The History major

You may not be old enough to remember the radio show It Pays To Be Ignorant, but although it became a TV series in about 1949 and went off the air in 1951, it never died, you see; it became the Bush Administration.

Yesterday, lonesome George happened to be speaking to an audience that was smarter and better informed than he is. No, he wasn’t reading from My Pet Goat at some kindergarten class, he was at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, where he had to admit he didn’t have a clue when questioned by graduate students.

when asked what law governs private military contractors in Iraq, Bush could only say “Help!”

"I was going to pick up the phone and say, `Mr. Secretary, [Rumsfeld] I've got an interesting question.' ... That's how I work."

That’s how he works, the Commander in Chief.

Would he consider changing his administration's stance against working with organizations that partner with prostitution networks to stop human trafficking, asked another student?

"You know more about this subject than I," said the president truthfully. "And I will be glad to call Condi and talk to her about our policy."

When a student claimed that the worlds first Constitution or code of laws was created by the Prophet Muhammed [c. 570–632] another corrected him by referring to the code of the Babylonian King Hammurabi [ruled 1795-1750 BC] from which, as I thought everybody knew, certain biblical passages originated.

"I was going to say that, you know," Bush said to laughter from the crowd.

I wonder what kind of laughter it was. This man got a degree in history from Yale. I wonder what advisors he called upon to do his reading and course work for him – or what men in black called upon his professors.

When Bush was running for the Presidency, a supporter admitted to me that he may not be very bright, but he would certainly pick the best advisors – oblivious to the irony glaring from the idea that a stupid man can tell who is smart, much less who is honest. Of course that is America in a nutshell; many stupid men choosing amongst prospective leaders smart enough to fool them.