A scholarly study finds it was the 43rd president's personality, not brain capacity, that limited his functional abilities. This is an important distinction. It is not that the former chief executive was incapable of learning (the "Bush is dumb" meme), but that he did not want to learn, and did not believe it was something he needed to do. From the research paper, "Bush's Brain (No, Not Karl Rove): How Bush's Psyche Shaped His Decision-Making," included in the Stanford University Press anthology, "Judging Bush (Studies in the Modern Presidency)," authors Robert Maranto and Richard E. Redding find:
... [The] best studies, in which raters evaluate statements without being aware of their source, suggest that Bush lacks integrative complexity and thus views issues without nuance. The leading personality theory (the "5-Factor Model"), as measured by the NEO Personality Inventory, suggests that Bush is highly extraverted but not very agreeable or conscientious. He also rates low on "Openness to Experience." Similarly Immelman (2002) had expert raters judge Bush's personality using the Millon Inventory of Diagnostic Criteria. Raters identified Bush as fitting the "Outgoing," "Dominant (Controlling)," and "Dauntless" personality patterns, which together constitute a style given to lack of reflection, superficiality, and impulsivity.
So, in essence, what did he lack? Critical thinking skills.
They conclude:
Critics charge that President Bush does not seek out information or opposing viewpoints; disdains complexity, nuances, and expert opinion; views policy issues in black-and-white terms based on his own preconceptions; and, refuses to rethink problems or change his views. The research largely bears out these popular perceptions.
(tip: Neuroworld)
He's no longer president.
Let it go. Just let it go....
You're with us or you're with the terrorists, Jim.
It's funny that you should post this, as earlier at The house Next Door blog, Tom Stempel wrote a lengthy post about teaching a class on the history of documentary films. One of the films he mentions is Journeys with George, about the 2000 presidential campaign. Stempel says in the post:
"It not only showed that Bush was a fairly likable guy, but that he was not an idiot. Journeys with George vividly demonstrated how the media completely, and I mean completely, geeked their coverage of the campaign."
To date back to the "W." debates on here... Even that movie showed he was capable of thinking. His flaw, at least as I and that film perceive it, is that he's emotionally retarded... That overrules thinking abilities any day.
So "Personality challenged" is the new dumb?
"did not want to learn, and did not believe it was something he needed to do."
"does not seek out information or opposing viewpoints; disdains complexity, nuances, and expert opinion; views policy issues in black-and-white terms based on his own preconceptions; and, refuses to rethink problems or change his views."
Isn't that an idiotic use of intellectual capacities?
So basically Dubya is like a broken clock, he's only brilliant when reality happens to match his belief. This is dumb to me.
JE: It's worth understanding the distinction, though -- and this study gets at the particular kind that was so disastrous in a president. A person can be "smart" by some measures, and a terrible Decider for other reasons that have nothing to do with SAT scores or IQ.
"He's no longer president.
Let it go. Just let it go...."
Man, I wish! Unfortunately, his shadow continues to loom over this country and will for years to come. Until we undo his damage, George W. Bush will continue to be President in very tangible ways.
I'd LOVE to let him go.
Without 9/11 he would have been remembered (if at all) for his wonderful work in Africa and his flawed but hopeful "No Child Left Behind".
Serviceable peace time president who lacked nuance and spoke without a trace of the eloquence and articulation of Obama or Clinton.
Aside from reversing some of his egregious expansion of executive powers and asinine environmental policies can we please let Bush fade into obscurity and become the footnote he was destined to be?
I find none of this surprising. Many intelligent people reach a point where they are comfortable with their belief system and respected by those whose opinion they value. Why risk all that by digging deeper, possibly overturning long held convictions and alienating loyal supporters?
Did I say "many"? Probably most. Maybe even me.
JE: I see it as a cautionary example to us all.
"[D]oes not seek out information or opposing viewpoints; disdains complexity, nuances, and expert opinion; views policy issues in black-and-white terms based on his own preconceptions; and, refuses to rethink problems or change his views."
If that's not a perfect definition of fundamentalism, I don't know what is.
It doesn't really matter whether Bush was actually unintelligent. He refuses to seek any alterntative viewpoint as he regards his policies to be ordained from God.
It's interesting to note that Abraham Lincoln was regarded as a very poor politican but with a high E. He was the exact opposite of Bush in that he sought out opposing viewpoints (he even appointed opponents to the cabinet) and never believed in the certainty of his ideas.
Critics charge that President Bush does not seek out information or opposing viewpoints; disdains complexity, nuances, and expert opinion; views policy issues in black-and-white terms based on his own preconceptions; and, refuses to rethink problems or change his views. Absolutely! That's the President Bush I've known for years! That's the man the media refused to properly lampoon!
By the way, I want that man locked in prison. It's the right thing to do.
I think the person that comes closest to the truth is John Dean in Worse Than Watergate. He says that Bush is actually quite intelligent but that he lacks intellectual curiosity whereas the reverse was true of Nixon (he was not a quick study or intellectually gifted but he studied hard). As Bush himself famously said "I'd rather read a memo than a book."
In conclusion, George H.W. Bush, who allowed Saddam to massacre 300,000 Shiites and tens of thousands of Kurds who were betrayed after he called them to fight along our side, was, believe it or not, actually worse than his son George W. Bush who went to war in Iraq for the Saudis to protect them from Saddam, from a corruptive standpoint.
