"President Bush intentionally aimed his public image at average Americans rather than at Cambridge or Upper East Side elites."
I suspect the experiences, and attendant political lessons, of George Bush Sr. had a direct influence on the way George Bush Jr. presented himself.
Bush I was often criticized as intellectual, elitist, nerdy, aloof, and "Ivy League." He was trounced in his reelection campaign by Bill Clinton, the ultimate charismatic -- a brilliant guy who was adept at hiding his formidable intellect behind a folksy manner and a slow, Southern drawl.
Bush II took great pains to present himself as a man of the people, a Texan (he was born in Connecticut), and a guy's guy. Whether this was a reflection of his true character, or a political affectation, doesn't really matter; the distinction has been lost to the sands of time. It's probably some combination of the two. (Affectations, carried out over the long haul, have a tendency to shape actual character).
I appreciate this because it's a bit of a challenge to a narrative. I think in startup landia, we see the same thing. Everyone knows company x is next to ipo, everyone knows company y doesn't have a shot.
And while sometimes those public projections are correct, other times they're carefully orchestrated pr masterpieces.
Without giving too much away, our company has chosen to go quietly along, trying to attract the right attention that'll get us noticed by our customers, without alerting our (actual) competitors[0].
GW Bush connected more effectively with the middle class than Romney, and that might have been his best weapon in a fight against another likable candidate.
Whether you'd like to admit it or not, public narrative effects business / presidential / fundraising / customer acquisition outcomes. If you're the one in control, everyone else can be a pawn in your game.
[0]: I'm sure our current close competitors are acutely aware of us, but they're not the ones I fear. Our game is much longer than the current space we occupy (getting social media on tv) and so keeping our head down and just impressing customers is the best way to get us to the goal. Raising money, especially from places like YC or the kind of investors everyone wants, would put a target on our back. So instead we just lay low, and get all the flexibility we need to try out a bunch of different business models.
In 2010, the Sienna Presidential poll — which is very well respected — ranked George W. Bush as the 42 most intelligent president (only Harding ranked lower). [1, pdf file]. 14 of the 19 categories have W. in the bottom 5. These categories are: Communication ability, Court Appointments, Handling of U.S Economy, Ability to Compromise, Executive Appointments, Overall Ability, Imagination, Domestic Accomplishments, Integrity, Executive Ability, Foreign Policy Accomplishments, Leadership Ability, Intelligence, and Avoid Crucial Mistakes. The 4 categories that he is not in the bottom 5 of are: Background (he is the 7th worst), Party Leadership, Luck, and "Willing to Take Risks". Luck is the only category in which he is in the second quartile.
The article states:
"And while my job involved juggling a lot of balls, I only had to worry about economic issues. In addition to all of those, at any given point in time he was making enormous decisions on Iraq and Afghanistan, on hunting al Qaeda and keeping America safe. He was making choices not just on taxes and spending and trade and energy and climate and health care and agriculture and Social Security and Medicare, but also on education and immigration, on crime and justice issues, on environmental policy and social policy and politics. Being able to handle such substantive breadth and depth, on such huge decisions, in parallel, requires not just enormous strength of character but tremendous intellectual power. President Bush has both."
Important criticisms of his presidency are not about his lambdacisms or rhotacisms. The criticisms of his presidency are not that he couldn't make decisions but that the decisions that he made were wrong, harmful, or showed a stubbornness to consider the fact that he was wrong. His presidency was marked by decisions to ignore nonpartisan reports contrary to the party line: when a international terrorism report that had been published annually for 19 years said that terror was increasing, not decreasing, his administration cancelled the reports. [2]
I feel like this would be a really interesting point to get Mr Hennessey's response to, but since he has comments disabled on his blog, I guess that's unlikely.
It's a huge error to assume that people who disagree with you are dumb. Bush is like 4th generation Yale, and his father is extremely smart. It makes more sense to pin e.g. his record at Yale to being a slacker than the apple falling so far from the tree.
George W Bush did abuse alcohol for most of his adult life. That can impact you cognitively. Not saying he "drank himself stupid" or anything like that, but It wouldn't surprise me if his drinking accelerated his cognitive decline as he aged.
