Uncurious George

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Mentions of George Bush as uncurious, without explanation

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June 2004

BottleOfBlog: Incurious George Terrified, Finds Happiness In "My Pet Goat"
June 28, 2004 at 07:51 PM

AxisofLogic. Critical Analysis
The War of Error: Unraveling Bush's unwinnable battle
By Manuel Valenzuela, Contributing Editor
Jun 24, 2004, 14:01

The War of Error is a vicious cycle of unfettered fear, insecurity, violence and destruction. It is a product of an administration limited in knowledge and vision, common sense and history, understanding of culture and empathy for humankind. It was begun by a Commander in Chief possessing inalienable limitations of grey matter, incurious and unlearned of both people and planet, born into royalty lacking understanding of how billions see the world and with a myopic vision of delusion, fantasy and religious weak-mindedness.

Reagan, Bush Contrasts Are as Telling as Parallels (washingtonpost.com)
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 11, 2004; Page A27

Both [Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush] were deemed by critics as inattentive, incurious.

OpinionJournal - Leisure & Arts
From The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page
BOOKSHELF
Executives Examined
Excerpts from "Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House."
Thursday, June 10, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

Paul A. Gigot on George W. Bush: . . . "When he [Bush] was running for the job, they [his critics] described him as an amiable but uncurious and dimwitted scion.

New York's Premier Alternative Newspaper. Arts, Music, Food, Movies and Opinion
NewYorkPress
Vol 17 - Issue 23 - June 9-15, 2004
Death Changes Everything
By Russ Smith
Observed online June 8, 2004

I doubt Kerry believes Reagan (or anyone else, for that matter, aside from JFK and John McCain) "taught" him anything. After all, in Democratic orthodoxy, the 40th president was just as, to slip into today's jargon, "incurious" as the current occupant of the White House. Kerry might've conveyed his condolences to the Reagan family, acknowledged his enormous popularity and left it at that.

baltimoresun.com - 'Great Communicator' dies
By Paul West
Sun National Staff
Originally published June 6, 2004

As president, Mr. Reagan was frequently described as intellectually lazy. Critics said his detached style of governing led him to delegate too much responsibility to others. But his successes made him a model for others, including the current president, who has consciously sought to imitate the Reagan style and has been similarly criticized as incurious.

George W. Bush is "the most Reagan-like politician we have seen," Michael Deaver, the chief White House image-maker during Mr. Reagan's first term, was quoted as saying.

Foreign Policy: Bush’s Willing Enablers
Foreign Policy Magazine Web Exclusive
Posted June 2004

Today, few doubt that the Bush administration's postwar planning was disastrous. Insiders' books, congressional testimony, and recent investigative reporting indicate that the miscalculations resulted from a toxic combination of ideology, terrorism, and an incurious president who allowed Vice President Dick Cheney and his allies to implement their unrealistic policies.

May 2004

Inside the Beltway - The Washington Times: Inside the Beltway - May 31, 2004
By John McCaslin

Ever since 2000, Slate has poked fun at George W. Bush for his "torture" of the English language, saying its "Bushisms" collection "captures the president's ignorance, incuriosity, laziness and thoughtlessness expressed in frequent gaffes."

ABCNEWS.com Message Boards
Author: WillReadMore
Re: bush and the UN
1:46PM PDT, May 23, 2004

And of course, non-curious George has stated many times that he doesn't talk to his own dad about world affairs.

The other dirty war (continued) Todd Gitlin - openDemocracy
May 20, 2004

The obvious subtext, which goes over well in Bush’s half of the country, is that only the kick-ass dynast qualifies as a Real American, as his untraveled, uncurious biography amply testifies.

The New Yorker : fact : content
THE GRAY ZONE
How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib.
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2004-05-24
Posted 2004-05-15
Uncurious Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

One puzzling aspect of Rumsfeld’s account of his initial reaction to news of the Abu Ghraib investigation was his lack of alarm and lack of curiosity.

