The Bishop on political stupidity

George W. Bush’s response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster reminds the Bishop of an expression once coined on an episode of The Simpsons: to pull a Homer; or, to succeed despite idiocy.

Rivalled only by his famous fifteen minute ‘Hmm’ in reply to the 2001 World Trade Centre attack, the President’s reaction―Rothkoesque in its minimalism, if not its sense of forward planning―seems, once again, unlikely to affect his reputation as America’s best buddy. See, for example, a recent speech―somehow heard as apologetic despite shifting blame to state and local officials―the subtext of which read, ‘Hey, I know I kinda haven’t done much, but helping out after a national disaster is a complicated business. It’s not easy looking after all this stuff. Do you reckon you could do any better?’

Probably not; but, then again, the Bishop isn’t president; and one could be forgiven for hoping that the head of the free world might behave more like its head and less like its small intestine. The question, then, becomes: why is this sort of mumbling incompetence not only meekly accepted but, in some circles, celebrated?

The answer, perhaps, lies in our hated of that most villainous of modern archetypal figures: the boss. The Bishop knows only too well the cerebral circumlocutions each of us will go through to convince ourselves we’re best―for who among us wants to admit that that slick-dressed arsehole in the corner office is not, as cognitive dissonance avoidance reassures us, a brown-nosed turkey fit only to be served up at the next Christmas dinner, but in point of fact far smarter, more hardworking and, most unacceptably, more talented than us? What better executive officer, then, than a down-home, limp-brained limpet, leading his fellow lemmings to the levee as the floodwaters rise?

Forget Iraq; forget family values; forget the rise of the religious right. What the Democrats need on the next presidential ticket is a candidate that all Americans can recognise as clearly stupider than themselves. Which leaves only one small roadblock on the highway to victory in 2008. Who?