Last week, I commented that Bush has lost the punditocracy. On Sunday, the Washington Post makes the point that even Bush’s most ardent supporters in the media are jumping ship. Exhibit A is from Scarborough Country:
For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether “George Bush’s mental weakness is damaging America’s credibility at home and abroad.” For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, “IS BUSH AN ‘IDIOT’?”
But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And his answer to the captioned question was hardly “no.” While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said: “I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don’t think he has the intellectual depth as these other people.”
He showed a montage of clips of Bush’s famously inarticulate verbal miscues and then explored with guests John Fund and Lawrence O’Donnell Jr. whether Bush is smart enough to be president.
While the country does not want a leader wallowing in the weeds, Scarborough concluded on the segment, “we do need a president who, I think, is intellectually curious.”
“And that is a big question,” Scarborough said, “whether George W. Bush has the intellectual curiousness — if that’s a word — to continue leading this country over the next couple of years.”
Actually, “curiousness” seems most apt.