How Bush chose stupidity. - By Jacob Weisberg - Slate Magazine
Posted Friday, May 7, 2004, at 9:54 AM ET

A second, more damning aspect of Bush's mind-set is that he doesn't want to know anything in detail, however important. Since college, he has spilled with contempt for knowledge, equating learning with snobbery and making a joke of his own anti-intellectualism. . . . By O'Neill's account, Bush could sit through an hourlong presentation about the state of the economy without asking a single question. . . .

Closely related to this aggressive ignorance is a third feature of Bush's mentality: laziness. . . .

The president can't tolerate debate about issues. Offered an option, he makes up his mind quickly and never reconsiders.

lies.com » Marshall, Will on Incurious George
May 4, 2004
Discusses weblog by Joshua Micah Marshall and Washington Post column by George F. Will that both conclude that Bush's incurious mismanagement has led to disasters in Iraq.

AxisofLogic/ Critical Analysis
The Bubble Burst: Replacing Tyranny with Tyranny
By Manuel Valenzuela, Contributing Editor
May 4, 2004, 14:14

If leaders of a nation represent and espouse the beliefs, qualities, intellect and principles of their people, then the debacle in Iraq was to be expected, for those under the rule of the Commander in Chief are but extensions of the President. Could we hope for anything more when George the Lesser is but an incurious, immoral, unscrupulous, selfish, uncultured, arrogant, unworldly and apathetic creature of dubious intellect and weak mental strength?

April 2004

The Daily Star Web Edition Vol. 4 Num 325
Wed. April 28, 2004
The Daily Star [Pakistan]
Editorial
Bottom line
A damning portrait of President Bush
[by] Harun ur Rashid
Review of seven books "that provide a scathing disapproving report card for President Bush," including The Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind (Simon & Schuster).

O'Neill found that the incurious President was so opaque on some important issues that top cabinet officials were left guessing his mind even after face-to-face meetings.

NYTimes.com Review Walking Into the Propeller
By RON SUSKIND
Published: April 25, 2004
Review of Karen Hughes' book Ten Minutes From Normal.

But Hughes also takes this opportunity to answer critics who call Bush unintellectual and incurious, a man who simply delivers elegantly constructed speeches.

San Diego CityBEAT
A SOUND BITE IS BORN
Tracking politically sensitive words in these politically sensitive times
by Catherine Tapia
April 21, 2004

Then watch as numerous online headlines reflect an irresistible urge to cross-reference George W. Bush with a well-known simian protagonist of children’s books. The resulting new catchphrase: “Incurious George.”

Conservatives, Republicans, and BushCo All Share Blame For 9/11
OpEdNews.Com
by Allen Snyder
April 16, 2004

No BushCo exec gave a shit about terrorism until those planes hit their targets and caring became politically necessary. Not one. Not Condi, not Dickey, not Rummy, and certainly not Incurious George. All their eggs were in baskets marked ‘Saddam’, ‘Iraq’, ‘Oil’, ‘Secret Energy Meetings’, ‘Tax Cuts for Wealthy Patrons’, and ‘Destroy Democracy’.

BottleOfBlog: Incurious George Takes A Vacation
April 15, 2004 at 02:46 PM
The entire posting is an excerpt of Fred Kaplan in Slate, April 14, 2004.

While Bush vacationed, 9/11 warnings went unheard. By Fred Kaplan - Slate Magazine
The Out-of-Towner
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, April 14, 2004, at 7:54 PM ET

At a time when action was needed, and orders for action had to come from the top, the man at the top was resting undisturbed. . . .

On Aug. 6, Bush was given the now-famous President's Daily Brief (by one of Tenet's underlings), warning that this attack might take place "inside the United States." . . .For the previous few years—as Philip Zelikow, the commission's staff director, revealed this morning—the CIA had issued several warnings that terrorists might fly commercial airplanes into buildings or cities. . . .

Rice—as she has testified—wasn't with Bush, either. He was on his own and, willfully, out of touch. . . .