If any of this resonates with you, I'd also highly recommend _Angler_, Barton Gellman's account of the vice presidency of Dick Cheney. It's hard to overstate how far-reaching and insidious Cheney's efforts were during the first Bush term; he more or less co-opted intelligence efforts, and ran what at times amounted to a shadow presidency with his staff and Donald Rumsfeld.
On the other hand, it's hard to get around the Harriet Miers and Alberto Gonzales debacles, both of which involved comically bad judgement calls.
When George W. Bush was governor, he spoke at my sister's high school graduation (http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/president-bush). His public persona changed significantly from Governor to President, and he definitely played up the everyman persona during his presidency.
While this may have polled well, these type of false personas should have no place in politics. The President is not an actor playing a role -- we should demand candidates whom are genuine and present their true self so we know who we're voting for.
But these types of personas always have a place in politics - that's a large part of what makes it politics. If you didn't play a role you wouldn't get elected.
I highly doubt that Obama is the same in private as his public persona - from everything I've heard, he's very much the intellectual, introverted college-professor type in private, and the gregarious "audacity of hope" person is a mask he puts on for public events.
The narrative that Bush was/is dumb because he stumbled on his words occasionally was always ridiculous and it amazed me how many people piled in on it - people who would normally never call someone dumb for that. (And who knew plenty of extremely smart people with public speaking skills far worse than Bush's).
While the author seems to blame his political opponents for the perception of GWB as unintelligent, a more balanced analysis should probably also consider what Bush and the Republicans did to further that idea. When you use words like "elite" and "intellectual" (and "windsurfing" for some reason...) as pejoratives and go to great lengths to avoid publicly highlighting your intelligence and playing up how average you are...you probably shouldn't be surprised if people don't consider you a great thinker.
I'd certainly believe that Bush is smart, but is the author really complaining that people judged him based on what they saw of his public persona rather than how he behaved in private meetings in the Oval Office that they had no way of knowing about? Had Bush's public face been more like what the author claims he saw in private, I doubt there would be any such stereotype about Bush.
Basically, is anyone surprised or appalled that it turns out that perception matters at least as much as substance?
Politics aside, this is a good reminder on the importance of when confronted with an opposing viewpoint to consider "Why would a smart person think that?". They may in point of fact not be smart but it's too easy to use that as an excuse to stop thinking. Ever notice how hard it is to hear someone you respect say something you disagree with?
I have never met George W Bush so I can't say how smart he is. But you can look at his SAT scores (http://www.insidepolitics.org/heard/heard32300.html) before Yale, and his resume before he went to Harvard Business School.
Then ask: Could I have gotten in into Yale with that SAT? Could I have gotten into HBS with that resume?
There are similar accounts on quora citing that bush is extremely intelligent.
The challenging things about all these accounts is that not only in public did he seem like an idiot but the decisions that he made in office were similarly inept.
To cite a few:
- Spending increases while incurring tax cuts
- The Iraq War + the willful deceiving of the public
- The lack of remorse of any decision made in office
Malcolm Gladwell cites that (in life) the people who really excel aren't just the ones who are the most intelligent but the ones who posses other factors as well which make them a success. Perhaps this provides some of the explanation for the discrepancy between the personal accounts and the actions of his administration.
Actually there are reasonable explanations for these:
> - Spending increases while incurring tax cuts
Regardless of whether you agree politically, this was intentional. The strategy is called "starve the beast" and the goal is to strategically force austerity cuts. As a bonus, you force it to happen when a democrat is in office. And guess what? It appears to have worked (somewhat).
> - The Iraq War + the willful deceiving of the public
It wasn't willful. There were intelligence reports of WMDs. Colin powell got quite pissed about it really. Truth of the matter is that some messed up stuff happened in the intelligence community and Colin was lead to believe there was a real threat in Iraq. How much Bush was involved in the whole deal is unclear. Also, Hussain did try to kill his dad, so it may have been slightly personal.
> - The lack of remorse of any decision made in office
Remorse for what? Politics is politics. There's blood on everyone's hands. For example, policy changes made during the Bush Sr and Clinton administrations appear to have contributed significantly to the housing crash in 2009. Regardless, even if he isn't remorseful, that doesn't make him dumb. Heartless maybe, but not dumb.
Disclaimer: I'm not a republican. I think democrats and republicans alike spend too much time playing politics these days and not enough actually trying to fix things. I also think the worlds problems can be solved without war. The one thing I did like about Bush is that he appears to have really wanted to reduce the size of government, which appeals to my (mostly) libertarian beliefs.
