I don't care how smart he is when is actions were profoundly stupid.
This is a hard one, for liberals only. Do you assume that he is unintelligent because he made policy choices with which you disagree? If so, your logic may be backwards. “I disagree with choice X that President Bush made. No intelligent person could conclude X, therefore President Bush is unintelligent.” Might it be possible that an intelligent, thoughtful conservative with different values and priorities than your own might have reached a different conclusion than you? Do you really think your policy views derive only from your intellect?
In my life I've encountered plenty of political ideologues willing to (at least notionally) concede the value of finding a middle ground.
But ask a centrist if partisan opinions are sometimes not the result of biases or assumptions, but of a person successfully tracking truth, and they crash to desktop.
Depending on them, it might seem or have seemed clever.
I think it is dangerous to confuse “clever” and “evil”.
That's not whataboutism.
Sounds exactly like whataboutism.
Look, Bush knew confidential information that no one outside the government could and still made those decisions.
Stop trying to deflect this with some unrelated person who wasn't in the government, had no security clearance, and had nothing to do with the invasion. It's simply irrelevant.
Nope. This is simple inductive reasoning.
> Look, Bush knew confidential information that no one outside the government could and still made those decisions.
Yes, and they were probably reasonable decisions, given what he knew at the time.
>Stop trying to deflect this with some unrelated person who wasn't in the government, had no security clearance, and had nothing to do with the invasion. It's simply irrelevant.
It would be irrelevant if people who also don't have information no one outside the government could are using the Iraq war to draw conclusions about Bush's intelligence.
Who's to say the hundreds of thousands of civilians who have died in Syria over the past few years might not have been saved if the Western powers had taken more action? Does that make their leaders "profoundly stupid"?
The Iraq War.
Giving up on Bin Laden.
Zero-down mortgage initiative.
...
But I'm supposed to give He Who Is Smarter Than You some credit for holding things together after He Who Is Smarter Than You didn't notice the Bin Laden is determined to attack inside the US memo? And then he gave up on Bin Laden altogether? Similarly, he blew off the Katrina briefing but pronounced that Michael Brown did a heckofa job.
No.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-geor...
One thing He Who Is Smarter Than You Are didn't have was a Congress intent on making him a one term President at the cost of the country. And now we have Republicans openly gleeful about Russia hacking the US. Dana Rohrabacher if you're looking for a name.
Really, if you're a Republican please don't call yourself a patriot.
Please consider giving people who disagree with you the benefit of the doubt that they actually arrived at their positions upon careful reflection, just with a different set of principles and priorities.
You have left no doubt for which a benefit could be given.
> republicans voted for Donald Trump. He is a true reflection of your principles and priorities arrived upon after careful reflection.
Is a meaningless tautology in the context of the comment it is replying to. Republicans who voted for trump (which doesn't include me btw, you had made an assumption) probably see nothing wrong with him representing their values and principles in the context of the election.
You haven't actually provided an argument about values. Rather you've just said "isn't it obvious" when in fact, it is not to someone who doesn't share your exact views.