The PDB of Aug. 6 was a page and a half. "That's the intelligence-community equivalent of writing War and Peace," former CIA officer and the State Department's counterterrorism chief from 1989-93,] Johnson said. And the title—"Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US"—was clearly designed to set off alarm bells. Johnson told his interviewer that when he read the declassified document, "I said 'Holy smoke!' This is such a dead-on 'Mr. President, you've got to do something!' " . . .

If Bush asked for the [September 4, 2001] briefing [by CIA Director George Tenet to discuss terrorism], it suggests that he at least cared about the subject; then the puzzle becomes why he didn't follow up on its conclusions. If he didn't ask for the briefing, then he comes off as simply aloof.

Spawn of Blogorrhea: Rants
Spawn of Blogorrhea
Getting on with life in NYC Post 9/11
April 15, 2004
The Root of All Evil

Bush may look like Curious George, but he's really Incurious George.

Uncurious George Meets the Press
From: turgorsfo@aol.com (OrangeSFO) Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush Subject: Uncurious George Meets the Press Date: 13 Apr 2004 20:50:44 -0700
For unknown reasons, this post had no followup in this newsgroup, where it belongs. But, the same post in rec.gambling.poker generated enormous reply volume.

BottleOfBlog: President Incurious, Satisfied
April 12, 2004
President Incurious, Satisfied

Re: "The Vacation President"
From: jenn <jenn@hmplce.com> Newsgroups: alt.politics.democrats Subject: Re: "The Vacation President" Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 16:55:32 -0500

and we all know how effective those daily 'briefs' are since Incurious George doesn't feel that doing anything about them is his responsibility -- and that he 'assumes' the FBI etc are taking care of whatever

Retronaut's Web Journal (RetroBlog)
I Couldn't Have Said It Better
April 12, 2004 - 7PM

In response to an e-mail from me on the subject of Bush's frequent and overly-simplistic characterizations of issues:
"...What really get me are the constant grammatical errors and abnormalities (from his remarks yesterday, we got "the American people is..." and "my response then was like as it was today" and "I pray there's less casualties" and "there was some threats"). It's embarrassing! I also think Presidents of the United States need not say "you know" and "kind of" in every answer...and I get tired of his constantly going "uhhhmmmm" as he tries to think up some appropriately articulate and profound conclusion to some going-nowhere half-sentence and then comes out with some banal platitude like "had a good, frank discussion" or "we love freedom and they hate it" or "we want to work on spreading more Democracy" and enunciates the syllables as though he believes it's truly profound and thoughtful.

"But the problem is, this may be embarrassing to us, but to most Americans, it couldn't be more perfect and it is an overall strength of his. To many, this truly is presidential - they see it as humble and down-to-Earth, and I think it's precisely Bush's level of thoughtlessness, incuriousness and inarticulateness that makes him so endearing to so many people. "

Democratic Veteran :: Ahhh, the smell of springtime (and liars)
posted by Jo Fish on 04.03.04 at 02:17 AM

Thanks again to Preznit Remarkably Incurious for bringing the grown-ups from the Nixon Administration back to Washington.

Don't touch that dial
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Friday, April 2, 2004
By LARRY ATKINS
GUEST COLUMNIST
Larry Atkins, a lawyer and writer who lives in Philadelphia, teaches editorial writing at Temple University.

In the past, liberal radio hosts have failed. The problem is that they weren't angry or entertaining enough. The new liberal radio network can't survive if it serves up tofu and snow peas -- it needs to provide red meat to expose the failures and arrogance of Incurious George and his failed administration.

The Bushiad - Uncurious George
By Victor Littlebear
April 2004
One chapter of a 24-chapter "Bushiad" parody of the Iliad.

Simple George a mouthpiece, poor one at that,
He mangles English when he speaks, so he’s
Learned to stick close to the script, use simple slogans,
Speak in short phrases and not think.

March 2004

Voices: Bush and the war on truth
Daily Egyptian (Southern Illinois University at Carbondale)
Divided We Stand
By Jesse Nelson
Jesse is a junior in journalism. Divided we stand appears every Tuesday. These views do not necessarily reflect those of the DAILY EGYPTIAN.
03/31/2004

The administration has unleashed its attack dogs whenever anyone, especially a government official, has had the courage to expose Bush's lies and incompetence to the American people. . . .

