Is Bush* the idiot puppet or the brilliant master behind the scenes?

[Toots]

Is Bush* aware of all the goings on around the Whitehouse? Do you think he is a part of all the criminal activity taking place throughout the Whitehouse or has this Administration been taken over by rogue operatives that make their own decisions and policy? Sort of like the Republicans claimed was the case in the Reagan Administration. Ollie North and Poindexter and all those guys that are now a part of this current Administration all supposedly acted on their own. Is that what's going on now or is Bush* fully aware and hands on in all decisions? I believe his idiot act is only just that, an act. I believe it is so he can fall back and say he had no knowledge of events taking place when in fact he is a conniving evil little man who really is the guy saying go get em...

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. Definitely, the inept master

behind the scenes.

Keep in mind, Bush and Karl are equals and one can't live for very long without the other.

[FreedomAngel82]

33. Exactly

Bush is Rove and Rove is Bush. Rove isn't called "Bush's Brain" for nothing.

[Hubert Flottz]

2. Bush Knew...

Just like on 9/11!

[grannylib]

3. He's definitely NOT brilliant, but that doesn't mean he's not in the know

or otherwise complicit in the criminal activity in the WH. I think he knows, but he's never going to be accused of brilliance by anyone but suckups like Meiers.

[spanone]

4. Idiot

[marylanddem]

5. I think you're right

He plays dumb. Well, he IS dumb. But he will play "ignorant" of the
shit as it hits the fan next week. Like Reagan, like Nixon tried to.

[afdip]

6. reagan could blame alzheimers, dubya will have to blame

his management style acquired during his mba studies @ yale.:sarcasm:

[Joe Chi Minh]

24. Yes, I think the prosecutors will be ready for the amnesia excuse

this time round...

As for the "criminalisation of politics" they allege, they should address that most singular of "insights" to the Attorney General and Mr Fitzgerald.

Somehow I suspect their infantile attempt to "normalise" criminality in politics (as someone put it) would be met with a sovereign contempt that only silence can duly express, rather than with the laughter most of us can enjoy.

[No Exit]

7. I'll take "idiot puppet" for $10, Alex.

[NewJeffCT]

8. he's not brilliant, but

I don't think he's as stupid as many on DU think.

Is he smart enough to be president? No way.

I'm pretty sure he knows a lot of what is going on... I just think he doesn't care.

[misternormal]

14. Bush has...

No regard for any but the rich and his cronies

No sense of wrongness of action nor thought

No compassion for those that are being used as cannon fodder for his ill begotten war.

Bush is a sociopathic liar with delusions of God-hood.

[NewJeffCT]

16. welcome to DU

I don't think he has illusions of God-hood, though. I think it's carefully choreographed to appeal to the religious right, as his father lost his chance for re-election by losing the enthusiasm of the fundies that Reagan had. Bush could be an atheist for all I know...

[Jade Fox]

9. Idiot

Bush is a life-long failure propped up by the women in his life and bailed
out of his messes by his wealth, privilege, and family connections.

You can't make a Mastermind out of that.

[MissWaverly]

10. I think the stupidity role is an act

John Dean, in Worse than Watergate, says that he is quite articulate
in private. I remember reading the letters that he wrote to Ken Lay,
there is a comment attributed to Bush: "No one can cook the books like Kenny can." Remember, George Bush, chose Cheney as his running
mate. He chose Rumsfield, Ashcroft, Gonzales, etc. Would you have hired someone your dad fired for leaking to reporters. No, from day
one he has used public office to drive his own private agenda, to our
cost.

[Jazzgirl]

11. He's certainly not the brightest bulb in the ceiling.

But acting like this has been the way he's always operated. Back in college he would get other people to start rumors about people he didn't like or that had disagreed with him. I figure he's still doing the same old thing. He knows.....

[Thirtieschild]

12. Agree

"He's the the conniving evil little man who really is the guy saying go get him." He wouldn't have hired KR if the evil wasn't already there. (Just like his father wouldn't have hired Lee Atwater if the evil wasn't there.) You can see the evil in junior's eyes, in the act he puts on, and even in his astrological chart. (Well, the chart could have gone either way, but you can sure see the potential for control and power.) He isn't particularly bright, and sutstitutes instinct for intelligence, which isn't always a bad thing. Unfortunately for us - unfortunately for the world - he has an instinct for the jugular and the willingness to use it.

[bullimiami]

13. neither.

he knows what is going on, he is in on it.
he is dirty, devious, nasty and cruel but he is not the mastermind or even capable of thinking beyond todays greed and revenge.

a puppet is taken advantage of, unwillingly. he is an accomplice.