What was that joke during Bush's Presidency?
Ah yes. "A fire broke out in the White House library. Both of President Bush's books were burned. It is especially tragic as he hadn't finished coloring the second one."
He is just one of the Crowd (Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice, etc./neo-con Republican), that feel that they have the absolute answer to all problems. Any other idea is just a damned liberal viewpoint that has no value. That is why moderate Republicans are blasted as well any other idea. They don't even approach the policies of Lincoln, T.R. Roosevelt or Eisenhower and neither can discuss them, because it is outside their accepted range of truth.
This supports the idea that he was just a puppet of Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc. They knew they could exploit his lack of intellectual curiosity: put the idea in his mind and point him in the right direction and he'll never question a thing he's doing.
John C. Finley on October 30, 2009 10:07 AM
He is just one of the Crowd (Cheney, Rumsfield, Rice, etc./neo-con Republican), that feel that they have the absolute answer to all problems. Any other idea is just a damned liberal viewpoint that has no value. That is why moderate Republicans are blasted as well any other idea. They don't even approach the policies of Lincoln, T.R. Roosevelt or Eisenhower and neither can discuss them, because it is outside their accepted range of truth.
Yeah, absolutely, and this is why I don't trust extremists and ideologues. There's no way a human being can devise an ideology that can account for everything. Even if it can be done today, circumstances change. And the moment something comes up your ideology hasn't been configured to deal with, you have to think - without have had any practice in doing so.
Since the post doesn't specify "dumb compared to who?" I will admit to occasionally--okay frequently--calling Bush dumb, or other such things. But what I meant was "dumb for the most powerful person in the world". I find it laughable when someone "proves" to me that Bush or Sara Palin aren't as dumb as they seem because these people tend to be judging them on the standard of the guy or gal next door. I absolutely agree that Bush probably just "seemed" dumb. You know, because he "happened" to be President. The Peter Principle and all that....
And in some ways it wasn't Bush's own intellect so much as the anti-intellect movement that gained so much steam during those eight years that I still find so baffling and depressing. No Child Left Behind notwithstanding, of course.
Dane Walker on November 1, 2009 8:17 PM
And in some ways it wasn't Bush's own intellect so much as the anti-intellect movement that gained so much steam during those eight years that I still find so baffling and depressing. No Child Left Behind notwithstanding, of course.
From what I heard, No Child Left Behind hasn't been a great success (although I admit to repeating what I've heard instead of checking it out myself. I plead lack of time). But the pattern is that an elected leader does nothing - nothing - in order to avoid offending some voting segment of the public and damaging his or his party's electoral chances next time around.
(And yes, I provisionally include Obama on that - didn't you post an entry complaining Obama wasn't doing enough, Jim?)
But this pattern is what I'm seeing as a broader pattern in politics in both Canada and the US: the focus is on winning elections, not on what you do once you win the election. This is governing to win elections, not winning elections to govern.
In Canada, we had a Prime Minister who basically did nothing. When a farming crisis hit Saskatchewan, he bravely announced a fund to help farmers. The fund consisted of about 10% of what the farmers actually needed. He signed onto the Kyoto Accord, then did nothing and watched Canada's greenhouse gas emissions climb.
And yet, because he won 4 consecutive majorities, he is considered one of the most successful Prime Ministers in Canadian History.
(Jean Chretien, in case you're wondering).
And now we're saddled with a Prime Minister who is so rabidly partisan that one of his most clever tactical moves nearly brought down his government and brought on a near-existential crisis in the way we govern our country (I'm speaking here of Stephen Harper's getting the Governor General to prorogue Parliament - and the thing that amazes me is that few, if anyone, cared about this subversion of democracy).
This focus on the winning of the election as being the "be all and end all" guarantees the increasing partisanship we see from politicians - because the goal is beating the other guy by any means necessary, instead of being better than the other guy because you want to make your country a better place through your policies.
"[D]oes not seek out information or opposing viewpoints; disdains complexity, nuances, and expert opinion; views policy issues in black-and-white terms based on his own preconceptions; and, refuses to rethink problems or change his views."
Kind of sounds like Obama to me. A little thing called One payer system.
JE: Obama has long said he supports single-payer health insurance. He also has long said it's not a deal-breaker when it comes to getting health insurance reform through Congress this year.
Dumb is dumb is dumb.
JMW,
I would agree that NCLB hasn't been too successful but I meant the comment to be ironic. And I mean ironic in the sense that Bush and his supporters mouthed many of the usual platitudes about improving education even as he scoffed at the idea that book learnin' had anything to offer for his job.
Dane Walker on November 2, 2009 9:17 PM
JMW, I would agree that NCLB hasn't been too successful but I meant the comment to be ironic.
I did catch the irony, and I was agreeing with you. So my apologies if I didn't make that clear. I was also pointing out the tendency of elected leaders to do nothing more than slap band-aids on crises, in an effort to appear to be doing something when in actuality doing nothing...
JMW,
Yeah, good point about the Band-Aids, although apparently even Band-Aids are way too Fascist/Socialist/Marxist/Fauvist for a lot of elected officials in this country, plus Andy Williams. They're big on the slapping part, though. "Rub some mud on that tumor," my old football coach used to say, "then get back out there and work harder."