McCain to Me in 1999: Bush "As Dumb as a Stump"
As a lawyer might say (OK, I am one), I have no personal knowledge of whether John or Cindy McCain voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. However, now that that has been called into question by Arianna Huffington (who says no) and Huffington's truthfulness has in turn been questioned by the McCain campaign (although not yet by the McCains), I can offer the following anecdote as admissible hearsay shedding a little light on the subject:
Over the Fourth of July weekend of 1999, I had the good fortune to accompany my then fiancée (and now happily my wife) to the McCain vacation home in Sedona where she was interviewing them for a Home and Garden Television show. The interview itself was entirely apolitical, focusing on fabrics and furnishing in their lovely Oak Creek abode, topics about which I do recall the senator was less than comfortable discussing.
Always the goods hosts, the McCains also invited us to spend the day with them, including for barbeque, a favorite of John's. And as McCain flipped burgers, I could not help but ask his views about then candidate George W. Bush.
"He's as dumb as a stump," McCain offered. We then went on to discuss other matters (including Vietnam) but that quote remains seared in my memory.
So how the McCains actually voted that November is between them and their voting booth. But if John McCain did end up voting for Bush, then by his own admission he voted for a stump.
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Bush has logged more hours in the "not-respo
"Bush is as dumb as a stump?"
According to The Congressional Quarterly, McCain supported Bush in 95% of his votes.
Hence, McCain only uses 5% of his brain.
GW Bush ,FOR SURE is DUMB AS A STUMP
Here we have another shining example of the inherant flaws of the electoral college and the two party system!
This country has suffered through incompetant after incompetant as it's cheif executive and commander in cheif since J.F.K.!Why
I am convinced the public as a whole is incapable of electing a cheif executive and commander in cheif,not to also mention the architect of the most influential foreign policy on the planet.Yet we continue to do so by nothing more than a popularity contest.
The rest of the"free world"after many errors has found the most intelegent way to elect a leader is through a parliamentary Democracy,where a Prime minister is picked to form a coalition government by an elected parliament (or privy councel,di
Alas we will not learn the errors of our ways until we become bankrupt,something that is comming closer and closer to inevitability.
Senator, I served with a stump, I knew a stump; a stump was a friend of mine. George Bush, you're no stump.
Correct. gwb is a knot-hole.
Makes you wonder what his price was to convert to being a bUshite, or, if he was so clearly contemptuous of bUsh - then what does the "party" have on him, for his flip flop does require an explanation?!
His price is a shot at the Presidency.
Lincoln said something about the horrendous ambition that takes hold over an individual when he/she thinks the Presidency is a possibility.
McCain's ambition has taken over his common sense.
I would have so much more respect for McCain if he had had the courage to reject Bush back in 2000. If he had put his country, and mankind, ahead of party loyalty, we might have been spared 9/11 and the whole Iraq fiasco. At this point, it looks like he wants to cultivate the image of a straight talker, without the substance to back it up. He's not the worst of men, but not the best candidate for president, either.
The only people who do not know that George Bush is the dumbest president we have ever had are those few people too dumb to face reality!
That just seems like sound logic and basic observation skills to me.
unfortunately, that's about 28% of the country.
Fortunately, 72% of the country AGREES!
Bush is dumb as a stump. Unfortunately, McCain is embracing the same sort of politics as did Bush.
Stumps are insulted. They are not nearly as dumb as Bush.
Yes, stumps look down on their roots, as it were.
Hear! Hear! At least stumps know that keeping silent and being thought stupid beats the daylights out of opening your mouth to talk and leaving no doubt about it.
Well put!
We gotta watch it....for any illluminated Independent , that could be the trump card on the stump to kick some rump.
Well, of course Bush is as "dumb as a stump", but I don't think the Repubs will like to hear that from their very own presumptive nominee.
"Guess he wants to capture the moron vote."
I think McCain already has that demographic pretty much lined up.
Our beloved, brilliant political class.
Fundraisers first.
Lawmakers last.
And yes I think McCain was insulting the stump regarding Bush.
Back in 1999. Why didn't you say something then- publicly?
Gee what ambition can change.
What does Russ Feingold think of his "reform" buddy today?
What a joke this all is.
So it seems McCain is a great judge of intelligence and leadership! Should this be held against him while Obama spent 20 years with the Rev. Wright and only in the last 2 weeks discovered he is a racist loon!!
He's not a racist loon. Read or listen to his actual speeches, not the nonsensical smear jobs done by right-wing loons and whites too guilty to admit he's right.
Rev. Wright is a good American.
Rev. Wright has long practiced effective, practical outreach and help to his community. He practices what he preaches. If what he has seen and experienced brings a righteous anger to the fore, well, I think it may be justified. Where is the same outrage against Falwell, Hagee, Robertson, Coulter, Hannity and O'Reilly?
By that definition even MLK would have been considered a racist loon. Black men (and women) of his generation and older were oppressed to no end. Even having experiments performed on them without their knowledge (that's even happened recently with the sludge dumping in poor black neighborhoods)
I don't see anything wrong with a little righteous anger. Okay so he doesn't know when to stop, but that still doesn't make him a loon. Please if White folks would had to go through as much as Black folks had we'd be hopping mad, too.
Can't understand why these stories would work against John McCain. I like that he was a couple of sheets to the wind when he told Huffington he didn't vote for GWB. The image of him flipping burgers for guests at home is totally likeable, and he's absolutely right about President Stumpy. These anecdotes might make Republicans ticked off at him, but they are already, so big deal. It's the Independents who will make the difference.
I've thought the same thing -- this line of attack might bolster McCain with independents.
McBush's candidacy is an intelligence test for voters. If you think George has really done a fine job, McBush will give you four more years, and you fail the test.
Aw crap... here we go again! Sure his policies will continue to inflate the wallets of the nation's wealthy at the expense of the middle class, and sure the treasury will continue to pump money into the Pentagon, and sure more will die in Iraq and maybe Iran, but...but.
By the way, any Republican who is "ticked off" with McCain is just an idiot. He's as Repub as they get, so back to the drawing board with all of you who still think of McCain as different. Better yet, inform yourself of what he's been saying over the past year or so. This isn't your father's McCain.
I have often sparred with my friends and co-workers as to the question of Bush's intelligence or lack thereof, and here's my opinion: Watch him carefully as he speaks, even reading spoon-fed prepared remarks, listen to him put the inflection on the wrong words... soak up when he holds a rare press conference, how he struggles with the English language, how petulent he becomes when challenged.
I have come to the conclusion not that he is dumb, but rather, has arrested development- that is, his thoughts and how he expresses himself are appropriate for, say, a twelve-year-old. If you think of Bush in that context- a child with the world's most powerful position- it would explain a lot. Am I wrong?
If I got this right, you can figure his IQ by taking his mental age, which I would agree is about 12 years old, dividing this by the age when the IQ growth normally stalls out, about age 16, and multiplying by 100. So you would have a president of the World's Most Powerful Country with an IQ of 12/16 x 100 = 75 (+/- 15). About the only dumber politician in our time I can recall was "Potatoe" Quail, who thought the canals on Mars were real, etc. I figured him to be below 70. Obviously, Bush would be too dumb to run anything more complicated than a chain-saw, so someone had to be running him. Guess who?
I'm with Keith O. and everyone else. I want someone with mental abilities over the top to be POTUS, and with Barack, we have that plus social skills that won't stop. Maybe he can be the healer we need for all the wounds inflicted on this country and the world by these band of Bush pirates all these years. We can hope. At least we can hope that decent people with smarts will want to work with this man and have a real chance to do so...for once.
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