Inconceivable Boobery

Why is Bush such a boob?  Here he is on Larry King “craftily” refusing to give an obvious opinion on his friend Joe Lieberman:

G. BUSH: First, the Democrats have to sort out who their nominee is going to be and that's going to be up to the Democrats. And the rest of it's hypothetical.

LARRY KING: But he said he would run as an independent, if he were...

G. BUSH: He also has said he's going to win his primary.

LARRY KING: I know you like him.

G. BUSH: You're trying to get me to give him a political kiss, which may be his death.

Jesus christ,   It’s like if Vizzini from The Princess Bride had a retarded brother who thought he was equally clever.   Now, I understand why he’s been instructed to not answer these kinds of questions.  Because he would have screwed it up.  A real answer would have been better, had it properly threaded the needle; but one needs the instinctive political acumen of the Big Dog to pull off that kind of feat.  And so the next best thing is to abstain completely.  To either give a non-response, or to outright admit that you haven’t an opinion.

But bush couldn’t even pull that off.  He tried, but quickly fell into telling us that he’s being cunning, by demonstrating how he knows that Larry is being cunning, and ends up exposing how he’d like to support Joe, but can’t because it would be a kiss of death for his friend.  And so he’s done almost the exact thing he wasn’t supposed to, while again exposing what a boob he is.

I swear I’ve written of this before (though I can’t find the post), but Bush does this thing a lot during interviews.  He just can’t help himself.  He tells the questioner how he knows that the questioner is trying to trick him, and how he won’t bite.  And by doing so, he’s signaling that he would fall into the interviewer’s trap, but won’t because he’s “on to them”.  

But he can’t help himself.  He’s an idiot and as such, likes to show-off how clever he is.  But truly clever people don’t do that.  They don’t need to, nor do they want to.  In fact, that’s the first rule of being clever: If you announce that you’re being clever, then you lose much of the advantage of your cleverness.  Because you’ve just warned them to expect it.  Far from impressing anyone, Bush is like the annoying twelve-year-old who stands up during the magic show and proudly announces that it wasn’t really magic.  And you just want to smack them upside the head to shut them up so you can enjoy the show.

And in Larry’s case, I don’t think he was trying to be clever or tricky.  It was a straight question.  This wasn’t a trick.  It’s completely legitimate.  Would Bush support his friend and ally?  And not only does “clever” Bush implicitly answer the question, he tells us why he’s not going to answer it; because he thinks he’s being tricked.

And Bush has trotted out his “You’re trying to trick me” thing on lots of occasions that didn’t warrant it.  That just shows how unclever he is.  Because he really can’t tell when people are being tricky.  He’s been told that it happens, and has latched onto the concept because it’s the kind of devious stuff he just wishes he could do.  And by god, he’s not going to fall for it now.

So instead, he exposes what a dope he is, while doing nothing to help his side.  He doesn’t even get straight-shooter points, because he’s clearly trying to be tricky.  And were the media more clever than Bush’s handlers, everyone would have known about this by now, and Larry wouldn’t have asked him the question.  Not only would the opinion of an ex-president been irrelevant, but he would have already told us on his regular 700 Club spot.

Oh, and for the record, no I don’t actually believe that Bush considers Lieberman to be a real friend.  I’m sure he’d like to give Joe a wedgie while copying his homework.  He’s just using Joe for political purposes, and like all nerds who can curry favor with the bully; Joe’s happy to oblige.