As we all know, the president is stupid. Dumb. An idiot. Probably can't even tie his shoes. When they were handing out brains, he thought they said trains, etc.
It's been four years and counting, yet the idea just won't die. Anti-Bush politicians, pundits, comedians and cartoonists all trot out the "Bush is stooped!" angle daily.
Normally it's not a big deal, but this is an election year, in which case two can play at that game.
You want stupid? When John Kerry was asked last August if he still would have voted to authorize military action against Saddam Hussein even knowing that we wouldn't find any weapons of mass destruction, he said he would have.
But barely a month later, he came out with a new campaign slogan, stating that the Iraq war was the "wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." It doesn't take someone with a degree to recognize that these two statements are mutually exclusive, yet the senator expects you, the voter, to believe that he's never flip-flopped.
See, back in the 2000 election it became clear to me that the real idiot running for president wasn't the guy who pronounced "nuclear" with a Texas twang; it was the guy who made up absolutely absurd lies and expected everybody to believe him. That's true stupidity, and we're getting a repeat dose of it from the Democratic National Committee this year.
There are even times when he's not content with merely contradicting himself -- he has to bring his wife in on the action. Last week, the delightful Teresa Heinz Kerry graced a Phoenix crowd with some good ole conspiracy theorizing, saying of Osama bin Laden: "I wouldn't be surprised if he appeared in the next month." But the same week his wife was floating the idea of Bush using the capture one of the world's most notorious terrorists as an October surprise, John Kerry was in Philadelphia bemoaning how going to war in Iraq was a diversion from pursuing the villain we really missed out on catching: Osama bin Laden. Don't they always say that communication is the key to a good marriage?
(Actually, picking on the would-be first lady is so easy as to be cruel. Whether it's labeling critics of her husband's health care plan as "idiots," or telling reporters to "shove it," every time Teresa opens her mouth it's Christmas for Republicans. You gotta love her).
Then there are the times that Kerry gets a pass for making statements that would get Bush labeled a borderline illiterate. This Monday, Kerry managed to top his "W stands for wrong!" brilliance (hey, the "W" there is silent, Captain Grammar) by calling for an end to all these nasty negative campaign ads. These advertisements are so misleading, he invented a new word for them: "misleadisments." He really said that.
Misleadisments? A major presidential candidate just started talking like the protagonist from the movie "Kung Pow: Enter the Fist" -- "Killing is wrong. And bad. There should be a new, stronger word for wrong. Like badwrong. Or badong. Yes, killing is badong."
But seriously, this is the real, honest-to-God truth: people who are legitimately stupid simply do not make it anywhere near the Oval Office. Often, our elected officials make decisions that might make them seem thuddingly stupid from where we sit, but in reality they're intelligent human beings who make mistakes like everybody else. You want to know who to vote for, base it on who they actually are and don't write them off as single-trait caricatures.
Except for that John Kerry. What a retard.
Eric Spratling is a public relations senior. Call him an idiot at Eric.Spratling@asu.edu. Read his stupid blog online at asuwebdevil.com.