It happened to former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill when he revealed just how out of touch, uncurious and unqualified Bush really is.

Strange Doctrines: Incuriosity Bush's Alibi
March 24, 2004
Incuriosity Bush's Alibi
Scott McClellan asserted that Bush didn't go into the White House Situation Room on September 12, 2001.

Re: Bush and Blair: History will Damn Them
From: "Gandalf Grey" <gandalfgrey@infectedmail.com> Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater,alt.current-events.wtc.bush-knew, alt.impeach.bush,alt.politics,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.liberalism, alt.society.liberalism,talk.politics.misc Subject: Re: Bush and Blair: History will Damn Them Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 10:00:03 -0800

... the right is historically anti-intellectual. The solid following of the intellectually uncurious George Bush is an excellent example of how anti-intellectualism has remained at the center of the right wing mindset in American politics.

Literotical Discussion Board - Is Bush a functional illiterate?
03-17-2004, 04:10 PM
Dixon Carter Lee
Is Bush a functional illiterate?

He doesn't read his daily paperwork, has no attention span, or curiousity.

Op-Ed Columnist: Weak on Terror
The New York Times
Weak on Terror
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 16, 2004

The truth is that Mr. Bush, while eager to invoke 9/11 on behalf of an unrelated war, has shown consistent reluctance to focus on the terrorists who actually attacked America, or their backers in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. This reluctance dates back to Mr. Bush's first months in office. Why, after all, has his inner circle tried so hard to prevent a serious investigation of what happened on 9/11? There has been much speculation about whether officials ignored specific intelligence warnings, but what we know for sure is that the administration disregarded urgent pleas by departing Clinton officials to focus on the threat from Al Qaeda.

BottleOfBlog: Washington Press Corps Continues To Cover For Bush's Lack Of Work Ethic, Drinking
March 15, 2004

To his supporters, Bush Time reflects the president's discipline and focus. To his critics, it reflects rigidity and a lack of curiosity. Either way, meetings are over fast.

2071.org || Oh Boy Howdy Does This Beg for a Counterpunch
by chiggins on Wed Mar 10th, 2004 at 11:33:10 AM EST

He's short-tempered, mean, thin-skinned, proudly incurious and ignorant, and vindictive.

Can the war hero win the fight for America's greatest prize?
The Herald (Glasgow)
Published March 6, 2004
Posted March 8, 2004
by Ros Davidson

No-one would doubt the Boston Brahmin's mastery of the issues, especially compared with the folksy and famously incurious George W Bush.

seattle.indymedia.org
Global nightmare: Saving the LOST
author: a3m
Mar 04, 2004 16:05

Cheeny, Un-Curious George the Junior, Halburton, Oil....it sounds like a short list of the "Usual Suspects" and one expects reading of the timely discovery of these foiled dastardly deeds would be a simple matter to rejoyce over.

A BarcaLounger in the Den of Iniquity
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2004
Incurious George

One of my cherished collectables (OK, it was fifty cents) is a stuffed toy, a Curious George rocket ship. I understand that certain snide remarks have been made about the one hour that Dubya has allotted to his participation in the 911 investigation, particularly as it relates to the Reaganistical amount of time he spends on vacation. But that's OK by me. In fact, I hope we're just eight months away toward letting him spend as much time on his ranch as he wants.

Rove's Playbook
Karl Rove’s Playbook: Some Tactical Reflections
Ernest Partridge, Co-Editor
The Crisis Papers
March 2, 2004

George Bush — incurious, adolescent, unread, inarticulate George Bush — is an object of derision, contempt and ridicule throughout the world.

