"In my own opinion, I don't consider GWB to be stupid, but I do believe he is not the brightest bulb on the tree. He probably has sufficient competence to do reasonably well in a middle management position. I just think that as President of the United States, he's in way over his head. I see him as the figurehead and fall guy for a group of pretty predatory people."

I have to agree with that. [By the way, GUEST,Just Curious, thank you for your support.]   I don't think George W. Bush is stupid, evil, or insane. I think he's a sort of average, perhaps one can say mediocre man. His history seems to bear that out. An indifferent student at both Yale and Harvard, where, quite probably he couldn't have got in had he not been a Bush (legacy kind of thing). Party boy in college; dunno what his grades were but he probably slid by on Cs. Wimped our on Vietnam by getting daddy to pull a few strings so he could jump the line and get into the Texas Air National Guard. Good pilot. Top 5% of his class. Seemed to like flying a lot. Then wimped out on that. Couldn't be bothered to show up after he transferred to Alabama (Dan Rather's goof was in not getting the document properly verified—in the light of the stink that caused, people lose sight of the fact that the story itself was true. There are those who think that was the whole purpose of feeding Rather a phony document.). Daddy bought him an oil company and he drove it into bankruptcy. Then daddy bought him a baseball team and he managed to screw that up. So where else could he go?

Politics, of course.

Being essentially clueless, realizing it to a degree and, hence, malleable, and because of the Bush name-recognition, he was a prime candidate for the neo-conservative puppet masters. And it turns out he's not real good at handling that, either. But he'll take most of the rap for the Machiavellian machinations of the neo-cons who are pulling his strings.

Through all his life, George W. Bush has been and still is the living example of the Peter Principle at work. He is constantly being promoted to positions that are beyond his level of competence. I think GUEST,Just Curious is right:   "He probably has sufficient competence to do reasonably well in a middle management position. I just think that as President of the United States, he's in way over his head."

When I hear Bush speak, I'm really tempted to think, "Jeez, what an idiot!!" But in more reflective moments, I tend to feel a bit sorry for the poor sod. History is not going to be kind to him.

Don Firth