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How Bush thinks: intuition over intellect
Los Angeles Times ^ | August 5, 2005 | Jonathan Chait

Posted on 08/06/2005 4:06:51 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

...."... I think it's important for me and for you to look for the depth of a person's soul and character. I was touched by the fact your mother gave you the cross.' " Bush publicly testified of Putin, "I was able to get a sense of his soul."

...Bush is even apt to apply this particular brand of illogic to his own character. In one of the 2000 presidential debates, Al Gore pointed out that Bush as governor of Texas opposed a measure to expand children's healthcare and instead used the money for a tax cut. The debate moderator then asked Bush, "Are those numbers correct? Are his charges correct?" To which Bush replied, "If he's trying to allege that I'm a hardhearted person and I don't care about children, he's absolutely wrong."

...Gore was trying to make a point about Bush's moral priorities by establishing a series of facts about Bush's behavior. Rather than deny having chosen tax cuts over children's healthcare, or explain his rationale for having done so, Bush changed the subject to more comfortable ground: judging people's hearts. He asked the audience to intuit, based on the way he carries himself, that he is a warmhearted person, and thus to reject out of hand any facts that might clash with this impression.

The point isn't just that Bush refuses to engage with facts he finds inconvenient. ... It's that Bush rejects reason itself. Reason is a process by which we draw our broader conclusions from an accumulation of specific evidence. When the evidence changes ....., our conclusions can also .....Bush, on the other hand, arrives at his beliefs through intuition. His supporters marvel at the unshakeable certainty of his convictions. Well, no wonder.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: chait; character; elite; leadership; wisdom
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

The past five years have gone much better for George Bush than they have for the LA Times.


21 posted on 08/06/2005 5:02:36 AM PDT by speedy
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
The point isn't just that Bush refuses to engage with facts he finds inconvenient.

Yes, "facts" that the MSM and the Dims think up in their brainstorming (I hesitate to use anything with the word "brain" embedded when referring to them) sessions to come up with bad things they wish were wrong with the President. Kind of like this article.

22 posted on 08/06/2005 5:18:05 AM PDT by trebb ("I am the way... no one comes to the Father, but by me..." - Jesus in John 14:6 (RSV))
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Bush rejects reason itself

On the basis of a single example drawn from a debate, the author concludes that "Bush rejects reason itself".

I conclude from this, that the author Jonathan Chait, and the editor of the Los Angeles Times, does not understand Logic.

23 posted on 08/06/2005 5:23:32 AM PDT by joshhiggins
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Bush is playing chess, whereas this guy is playing checkers.


24 posted on 08/06/2005 5:25:46 AM PDT by IonInsights
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To: Cincinatus' Wife; harpo

.

And thus...

..as he was bringing Freedom to Iraq and Afghanistan in April 2003...

President BUSH promised in writing in a letter read aloud to 1,000's of Vietnamese-Americans praising him at a Little Saigon CA Freedom
Rally...


Freedom's Return to:

Communist Vietnam
Communist North Korea
Communist Cuba


as well as


Freedom's Arrival to:


All the countries of the Middle East


...during a BUSH Presidency...

...as America's own best Self-Protection against future terrorist attacks here at home.

BUSH's intuition at work, indeed.


Signed:..An in-person witness

.


25 posted on 08/06/2005 5:35:22 AM PDT by ALOHA RONNIE ("ALOHA RONNIE" Guyer/Veteran-"WE WERE SOLDIERS" Battle of IA DRANG-1965 http://www.lzxray.com)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
How Bush thinks: intuition over intellect

Bush does have a superior ability to cut through the cr@p.

26 posted on 08/06/2005 5:39:59 AM PDT by syriacus (Embryos -- Special enough that researchers want a lot of them; not special enough to deserve to live)
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Comment #27 Removed by Moderator

To: Cincinatus' Wife
Love the title.

Like with 43 it's one or the other.

Snort.

28 posted on 08/06/2005 5:41:44 AM PDT by mewzilla (Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. John Adams)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
I'm sure Jonathan LOVED his President Bill.

And I'm sure that Jonathan used his intellect to determine if it was A-OK to love Bill, before he made his intellectual decision to love Bill.

29 posted on 08/06/2005 5:48:07 AM PDT by syriacus (Embryos -- Special enough that researchers want a lot of them; not special enough to deserve to live)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

i bet you the author of the above captioned article has the i.q. of an amoeba


30 posted on 08/06/2005 5:48:29 AM PDT by JohnLongIsland
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Perhaps an envious Jonathan is exasperated at being left in the dust.


31 posted on 08/06/2005 5:51:31 AM PDT by syriacus (Embryos -- Special enough that researchers want a lot of them; not special enough to deserve to live)
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To: syriacus; All

Thank you all for such laughs.

