{"article":{"id":93952,"heading":"You (and Bush) are likely too dumb for this","author":"Howard Mortman MSNBC","created":"2003-11-13 22:48:42","modified":"2003-11-15 22:11:38","last_modified":"Sun, 16 Nov 2003 05:11:38","article":"

YES, SHOW A celebrity an American, and that celebrity will show you an ignoramus.

Too sweeping a statement? Perhaps. But what about this Michael Moore screed about Americans in the London Mirror earlier this month? ?They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet. ...We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don?t know about anything that?s happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing.?

Until Michael Moore pointed it out, you probably didn?t know how embarrassingly stupid you are. In fact, you probably have so little intelligence you didn?t know that Moore isn?t the only celebrity who thinks you?re dumb. Indeed, Moore has colleagues in the celebrity kingdom who think the same thing.

So put on your well-worn dunce cap and check out what other celebrities say about your intelligence. And if the celebrities are correct in their analysis, you?re moving your lips as you read this.

Johnny Depp said a few months back, ?America is dumb, is something like a dumb puppy that has big teeth that can bite and hurt you.? (Depp later claimed he was quoted out of context and offered: ?I am an American. I love my country and have great hopes for it. It is for this reason that I speak candidly and sometimes critically about it.? But still, we?re like dumb puppies?)

Ted Turner once said this about television-watchers: ?The United States has got some of the dumbest people in the world. I want you to know that; we know that.?



JANE SOUNDS OFF, TOO

Speaking of Ted Turner, Jane Fonda was in Canada this past April and said: ?I don?t know if a country where the people are so ignorant of reality and of history, if you can call that a free world.?

Also in Canada, Martin Sheen said recently: ?Every time I cross this border, I feel like I?ve left the land of lunatics. You are not armed and dangerous. You do not shoot each other. I always feel a bit more human when I come here.?

Lunatics, ignorant people, dummies ? even dumb puppies. Yes, we got ?em all here.\t\t


\t

Where does this superior celebrity intellect come from? It?s actually part of a larger phenomenon, one involving the president. Celebrities sneer at President Bush?s intelligence. And then they think we?re all the same, just dumb Bush-boosters.

For evidence of how much smarter celebrities think they are than the president, we start again with super-smart guy Michael Moore. A year ago, he told the London Mirror (he loves those British papers), ?I really do believe Bush is dumber than s@?*. What?s odd about all this is that Blair is a smart guy. What?s he doing hanging out with a dumb guy? Back at school if you were smart, you hung out with the other kids that were smart.?

Sticking with the European press, earlier this year Larry Hagman told a German newspaper that Bush was a ?sad figure: not too well-educated, who doesn?t get out of America much.? And Sheen told the BBC after Bush became president: ?George W. Bush is like a bad comic working the crowd. A moron, if you?ll pardon the expression.?

I?m not sure which expression we should be pardoning there, mind you. Maybe it?s because I?m a moron-American (we?re such a hyphenated nation these days).

But the hits continue. In April, Edward Norton said of Bush: ?As an actor, I know in my mind, watching him, what a low-quality mind he has.? And during the 2000 campaign, Cher said, ?I don?t like Bush. I don?t trust him. I don?t like his record. He?s stupid. He?s lazy.?



SNAP OUT OF IT!

Yikes! Stupid and lazy? C?mon, Cher! Snap out of it!

Also during the 2000 campaign, Rob Reiner said, ?We have the single most unqualified man running for president in our lifetime. I?m not making this up! I?m not making this up! The man has no experience, and worse than that, he has no intellectual curiosity.? Gee, he makes Bush sound like a, well, like a meathead.

No celebrity said it smarter than Sandra Bernhard. She asserted her intelligence and belittled Bush at the same time to the Washington Post in March 2002: ?I?m an intelligent person from America. I was born in Michigan and raised in Arizona, and while I do reside in New York, I travel the country extensively. Any thinking person who lives in the world would be disturbed at what?s going on right now. I think Bush is amateurish and self-serving, and, frankly, it?s disgusting.?

