(Image by Monk.)

I still remember the shock, in March, of discovering that McCain really didn’t know the difference between a Shia and a Sunni. With the US in war in Iraq for over 4 years, it seemed like the sort of thing a self proclaimed foreign policy expert would understand. But he didn’t. And then, in April, he flubbed it again. Much as I wasn’t a fan of McCain, it would never have occurred to me he wouldn’t know.

Meanwhile we just found that Sarah Palin didn’t know what the Bush doctrine is and thinks that Iraq was behind 9/11. In Alaska she insisted on killing wolves from airplanes, calling it a cull, even though wildlife biologists said that doing so risked killing so many wolves that it would actually endanger the caribou population Palin claimed to be helping by killing wolves.

  • Ignorant
  • won’t listen to people who aren’t
  • isn’t interested in learning

This is the fundamental problem with George Bush. He doesn’t know anything about anything, and he doesn’t want to learn. He surrounds himself with yes-men and yes-women who say what he wants to hear. He lets them control what newspapers he reads, what news he watches. He is the "Presidential mushroom", kept in the dark and fed manure by his handlers. The result of this has been record deficits, 4,000 American deaths in Iraq, the bungling of the 9/11 warning, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths(not that anyone cares, but I feel I should at least mention them), bank collapse after bank collapse and a decade during which Americans didn’t get a raise.

Why? Well, in large part because Bush is ignorant. He doesn’t know anything and he doesn’t want to know anything. He doesn’t like hard work and has taken more holidays than any other President in history, while maintaining his perfect physique with lengthy workouts in the White House gym.

Ignorant, and too lazy to learn.

Now the standard response to this is to scream "elitist". Screw that. When did it become fashionable in the United States to be incompetent, unable to speak in a complete sentences and not just ignorant of how the world works but proud of it? This isn’t an "education" issue in the sense of credentials. Heck, I personally don’t even have a bachelors degree. I don’t hold lack of formal education against anyone.

But I do hold not being willing to learn how to do their damn job against them. This isn’t mostly about Bush (he’s running out of time to bungle the job further). It isn’t mostly about Palin (though she’s only a very old heartbeat away from the Presidency). It’s about John McCain. This is a man who touts his foreign policy expertise as his strongest point. He says he knows how to win wars. But the number one requirement for winning wars is understanding the enemy and, as noted, John McCain doesn’t even understand the difference between a Sunni and Shia. Just doesn’t know. Can’t learn even after being publicly humiliated by not knowing. The US has been at war in a country where there is a huge amount of violence between religious groups, and he doesn’t know anything about it? How can he credibly get up on stage and say he’s the better candidate on foreign policy?


Can anyone imagine Barack Obama making this mistake? Not knowing? Of course they can’t. Say what you will about Obama, but he’s curious, he’s knowledgeable and if he needs to learn something so he can do his bloody job, he goes out and learns it.

And that’s what it’s about, being able to do the job. Being responsible for the economy (which McCain admits he doesn’t understand) as well as foreign affairs, in which McCain is also clearly out of his depth.

He’s ignorant. And if he wanted to learn, if he was willing to learn, well in the five bloody years the US has been at war in Iraq, he’d have managed to pick up the difference between a Shia and a Sunni.

Bill Clinton was famous for staying up all night reading not just the entire report (ie. not only the "executive summary", which should be labelled "for lazy idiots who don’t care enough to do their job right") but also the appendices. Strangely enough, the US economy did well under him, the US was mostly at peace, and the one war he chose to fight he won with zero losses.

Can you imagine McCain or Palin doing all that work to understand exactly what was going on? Not just handing things off to advisers, but actually learning about what is happening? Actually taking the time to understand then making their own decisions? Playing different advisers with different opinions off against each other, then making the final call, not just on their gut, but because they actually understands the situation well enough that they could write the report now if they had to?

Yeah, me either.

And the results are clear. Knowing what you’re doing produces better results. A lot better. Peace and prosperity.

And I know McCain is clueless. Mr. "what’s a Shia?" has no damn idea what he’s doing.

The most important job in the world, he doesn’t know how to do it, and despite having had almost thirty years during which he could have put his nose down and learned, he never bothered.

You wouldn’t hire a plumber who didn’t know what a valve was. Why would you, or anyone, hire John McCain or Sarah Palin to be President?

Four more years of ignorance and unwillingness to learn; four more years of dilettantes who can’t be bothered to put in the sweat and hard work required to do the job right?

Forgive me, but that really isn’t change. It really is more of the same.

If Americans want 4 more years of Bush, it’s on the menu.

Just put your check mark next to McCain come election day.