George Bush is an idiot

Pro says he is disappointed that I didn't prove that claims that Bush is an idiot are common. That has nothing to do with the debate. Pro accepted the debate and has the responsibility to defend the resolution. A Google search for "Bush is an idiot" produces over seven million hits. Common enough? Pro wants to know how something common can be outrageous? For example, about 40% of Americans believe in astrology. That is both common and outrageous. It is outrageous because the belief cannot be derived by a logical or scientific process. Pro maintains that so long as definitions are strung together from the same dictionary that equivocation is not possible. Equivocation has nothing to do with the dictionary, it has to do with using different meanings of words. I charged that "Bush is an idiot" is chanted not because he stumbles over words, but because opponents disagree on policy, but find ridicule easier than legitimate debate. I appreciate Pro confirming this by pointing to his [6] that lists policy differences. By reference to the list we can learn that according to Po's scripture anyone who does not believe in global warming crisis is an idiot and that the Valerie Plame affair proved Bush an idiot, even though Plame was found to have been outed by a liberal Democrat. That is Bush Derangement Syndrome flapping in full plumage. I'm disappointed that Pro ignored many of my specific challenges. I challenged Pro to provide hard evidence that Bush's word stumbling increased over the years. He pointed to one example and claimed it was typical. I showed counterexamples and Pro said they didn't count because they were only examples, while his examples are supposed to count. I challenged Pro to give confirming evidence outside of speech making. All Pro offered was a lame list of policy differences. 1. Recall of names and faces refers to people Bush has met and meets again. I don't dispute that Bush stumbles in public speaking, but what I asked for was evidence outside of the context of public speaking. For example, evidence that Bush could typically not recall the names and faces of people on Capital Hill, or that he seemed disoriented, or unable to conduct meetings. Pro gave no evidence. 2. Pro says I did nothing to disprove his claim that speaking ability indicates mental capacity. He does not see the relevance of James Madison being the worst speaker among U.S. presidents and also one of the most brilliant minds to hold the office. The claim made by Pro is that all we have to know is that Bush is a poor public speaker and with only that knowledge he supposes we can conclude that Bush is an idiot. If Pro's claim were true, then we could similarly conclude that James Madison was an idiot. But we know that James Madison was not an idiot. Therefore Pro's claim is false. 3. Pro cites one doctor who opines that Bush may have presenile dementia. It is unethical for a physician to make such a diagnosis without contact with a patent, but what exposes the diagnosis as false are the lack of evidence that there were any symptoms outside of the context of public speaking, lack of evidence that Bush's speaking ability diminished rather than improved, and his recent demonstration an ability to speak well without a teleprompter or frequent references to notes. Obama is yet to demonstrate the ability to give a speech without a teleprompter, so it must be an extraordinary intellectual achievement. Pro says his video demonstrates deterioration, but I referenced Bush's Farewell Speech which was perfectly coherent and had few stumbles. Pro has the burden of proof to show that his example is typical, but he has not attempted to do that. Having a bad day can be attributed to any number of factors other than the Bush-hating doc's remote diagnosis. Let's suppose for a moment that the BDS doc is correct. That does not make Bush an idiot. It means nothing other than that Bush stumbles over words in formal speeches. Having a medical condition, and Madison had a load of them, does not make a person in any sense an idiot. There is a long list of highly accomplished people who suffered from mental conditions. http://www.disabled-world.com... Note the "speech impairment" list. It is insulting to suppose that any impairment whatsoever makes a person "an idiot." Pro supposes that speech making is a critical skill to being president, and it was therefore foolish of Bush to seek the Presidency. It's up to the voters to decide what combination of qualities they want in a candidate, and Bush was not only elected, but re-elected. It's safe to say that would not have happened if Pro's selected examples were typical. Bush judged his skill adequate, and the people agreed. That's pretty smart. 4. Pro says that most of us immediately correct our speech errors, but Bush does not. We may do so in private speech, but few of us know what we would do in the public spotlight. Pro has presented no evidence that Bush had problems with word stumbling in his private conversations, or that he didn't correct any errors immediately. Novice debaters can appreciate the difference between private and public settings, even though an academic debate is a very modest "public." Few people speak formally with the fluidity they have in informal conversation. The point is that each of us has some quirk that can be exploited by determined opponents to make us look "idiotic." If Bush didn't stumble over words, something else would have been found. JFK had a habit of starting his answer to every question with "Let me say this about that ..." The pattern was mocked, but he continued to do it. Bush, of course, was well aware of his habitual stumbling over words, and he frequently made fun of his problem. 5. The President is subject to yearly medical examinations. It is clearly the responsibility of the examining military physician to reveal any problems that would impair the President's ability to govern. Pro cites Reagan's onset of Alzheimer's Disease being concealed until the symptoms became severe. That occurred after Reagan left office and was a private man again. Had physicians detected significant impairment while Reagan was in office, they would have had an obligation to reveal it. "But even with the hindsight of Mr. Reagan's diagnosis, his four main White House doctors say they never detected any evidence that his forgetfulness was more than just that. His mental competence in office, they said in a series of recent interviews, was never in doubt. Indeed, they pointed out, tests of his mental status did not begin to show evidence of the disease until the summer of 1993, more than four years after he left the White House." http://www.nytimes.com... The quotation also shows that physicians examining a President are aware of their responsibility to diagnose and report mental impairment. Bush had an absolutely clean bill of health as judged by top-flight physicians who actually examined Bush as a patient, as opposed to the solitary sniping by a BDS physician that Pro cites. 6. The SAT was designed as an IQ test, as my references made clear. Also, MENSA accepts pre-1994 SAT as an IQ test. http://www.mensafoundation.org... Pro claims Bush's IQ deteriorated, but his arguments are not convincing. Critics are fond of making the false claim that Bush was never very bright. 7. The point about Biden is that policy differences drive the criticism of Bush. Dr. Price's errant diagnosis is contradicted both by the evidence and Bush's examining physicians. I completely deny that policy disagreements are more than policy disagreements, particularly Pro's lame list. Bush is ridiculed only by his extremist critics. That doesn't justify their claims.