#43

When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
- H.L. Mencken /Baltimore Sun (July 26, 1920)
A lot of people have been talking about how dumb Bush is for about 8 years now. At the APEC meeting in Australia this week he referred to it as an OPEC meeting and thanked the 'Austrian' PM for hosting. This is but one of countless verbal train wrecks that GW has been father to. The point I'd like to make is that by being an apparent dipshit, that makes him more thoroughly American than any of his predecessors. And since each successive generation of Americans seems to be getting dumber at an exponential rate, the situation is unlikely to improve. If nothing else it proves that the system we have here in the USA isn't actually run by figure heads.