February 2004

Archive 8
Shayn's Hobbit Hole
Sunday, February 29, 2004

Ralph Nader is running as an independent. Now, I like his unspoken reason- appeal to the dissatisfied right by joining forces with Fred Newman, and siphon votes from uncurious George. However, it's not going to work.

the chutry experiment: Now, If He Were From Arkansas...
Posted by: JBJ at February 23, 2004 11:27 AM

His smirking self-satisfaction (mimicking the woman on death row, for instance) and his incuriousity strike me as personality traits serving as conduits or preconditions for the policy blunders of his administration.

robert's random thoughts
Sunday, February 22, 2004
Veepstakes
posted by Robert Waldmann 3:02 PM

Cheney has all of Bush's faults (but uncuriousity/dumbness) in spades.

Review Bush's accomplishments (E-mail webmaster for full text.)
The Oregonian (Portland)
Feb 20, 2004
The Oregonian's archives are not free and shamefully do not provide unique URLs to abstracts.

As one of the most insulated and incurious presidents in U.S. history, responsible for one of the most secretive administrations in U.S. history. This is not a good combination!

HOWARD ROLL
Southwest Portland

Democrats Abroad Hong Kong
Smoke and Mirrors: The 2004 US Federal Budget
February 18, 2004
© David O'Rear, 2004

If every month of 2004 sees the creation of 158,000 new jobs, Incurious George will have presided over the destruction of an average of 8,854 jobs every single month of his sad presidency.

O'Neill enlightens, Greenspan obscures: Fed chief's role in 'The Price of Loyalty' remains an enigma Los Angeles Business Journal - Find Articles
Feb 16, 2004
by Michael Lewis

"The Price of Loyalty," by Ron Suskind about Paul O'Neill's two bizarre years as Bush's Treasury secretary, dwells on the president's incuriosity, but the Bush trait exposed by the book is not incuriosity. It's insecurity.

. . . a man terrified of complicated social interaction. After all, what would happen if you spoke first? He might lose control of the conversation. He might have to think up a response.

"The Price of Loyalty" is laced with the president's terror of his own mind. One example: In his two years of weekly private policy meetings with the president, all O'Neill ever got- after being greeted as "Pablo" or "Big-O" --was a blank stare. "I wondered from the first, if the president didn't know the questions to ask, or did he know and just not want to know the answers?" O'Neill says.

E M P H Y R I O: Kerry Will Win
Posted by Emphyr io on February 15, 2004 at 01:30 PM

Bush is a Spokesmodel President. I really think he's a man of little depth or passion, maybe socially canny, but without curiosity or clue when it comes to policy.

Daily Kos || Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.
Bush and Hero Worship
by DHinMI
Sun Feb 15th, 2004 at 23:53:01 GMT

But for a impatient and uncurious person like Bush to hang around the place [the Datona 500] for two hours and appear to relish every second . . . you know he's probably having fun and living out a fantasy.

Charen Watch
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13TH, 2004

Bush, of course, isn't stupid. He's ignorant, incurious, forgetful, impatient, mean, and a liar, which often produce statements that, taken singularly, could easily buttress the conclusion the President lost his brain from the drugs and the booze.

The Daily Star Web Edition Vol. 4 Num 253
The Daily Star (Dhaka, Pakistan)
Thu. February 12, 2004
Letter from America
'Free societies do not develop weapons of mass terror': President Bush
Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed writes from Princeton

If the surging Democrats thought that the "incurious" President Bush would be a pushover in debates and interviews, they should think again.

The New York Review of Books: Hung Up in Washington
February 12, 2004
Hung Up In Washington
By Elizabeth Drew
Like No Other Time: The 107th Congress and the Two Years That Changed America Forever
by Tom Daschle, with Michael D'Orso
Crown, 292 pp., $25.00
In the footnote to "6" Drew says "For a contrasting view, see the comments of Paul O'Neill, former secretary of the treasury, in Ron Suskind's book The Price of Loyalty (Simon and Schuster, 2004)."

Bush's denigrators to the contrary, he isn't dumb. He is inarticulate, uncurious, and anti-intellectual, to be sure, but also shrewd in limited but important ways: in meetings he is said to go quickly to the main point,[6] and he's a very effective politician.

