somewhat hypocritical too for the common attack of those that purvey the ‘dumb’ argument, that because the President has a ‘funny shaped small head, big ears, and tends to have his mouth open’ is in fact dumb because he looks dumb. Yet if you ask most people “Is stereotyping wrong?” they will answer “yes”.

Again, this is no way an affront to peloquin3, whom I consider a friend, and I’m not trying to start a flame war on his LJ. I guess I just figure that the sooner we stop the unintelligent arguments and focus on the actual issues and maybe how we might affect change, the sooner things move. Just my $0.02 (okay maybe its a nickel worth by now) and offered in the spirit of free speech and debate. Which of course peloquin3 is totally in his rights to dump and edit it out. 🙂 hehe, freedoms abound. 😉