I just came back in from fertilizing my rose bed.

I find it telling that in his Bush-bashing career, Jonathan got so much, so wrong about President Bush. Some from the horse's mouth in Post #3.


32 posted on 08/06/2005 5:57:40 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

33 posted on 08/06/2005 6:13:54 AM PDT by kAcknor (Don't flatter yourself.... It is a gun in my pocket.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
Oh, Jonathan.
Rest assured that Bush feels your pain. Maybe not so ably expressed as by that old grifter himself, "BJ" Clintoon - but certainly more sincerely and may I say: intuitively?
34 posted on 08/06/2005 6:23:29 AM PDT by finnigan2
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
To which Bush replied, "If he's trying to allege that I'm a hardhearted person and I don't care about children, he's absolutely wrong."

He doesn't care about the children of American citizens. He is working furiously to redistribute their parent's hard earned wealth to Mexico, and any other god forsaken place that has criminals for leaders. He and Congress are working furiously to put the illegals on Social Security, which will bankrupt their grandparents and cause them to live in poverty.

Gore is a bozo - but Bush is the godfather and Santa Claus of the New Mexican world order.

35 posted on 08/06/2005 6:33:02 AM PDT by swampfox98 (How American became a nation of traitors: Greed, corrupt politicians and religious leaders.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
I'm continually amazed at the stupidity of the liberals. Bush is a Yale graduate with an MBA from Harvard - no slouch institutions. His final grade average from Yale was 77, a b-, or 2. 67 out of 4. He achieved that average in a time when grades were not put on a curve. All in all, an excellent showing. Nevertheless, he is continually harangued by the liberals as stupid and dense, which is precisely why he is able to stymie them at every turn.

Jonathan Chait, the writer of this piece, graduated from University of Michigan, pretty good, but not Ivy League. Yale is ranked #3 in the nation by US News and World Report; University of Michigan is ranked #22. All in all, I'd say that this article proves that the Yale guy is smarter than the other guy because Mr. Chait has made the classic mistake of misunderestimating the president. Sorry, Jon, but you're critique will join the long list of those which made it to the public's file 13. Bush is still president, and you're still a hack.
36 posted on 08/06/2005 6:35:43 AM PDT by Neever
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To: syriacus
Jon-boy now:
"The point isn't just that Bush refuses to engage with facts he finds inconvenient. ... It's that Bush rejects reason itself. Reason is a process by which we draw our broader conclusions from an accumulation of specific evidence. When the evidence changes ....., our conclusions can also .....Bush, on the other hand, arrives at his beliefs through intuition. His supporters marvel at the unshakeable certainty of his convictions. Well, no wonder."

Jon-boy then:

"For the couple weeks seven years ago before he revealed himself to be a horrible, crazy gnome, Ross Perot seemed to me like a great idea. And if next November the candidates are George Bush, Al Gore, and Jesse Ventura, it isn't inconceivable that I would pull the lever for Ventura. And I certainly wouldn't be upset if Bush won, even if he can't name a single book he's ever read." --Jonathan Chait, The New Republic, Dec. 20, 1999

Perot? Ventura? "Rejecting reason"? Res ipsa loquitor.

Chait is just another paid-by-the-word lib, the type that populate Salon with thousands of useless bits and bytes, every article mandated by scroll-button column stretch, and very little else.

37 posted on 08/06/2005 6:37:54 AM PDT by StAnDeliver
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To: garyhope
I cannot stand reading the LA Slimes, but my sister is hooked on her daily dose of hate from writers on that commie rag. She claims she "balances" the Slimes with a San Fernando Valley paper whose editorial policy is farther right, but the leftist Slimes has messed up her mind in many ways. She voted for RATs.

As for intuition, I use it often over the skewed data and unbalanced group thinking from people who think they have studied all "the facts" and yet continually make stupid decisions. It happens all the time in business and government where "think tanks" churn out erroneous information and use it as facts. Since the first devastating terrorist attacks, way back in the 80's in Lebanon, there are two agencies that make many truly asinine decisions based upon flawed data: the CIA and the FBI.

38 posted on 08/06/2005 6:39:57 AM PDT by Paulus Invictus
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To: StAnDeliver
Good catch.

It seems we should look elsewhere for commentary about the President's mind.

39 posted on 08/06/2005 6:43:13 AM PDT by syriacus (Embryos -- Special enough that researchers want a lot of them; not special enough to deserve to live)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

I am really sick of people talking about President Bush's long vacation at the ranch. Presidents NEVER are more than a few seconds away. In this electronic age doesn't everyone know he has an office in his ranch house with every electronic device made to put him in touch with anyone anywhere?


40 posted on 08/06/2005 6:46:35 AM PDT by Ditter
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