TomDispatch - Daddy's Boys
by Tom Engelhardt, February 4, 2004

Among those being considered for the commission are Robert Gates, CIA director under Daddy Bush; William Perry, former Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton and a hard-line "realist"; former CIA director William H. Webster; and the CIA's David A. Kay, who started this ball rolling by pronouncing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq DOA, but then gave the president a helping hand by focusing everyone on the intelligence agencies not the administration, and broke bread with uncurious George only two days ago.

Main Example: Many in the White House are hot under the collar following former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's interview on "60 Minutes" where he described being struck by President Bush's incuriosity during their first meeting. "It was an hour-long monologue, with me doing all the talking," said O'Neill.

January 2004

United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.
Commentary
DICK CHENEY, THE VICE PRESIDENCY, AND THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE
By Mark Jensen
January 28, 2004
Also appears at History News Network on January 29, 2004.

Ron Suskind's new book, The Price of Loyalty, has made it clear that Dick Cheney is the moving force in the Bush administration. . . .

This is hardly news. Close observers have never believed that George W. Bush, the very incarnation of incuriosity (albeit a man with undoubted gifts in the area of "social intelligence," to use a term coined in the 1930s by psychologist Edward Thorndike), was really making the big decisions in this administration.

Pandagon: Thoughts on New Hampshire
Posted by: Blehh... at January 28, 2004 05:00 AM
The "grenade flinging monkey" is not identified in this post.

The grenade flinging monkey as president will get fewer Americans killed then [sic] Incurious George.

Fact-esque: How dare the press mock Howard Dean when they listen respectfully to this arrant lunacy?
January 28, 2004

Is the White House in the total disarray that it conveys - State v. Defense, Rice v. Rummy, Bremer out of the loop completely, Cheney apparently off the reservation when it comes to WMD information, Bush an incurious empty suit at meetings. We used American intelligence. We used British intelligence. Dr. Kay wants the CIA to explain what went wrong. Bush says the intelligence his administration used was "darn good". The story is that nobody can keep the story straight and nobody cares for more than a day.

TomDispatch - Fly me to the moon
by Tom Engelhardt
January 25, 2004

I suspect that, in retrospect, we'll find his polling figures beginning to slide almost from the moment of Saddam's capture when all the other major Democratic candidates collapsed in a heap of praise for the President. Dean remained standing and made an eminently reasonable comment: that we were no safer for Saddam's capture. Within days the full range of mainstream media had swiveled on him and launched an attack that lasted two months without surcease. . . .

If uncurious George had been pummeled by the media for two months in the same fashion, with every word he spoke dissected and every past moment of his reconsidered, he would have been more than a lame duck, he would have been exactly the sort of creature his Vice President and Supreme Court Justice Scalia were bagging the other week in an armed love fest that passed for a vacation.

Hernando: Old dinosaur signals Donkeys' new home
St. Petersburg (FL) Times: Hernando County
By WILL VAN SANT, Times Staff Writer
Published January 25, 2004

Much of the talk Friday was about ousting President George W. Bush, an unpopular guy at the headquarters.

"You've heard about Curious George," said Spring Hill resident Wayne Lee. "He's Incurious George."

LEONARD PITTS JR.: It'll take more than tantrums to beat Bush
Detroit Free Press
January 23, 2004

And unseating W. is crucial. We have arrived at a pivotal point in history, brought here in part by this incurious fellow whose squint and smirk are mistaken for leadership.

The above was originally published in the Miami Herald January 23, 2004 under headline "For Democrats, a Scary Dean Is Not the One." It also appeared in the Chicago Tribune January 27 under headline "Will Howard Dean please leave? ; The `Angry Man' spiel: Been there, done that."

Western New York for Clark
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Cheney = Hans Blix

Joshua Micah Marshall has been arguing for some time that incurious George isn't the real problem in Washington. It's Dick Cheney.

Daily Kos || Comments || A proposal...
by Phil S on Wed Jan 21st, 2004 at 19:17:00 GMT

Please don't make baseball take Uncurious George.

Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Magazine / Divided We Stand
By Peter S. Canellos, Globe Staff, 1/18/2004

To Bush admirers, Bill Clinton's embrace of the world is born of ego, not policy, and certainly not a concern for American interests. . . .

To Clinton admirers, it's Bush, not Clinton, who's expressing egotism -- the flawed egotism of a small man who lacks curiosity and thus pretends that what he doesn't know isn't worth knowing.

Chronicles 2004 : 15-Jan : Oh, the irony
Ches Paul in Palm Springs
Oh the irony!
Sweet, sweet irony
Palm Springs, 15-Jan-04

What leads Un-Curious George to take such an interest in scientific exploration and interplanetary travel? You don't suppose it could have anything to do with all those electoral votes up for grabs in states with a vested interest in the space program, states like Florida, Texas, California?

HAPPY FURRY PUPPY STORY TIME WITH NORBIZNESS, version 2.0
THE ONGOING, INFINITE WAR ON CRITICISM
posted by Norbizness: 1/15/2004

I realize that Incurious George needs to have the day's events and articles synopsized for him by friendly staffers, and that he needs to cancel addresses before the British Parliament if anti-war MPs are there to question him, and that . . . [very long rant in one sentence deleted] but.... [ellipsis in original]

.... there's no but. It's just a pretty fucking sorry state of affairs.

Al-Qaeda figures likely to face U.S. tribunals, FBI chief says
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT / The Dallas Morning News

In other news, Mr. [FBI Director Robert] Mueller: . . . Offered a different assessment of the president's interaction with top officials than former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill did in a new book that portrays Mr. Bush as disengaged and incurious in sessions with Cabinet officials.

Demcratic Veteran :: Context
by Jo Fish
January 13, 2004

So there it is, Incurious George, the little ape who can't, wanted to be the biggest Gorilla in the jungle; he's gotten his wish over the dead bodies of about 500 (and rising) US service men and women, and thousands of wounded.

O'Neill criticizes 'disengaged' Bush - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics
January 12, 2004
By James G. Lakely

Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri said yesterday on CBS' "Face the Nation" that he also found Mr. Bush "hard to help" on important matters such as the war on terrorism. Mr. Gephardt added that the president "has no curiosity" about the opinions of others.

USATODAY.com - Treasury seeks probe into papers taken by O'Neill
Money
1/12/2004
By Peronet Despeignes, USA TODAY

O'Neill's criticism of Bush — that he was disengaged and incurious — was unusually harsh and personal for a former Cabinet secretary.

story #26, organizational and business storytelling in the news daily update
Steve Denning
The website for business and organizational storytelling
January 12, 2004: Telling the truth to power

According to Suskind's book . . . the incurious President was so opaque on some important issues that top Cabinet officials were left guessing his mind even after face-to-face meetings.

Uncurious George @ Oliver Willis: Like Kryptonite to Stupid
Uncurious George
January 09, 2004

Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill doesn't exactly add to the Bush mythology.
A lack of dialogue, according to O'Neill, was the norm in cabinet meetings he attended. The president "was like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people," O'Neill is quoted saying in the book.
I don't think Bush is a drooling simpering idiot, he's just a nice guy who lucked into running Dad's company and he doesn't have a clue.

Thrasymachus Online: Price of Loyalty
January 09, 2004 at 09:46 PM

The scraps from Stahl's preview (and they are scraps) do reinforce my opinion of Bush as an uninvolved, uncurious President. I will have to check out the book when it comes out on the 13th.

TomDispatch - "Extraordinary rendition" and other terms of our times
compiled and edited by Tom Engelhardt
posted January 6, 2004 at 10:34 pm

(On Uncurious George's stealth world, more in my next dispatch.)

COMMENT | Up for Grabs | January 2004 Issue
The Progressive January 2004 Issue

The Presidential election is sure to be one of the most polarized in decades. The rightwing is organized and united behind Incurious George. The left and the Democrats are energized as never before to put his reign to an end.

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