Thanks for breaking these things down. I don't really agree with them but I appreciate how a different reading on things could conclude that an intelligent person could have made those decisions.
I've heard similar things about President Bush's ability to memorize information, I think its even mentioned in W by Oliver Stone. President Clinton has a "photographic" memory. What interests me is how they are able to use that memory to supplement their charisma. People are certainly enthused when you can remember their name, now what about where they are from and what they do and what they contributed in the last meeting and you are able to weave that into a conversation next time you see them. Suddenly you have something to discuss with someone you've only met once.
As liberal who grew up in New York and has lived in Boston since, I completely ate up the Bush as dunce narrative a few years ago. Ironically because it doesn't necessarily paint him as a genius, W by Oliver Stone framed arguments that changed some of my opinions about President Bush. His father's actions, his being born again which helped end his drinking and his staff in the white house very much influenced him, and probably contributed to some of the biases.
My opinion is that George W. Bush intentionally cultivated a slow, bumbling Texan everyman image when he ran for political office on the national stage. Compare his debate performance as gubernatorial challenger in 1994 versus the presidential incumbent in 2004:
I think a lot of people said "he isn't very smart" when what they meant was "he isn't very stately". And his public persona wasn't.
His verbal gaffes are well known, even if they are overblown by the press. He sometimes spoke with a drawl. He was prone to making facial expressions that looked like confusion, even when that probably wasn't the cause. He embraced the whole Texas cattle rancher/farmer image with the cowboy hats. I think his sense of humor seemed a little pedestrian to some.
None of things really have much to do with intelligence other than it's not typically how we envision intelligent people.
Anecdotally, having been born and raised in Orange County, CA (11yr), then Arkansas (5yr) and finally Texas for High School and College (7yr), followed by Denver (liberal) and now Silicon Valley, I can confirm this liberal bias toward both Texas and The South, and also by self-appointed intellectuals toward individuals like myself who tend to not take themselves too seriously.
I regularly find myself catching others off-guard professionally when I exert my intellect, because they tend to have me pegged as an easy-going So-Cal / Southerner. However, from my experience, liberals and self-appointed intellectuals share all the same personality and reasoning flaws as their counterparts.
People are people and differ mostly in the person they choose to project, not in their inherent abilities. Both are honest about different portions of themselves.
Initial perceptions shape the views people have of each other...it's not just about how people view southerners. I'd guess from your post that you have certain preconceptions about "liberals" and "intellectuals" that aren't always accurate ;)
You can't judge a book by its cover, but that's where first impressions tend to come from.
1. I don't judge his intelligence by how he spoke at speeches or how he presented himself. I don't usually watch Obama's speeches either. But I judge him based on his record, which was flat out abysmal.
I actually supported the Iraq War, believe it or not, no matter whether there were WMD's (I'm of a slightly interventionist bent when it comes to foreign policy) - but Bush's handling of that war and the War in Afghanistan was absolutely dreadful.
Don't get me started on economic policy or Katrina.
2. As someone pointed out, this judgment of intelligence based on speech doesn't just apply to southerners, it applies to foreigners as well.
I agree about Obama's abysmal record, and yet he gives every impression of being highly intelligent. Maybe Obama and Bush, therefore, are in the same category, probably along with many others: smart and capable, but somehow, as presidents, producing lousy outcomes because of a process of political compromise that leads to bad decisions.
Uh, I was talking about Bush's record. I actually think Obama has a fine record, speaking as someone who is economically liberal but somewhat neoconservative on foreign policy,
The more relevant question, especially in the context of startup success, is whether George W. Bush is wiser, more forward-thinking, or oriented toward better goals than you. Intelligence is only useful when you're directing it toward the right tasks and your end goals are genuinely beneficial.
what is a "better" goal. The whole point of the article is that things are not black or white - and what you consider right and beneficial may not be the same for someone else :)
In a president specifically, I imagine a "better" goal is one more aligned with the will of the people (even if not specifically in the long-term interest of the people.)
As someone from outside the US, I had a fairly bad impression of George W. from the general media that reached us. You know what changed my mind? Listening back through the early NPR Planet Money episodes quoting Bush's reactions to, and speeches during, the 2007/08 financial crisis. Before that, all I had really heard were statements from him concerning the war in Iraq et al--but on economic issues, he seemed incredibly erudite and with a better picture of the issues than even the people working for him.
