Bush: Too Stupid For Our Own Good
I hate it when W says something so foolish, with idiocy so rampant that you can't even respond to it without tying yourself in knots. As Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap once said, "There's a fine line between clever and stupid." So my immediate shock and glee over something I thought was the height of political dumb is now a kind of confused, stymied awe. Has his stupidity finally reached the level of clever?

Here's what he said (emp. mine) in a Q&A, at the end of a horrifying, horrifying press conference yesterday with Iraqi PM Allawi, in which our President proved yet again that all the foreign leaders he himself has installed really do support him 100%. Shocking, that.

Q: Mr. President and Mr. Prime Minister, I'd like to ask about the Iraqi people. Both of you have spoken for them today, and, yet, over the past several months there have been polls conducted by the Coalition Provisional Authority, by the Oxford Institute and other reputable organizations, that have found very strong majorities do not see the United States as a liberator, but as an occupier, are unhappy with American policy and want us out. Don't the real voices of the Iraqi people, themselves, contradict the rosy scenarios you're painting here today?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Let me start by that. You said the poll was taken when the CPA was there?

Q One poll --

PRESIDENT BUSH: Okay, let me stop you. First of all, the Iraqi people now have got Iraqi leadership. Prime Minister Allawi and his cabinet are making decisions on behalf of the Iraqi people. Secondly, I saw a poll that said the right track/wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America. (Laughter.) It's pretty darn strong. I mean, the people see a better future.

Talk to the leader. I agree -- I'm not the expert on how the Iraqi people think, because I live in America, where it's nice and safe and secure.

So, Iraqis believe they are more on the right track than Americans do. Did he just admit that? Shouldn't the President of the United States care a bit more about what Americans believe? Isn't his job to put us on the right track?

But, wait....

We don't want to concede that Iraq is on the right track; disputing that is what the Kerry strategy is all about now. Iraqis may have the chance to be on the right track now that Saddam is gone, but that doesn't mean they're on it. In fact all evidence to the contrary. So, he's trying to get us to agree that Iraq is doing well by pointing out how much worse we think it is here at home? That clever, clever man.

Kerry/Edwards are going with the dispute-him-on-Iraq strategy rather than the opening that Bush admits America is more on the wrong track than even Iraq. They've incorporated the sound bite into an ad already, which you can view here.