[90-percent]

15. however

Everything he was ever given to run, he RAN INTO THE GROUND. He has been a success at almost nothing in his life.

-85%

[Frustratedlady]

17. When you look at those around him...

and the corruption that is rampant among his friends and colleagues, how could he not be one of them? Even down to Ken Lay and others who robbed the little guy to fill the big guys' pockets. That's just the "good ol' boys" at work. They've lied, stolen and bullied for so many years without getting caught or prosecuted, it is as natural as breathing. If he didn't know what was going on, he is an incompetent boss and has no business having his "finger on the button" of our future.

[IDemo]

18. Sure has the look of brilliance, doesn't he? ---->>

[Joe Chi Minh]

19. Doubtless for the sake of brevity,

you missed a particularly telling line from your Profile quotation from Isiah, Toots: "... and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail."

It's as if Isiah had been one of the many millions of us who watched on TV, as so many of the poorer folk in New Orleans waited for those vital supplies of water, which alone could keep them alive, but mysteriously failed to be effected until, for all too many, it was all too late.

[Toots]

23. Because of sig line constraints I had to cut some of it

You are right I left out some of the best parts but :shrug:

[Joe Chi Minh]

31. Like your post, it was good to read in any case.

I wasn't presuming to criticise you, just to bring it out.

[TiredOfLies]

20. the master

idiot

[LizW]

21. Idiot puppet, but with a dangerous mean streak a mile wide. n/t

[Blue_Roses]

22. No

and no.

[dogfacedboy]

25. An idiot, but kept in the loop most of the time. n/t

[Individualist]

26. Idiot puppet

The PNAC cabal is in control. Idiot boy knows some of what's going on, but there's no doubt PNAC keeps him on a tight leash.

[pitohui]

27. reagan's had alzheimers, * has korsakoff's syndrome

same song different verse

yes, of course, he's a puppet, why would a person of real power put themselves on the front line when they can be dr. evil in the safety and privacy of behind the throne

[tomg]

28. There was an old SNL routine

when Reagan was president "Ronald Reagan: Mastermind." In it, Reagan switched back and forth between being the mastermind of Iran Contra (right down to directing where the coke should go) to an idiot bumbling through a girl scout photo op. It was pretty hilarious.

While Bush is certainly not the individual diabolical mastermind of anything, the good-natured "common guy" persona seems, at least to me, to be little more than a role which is politically useful. If anything, he is a front man for the group that works more or less as a collective ( weird thought - Bush as a member of a collective). The model seems quite corporate, in that everyone more or less knows the drill and has a role, but at least he can claim that he has have no direct idea as to what is going on. Bush, I think, is fairly smart and works instinctively, even if he is morally, culturally and intellectually ignorant. I keep recalling the one "mistake" he admitted to in the Presidential debates, when asked. The only "mistake" he made was that he had appointed some people who he "trusted," but they had "let him down." Bush might be a moral moron, but he is certainly no dope.

[Cosmocat]

29. Deluded puppet ...

He THINKS he is in charge ...

Given his anti-social tendency, that makes him even more dangerous than just a garden variety idiot ...

[begin_within]

30. He's smart enough to surround himself with people who can cover for him.

[FreedomAngel82]

32. I think he's more involved than we think

I think the whole "Bush is dumb" act is just that so he doesn't get in trouble and his image. So people would go "oh Bush isn't that type of person! He's a good God-fearing Christian man!" Barf me. I don't buy any of it.

[Time for change]

34. He's an idiot AND he's evil, but

he has a huge ego, so I don't think that wants to be seen by himself or anyone else as a puppet.

[MN ChimpH8R]

35. Chimpy's a sociopath and an idiot

but ultimately, he's just the face on the can. PNAC canned the soup and Rove marketed it.

[ProfessorGAC]

36. Puppet

The Johnny Bravo who fit the suit. He's clueless. He's following orders in everything he's done, since mommy told him to sit up straight and finish his vegetables.
The Professor

[Kailassa]

37. Agreed.

He was carefully chosen because he was so obviously an idiot, and thus people would not realise what danger they were in during his presidency.

I wouldn't be surprised if people are drugging him to make him even stupider than he was, and make sure he doesn't see that he is not Big Boss. If anyone behind him wanted him to look intelligent, they'd at least make sure he wore his false teeth.

[springhill]

38. The idiot puppet.........

From the start he has been nothing more than a front man for the neo-con agenda. He was someone they thought they could get elected so they could implement their long-awaited plans.