Of course, it was all an image manufactured by his staff... but so was his "character" during his speeches on other topics. I wish you all had gotten a bit more of the former.
Its worth noting that the Keith Hennessey's entire blog is anti-democratic party's economic policy. He has only worked under republican congressmen and presidents. This is hardly an unbiased source.
But, It is a source, of a first hand account of who P. Bush was. Regardless of Mr. Hennessey's Political associations he did deal directly with Bush on a near daily basis.
Also stop for a moment and think about your former and present bosses, how smart do you think they are, do you like or hate them, do you often defend them? I think it says a lot that Hennessey felt compelled to defend Bush.
I never thought G.W. Bush was particularly bright, but I also never agreed with the popularly held image, which I was sure was grossly underestimating him. This image seemed to animate the kind of people who tended to consider Al Gore to be some kind of colossal intellectual: Al Gore, who, at about the time that Bush was earning a Harvard MBA, was flunking out of divinity school. Divinity school.
I inspected the source and didn't see that file in there? When I removed the "preview" that Facebook tries to generate, it worked, however. There goes my conspiracy theory :\
I've grown to distrust all but first-hand assessments when it comes to this.
I find that people are often quite at ease with judging, if not pre-judging a person's intelligence on the most minimal impressions, appearance, accent, a single opinion or remark.
Personally, I'm so used to facing certain assumptions that they no longer bother me.
Has the OP considered that the perceived lack of intelligence of George W. Bush may be based on the outcome of the decisions made by his administration, rather than his southern drawl or verbal miscues?
Caricaturization is a defense mechanism, we much rather assume someone is stupid or don't understand than having malicious intent. Also intelligence doesn't necessarily imply rationality.
De-emphasizing intellect is a far cry from pretending to be stupid. In fact, character matters at least as much as intelligence in real life. What use is intelligence if you don't have the character to execute when you have to do something hard? And of course, ethics provide the end goals to which intelligence is applied.
So your contention is that character and ethics are exclusive of intelligence? If not, why would one need to feign stupidity in order to project character?
Not talking like an Ivy-league graduate isn't the same as pretending to be stupid. When you're around friends who don't understand computer science, do you talk in programming lingo? I assume no. Does that mean you're pretending to be stupid? Again, no.
Bush actively projected stupid. I say this as both an "ivy-league graduate" and as a rural (redneck) American: speak to people as yourself. Most people are not stupid, and pretending to be stupid to be more likeable is absurd. "Smart" is in no way equivalent to "programming lingo".
On the contrary, I think randall, commenting previously, highlighted perfectly well how it relates to startup commentary. HN is very much about accelerated startups and investor attraction I think, but there are those who also want to work differently.
I've had debates with friends and associates on exactly that topic in the past, about whether or not it's smarter to inject money, or just run your business.
There was definitely the intellectual argument that came up. Equating a difference of values to a difference of intelligence or wisdom is a hallmark of the inexperienced. In my opinion, those who do so invite themselves to peril.
Actually, you can look up what George Bush's IQ is. Depending on the specific test mentioned, he comes in at about 120. So he may or may not be smarter than you...
"Unlike John F. Kennedy, who obtained an IQ score of 119, or Al Gore, who achieved scores of 133 and 134 on intelligence tests taken at the beginning of his high school freshman and senior years, no IQ data are available for George W. Bush. But we do know that the young Bush registered a score of 1206 on the SAT, the most widely used test of college aptitude. (The more cerebral Al Gore obtained 1355.)"
>There is a bias in much of the mainstream press and commentariat that people from outside of NY-BOS-WAS-CHI-SEA-SF-LA are less intelligent, or at least well educated. Many public commenters harbor an anti-Texas (and anti-Southern, and anti-Midwestern) intellectual bias. They mistakenly treat John Kerry as smarter than George Bush because John Kerry talks like an Ivy League professor while George Bush talks like a Texan.
As a southerner living in New York City, this rang especially true. I grew up around brilliant people who the "intelligent elite" discounted simply because they weren't born in the proper region. It's such an arrogant and sad stance to take.
