Dumb? Or: The Value of Ignorance

[vixengrl]

Ignorance has been "misunderestimated." Just consider this: everyone has a little ignorance in them. I, for one, am totally ignorant of any of the languages of the natives of New Guinea, and if I do know any words from any of those languages, well, I'm ignorant of their origin. I'm also not entirely sure of what "dark matter" is. Any one of us could sit down and make a nice long list of the things we simply know that we don't know.

And then there's George W. Bush. There are things he doesn't know.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. In the last campaign, you were asked a question about the biggest mistake you'd made in your life, and you used to like to joke that it was trading Sammy Sosa. You've looked back before 9/11 for what mistakes might have been made. After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?

THE PRESIDENT: I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it. (Laughter.) John, I'm sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could have done it better this way, or that way. You know, I just -- I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn't yet.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040413-20.html


Q Mr. President, in your speeches now you rarely talk or mention Osama bin Laden. Why is that? Also, can you tell the American people if you have any more information, if you know if he is dead or alive? Final part -- deep in your heart, don't you truly believe that until you find out if he is dead or alive, you won't really eliminate the threat of --

THE PRESIDENT: Deep in my heart I know the man is on the run, if he's alive at all. Who knows if he's hiding in some cave or not; we haven't heard from him in a long time. And the idea of focusing on one person is -- really indicates to me people don't understand the scope of the mission.
Terror is bigger than one person. And he's just -- he's a person who's now been marginalized. His network, his host government has been destroyed. He's the ultimate parasite who found weakness, exploited it, and met his match. He is -- as I mentioned in my speech, I do mention the fact that this is a fellow who is willing to commit youngsters to their death and he, himself, tries to hide -- if, in fact, he's hiding at all.
So I don't know where he is. You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020313-8.html


''I've never lived around poor people,'' Wallis remembers Bush saying. ''I don't know what they think. I really don't know what they think. I'm a white Republican guy who doesn't get it. How do I get it?''

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html?ex=1255665600en=890a96189e162076ei=5090

When we look back at the long strange trip the Bush administration has been, it might be somewhat revealing to recall that the actual topic of whether or not our President was, in fact, an idiot was discussed http://www.crooksandliars.com/posts/2006/08/15/scarborough-is-bush-an-idiot/ in a non-comedic television program. Our commander-in-chief, a graduate of Harvard and Yale--has not necessarily distinguished himself as the most articulate man in the country. Nor the most intellectually curious. His "Bushisms" are kind of the end word in amusing public gaffes. (He is in this, I do believe, the lucky beneficiary of four years of Dan "Potatoe" Quayle, his father's VP, who softened us up for verbal shenanigans with such winners as, "A mind is a terrible thing to have.")

Rarely does one ever ask, "Is our President learning?" He showed some lack of knowledge when he campaigned for president in 1999, http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/11/05/bush.popquiz/ and has joked that Condoleeza Rice http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-bush-broadcasters,1,7525632.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true briefed him on foreign affairs using flash cards (which might be funnier if some of us didn't suspect it was true.) And not so long ago, it appears he may not have known certain basic issues about the conflict he was about to engage in, in Iraq http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Ambassador_claims_shortly_before_invasion_Bush_0804.html regarding the differences between Sunni and Shia. It's not like he wasn't, I dunno, the son of the vice president of the US whilst the Iran-Iraq war was going on, and, er, his dad was the Commander-in-chief during a thing they call the Persian Gulf war. He is perhaps, to use a delicate phrase John McCain once used, "not intellectually curious."

And yet, although there are things he does not know, there are things he certainly did (maybe) kind of...know?

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html

Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof -- the smoking gun -- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html

We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade.
(ibid.) (um... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/08/AR2006090800777.html not especially?)

Sometimes he even discusses the future:

Bush said. "Secretary Rumsfeld's energetic and steady leadership is exactly what is needed at this period.

"He has my full support and deepest appreciation."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-14-bush-rumsfeld_x.htm

This election is just three days away. Oh, you've probably heard them in Washington -- all the pundits and prognosticators have already determined the outcome of the election. I want to remind them, the folks of Colorado haven't even voted yet. (Applause.) It's not the first time we've been through this. You might remember 2004. (Applause.) I suspect it was about the time I came to Greeley that some of them in Washington were already picking out their offices in the West Wing. (Laughter.) And then you voted. (Applause.) And the movers weren't needed. (Applause.) They're not going to be needed on November the 7th. With your help, we will hold the House, Marilyn will win, and we will control the United States Senate. (Applause.)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/11/20061104-1.html

Now, why rehash all this business about Bush and ignorance? Why--because ignorance is more than bliss to this White House--it's a virtue--it's a value. After all, consider all the things (NSA spying, the "ghost prisoners" in Guantanamo, the interrogation techniques) we simply aren't supposed to know. Now that Dems have congress, I expect to hear "National Security" invoked any number of times as reason why we need not know who has done what and why. I am sure, in the tradition of Ronald Reagan's "I do not recall" during the Iran-Contra hearings--Bush too, will find additional things he does not, did not, can't really, say he knows.

Right now, there is some to-do over the entree of GWB's father's very good friend--and W's very best friend in the world http://slpr.stanford.edu/13_1.html Jim Baker III and other wisemen into the dialog abut the Iraq war. Regardless of what they say, Bush is expecting another report from the Joint chiefs of staff (besides this one? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/19/AR2006111901249_pf.html) and it looks like he can't even *get* enough information--an attitude that might've been better--three and a half years ago.Having been so wrong so long, is it not too late to be wise? I think I'll take the better part, but caution this: the one thing I propose that he know--

It isn't too late to learn--until it is too late.

And it is already too late for too many (http://www.icasualties.com.)

[beam me up scottie]

1. Both.

He thought Africa was a country.

Hell, he probably still thinks that.


Forgot to add, nice compilation.

Got it bookmarked for future use, thanks!

[vixengrl]

2. Thank you for replying.

:)