Many Americans who grew up speaking English have a similar bias against foreigners. When they hear someone struggle to articulately present a point, they (incorrectly) presume that the speaker's lack of competence with the English language extends also to the matter being discussed (e.g. if a person has a hard time speaking about a topic, he also has a hard time reasoning about that topic).
Growing up, the kid who couldn't put together a sentence in English class probably also had difficulty with other subjects. This can prime you to associate a lack of language skills with a lack of general intelligence; however, in the adult world there are plenty of examples of people who are perfectly competent in their field but struggle with English as a method of communication.
...just as every politician learns to create a persona.
"The caricature of President Bush is that of a good ol’ boy from Texas who is principled and tough, but just not that bright."
Whether genuine or not, that was the caricature he cultivated and embraced, further distancing himself from the "elite" in the minds of most Americans. Whether a voter found this to be charming or not went a long way to how those voters cast their ballot.
Yeah but you've got to appreciate the irony in America. America has a very selective elite who have a very narrow definition of what that elite is (ivy-league, "entrepreneurial", rich, democrat, ...) and is regularly accused of having -very- little tolerance for anyone outside of their core group ... I wouldn't say that's true for the whole group, but there's a significant portion of them that certainly do this.
And this elite is blasting everyone else for not having an equal system. Seriously. Of course the French aristocrats did the same. I'm sure many elites, present and past, liked to claim their superior status was due to "inherent" but ill-defined characteristics : nobility, chivalry, scientific accomplishment (like the Roman elites did) ... are all words that come to mind. None of them held up their own ideals. The majority of French noblemen were cruel drunks. So were most Roman elites if Cicero's anything to go by. I'm not saying America's Ivy-league elite is a bunch of drunks, but they certainly don't satisfy their own rules : they are not social (in the political sense), they do not advance equality (quite the opposite), and most importantly : it is not the case that they're the self-selected best and brightest. Like all other elites, the reason they get in power is that they are in power and get pulled in by their buddies (which, granted, beats why French noblemen were elite : because great-great-great-great-great-granddad managed to get a command position in the king's army. The first generation of French noblemen were probably very capable people who genuinely meant well).
The only distinguishing characteristic that matters in members of America's elite is friendships and other associations with other members of the elite. As for "best and brightest", you could say that there's a (low) lower bar that they need to hit. That's it.
"Bush attended public schools in Midland, Texas until the family moved to Houston after he completed seventh grade. He then went to The Kinkaid School, a prep school in Houston, for two years."
One of the worst things is when people discount those with southern accents as being unintelligent. It frustrates me a great deal. I occasionally do research/experiments at Oak Ridge National Labs, and there are plenty of Tennesseans there who are incredibly intelligent. But running into them on the street, I'm sure many from the north or west coast would dismiss them because of their southern accent and slow/unhurried speech.
I understand that even a "dumb" president is probably smarter than the average person but on the other hand starting the Iraq war and ignoring the housing bubble are pretty convincing evidence that he was an idiot in all the ways that count.
Also impressive how fast these guys appear from under their rocks when they're called upon.
" starting the Iraq war and ignoring the housing bubble are pretty convincing evidence that he was an idiot in all the ways that count."
Not necessarily. Dick Cheney had financial interests in Halliburton, which benefited greatly thanks to the Iraq War. I imagine Bush had much the same (or if not him directly, then family), which would make the Iraq war a brilliant move for his pocketbook.
"Ignoring the housing bubble"...great talking point, but sadly, inaccurate. The most significant obstacle that blocked attempts by the Bush administration to combat the runaway housing/financial sector bubble was a Democratic House that strongly believed in the "affordable housing mission", and obstructed reform and investigation via their stranglehold on the House Financial Services Committee.
I suspect the experiences, and attendant political lessons, of George Bush Sr. had a direct influence on the way George Bush Jr. presented himself.
Bush I was often criticized as intellectual, elitist, nerdy, aloof, and "Ivy League." He was trounced in his reelection campaign by Bill Clinton, the ultimate charismatic -- a brilliant guy who was adept at hiding his formidable intellect behind a folksy manner and a slow, Southern drawl.
Bush II took great pains to present himself as a man of the people, a Texan (he was born in Connecticut), and a guy's guy. Whether this was a reflection of his true character, or a political affectation, doesn't really matter; the distinction has been lost to the sands of time. It's probably some combination of the two. (Affectations, carried out over the long haul, have a tendency to shape actual character).