I would offer a retort to Bernhard, but I can?t think of anything smart to say. I?ve never been to Michigan<\/p>\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/news\/990758.asp?0dm=C16QN","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"If you?re an American, chances are there?s a celebrity who thinks you?re dumb. Maybe even stupid. Or an idiot. Or something worse, which we can?t print here.","numcomment":24,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2003\/11\/93952.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":93953,"heading":"Compare and Contrast","article":"http:\/\/www.chronwatch.com\/content\/contentDisplay.asp?aid=1991\r\n\r\nPresident George W. Bush: Received a bachelor's degree from Yale University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He served as an F-102 pilot for the Texas Air National Guard. He began his career in the oil and gas business in Midland in 1975 and worked in the energy industry until 1986. He was elected governor on November 8, 1994, with 53.5 percent of the vote. In a historic re-election victory, he became the first Texas governor to be elected to consecutive four-year terms on November 3, 1998, winning 68.6 percent of the vote.\r\n\r\n[...]\r\n\r\n So who are these celebrities? What is their education? What is their experience in affairs of State or in National Security? While I will defend to the death their right to express their opinions, I think that if they are going to call into question the intelligence of our leaders, we should also have all the facts on their educations and background:\r\n\r\nBarbra Streisand: Completed high school.\r\nCareer: Singing and acting\r\n\r\nCher: Dropped out of school in 9th grade.\r\nCareer: Singing and acting\r\n\r\nMartin Sheen: Flunked exam to enter University of Dayton.\r\nCareer: Acting\r\n\r\nJessica Lange: Dropped out college mid-freshman year.\r\nCareer: Acting\r\n\r\nAlec Baldwin: Dropped out of George Washington U. after scandal.\r\nCareer: Acting\r\n\r\nJulia Roberts: Completed high school.\r\nCareer: Acting\r\n\r\nSean Penn: Completed high school.\r\nCareer: Acting\r\n\r\nSusan Sarandon: Degree in drama from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.\r\nCareer: Acting\r\n\r\nEd Asner: Completed high school.\r\nCareer: Acting\r\n\r\nGeorge Clooney: Dropped out of University of Kentucky.\r\nCareer: Acting\r\n\r\nMichael Moore: Dropped out first year University of Michigan.\r\nCareer: Movie Director\r\n\r\nSarah Jessica Parker: Completed high school\r\nCareer: Acting\r\n\r\nJennifer Anniston: Completed high School\r\nCareer: Acting\r\n\r\nMike Farrell: Completed high school\r\nCareer: Acting\r\n\r\nJaneane Garofelo: Dropped out of college.\r\nCareer: Stand up comedienne\r\n\r\nLarry Hagman: Attended Bard College for one year.\r\nCareer: Acting","author":"nonanarchist1747","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-13 22:54:24","modified":"2003-11-13 22:54:24","fileurl":""},{"id":93954,"heading":"Bush stupid","article":" I'm not a Hollywood celebrity, but I think that Bush is dumb, dumb, dumb. Really stupid. Evil, too. So what? If I travelled to Europe like those people do I would tell everyone how stupid Bush is, just as they do. I would not want anyone to think that I am like him because I come from the same country.","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-13 22:59:44","modified":"2003-11-13 22:59:44","fileurl":""},{"id":93956,"heading":"question","article":">If I travelled to Europe like those people do I would tell everyone how stupid Bush is, just as they do. I would not want anyone to think that I am like him because I come from the same country.\r\n\r\n\r\nQ: How stupid do you have to be to believe that people from other countries will think that because you come from the same country as President Bush that you are like him?\r\n\r\nA: At least as stupid as Meyer London.","author":"answer","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-13 23:30:45","modified":"2003-11-13 23:30:45","fileurl":""},{"id":93961,"heading":"tye","article":"bu$h is a lousy excuse for a humane being, I'll take any of those celebs over bu$h heck I'll take satan over bu$h get your facts right on bu$hie he was awol or shall I call it desertion from thr Texas Air National guard, his businesses were all failures, his elections for gov. were bought, he is disgusting","author":"tyester3","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-14 00:10:53","modified":"2003-11-14 00:10:53","fileurl":""},{"id":93963,"heading":"Tweedledee and Tweedledum","article":"By most accounts this is the stupidest White House in history. They don't believe in global warming. They do believe they can lie to the American people, steal them blind, and not get caught. Some of them are married to an archaic and excreable religious bigotry that probably believes fairy tales like the Adam and Eve over dinosaur fossil records...\r\n\r\nWhile Hollywood celebs may not be Nobel prize winners, at least they believe in evolution and also in the need to preserve rather than destroy the US Constitution, something quite beyond bush and his minions myopic mental drooling. And as far as Yale\/Harvard goes...so what?...the fascist bush dynasty pays for its grades and diplomas and the Ivy Leagues are happy to accept the payments.","author":"Parmenides","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-14 00:26:15","modified":"2003-11-14 00:26:15","fileurl":""},{"id":93964,"heading":"actors opinions=fairy tales","article":"they travel to europe&theworld, mingling with limpwristed socialists, eating fucking truffles, jerkingoff to great works of art and sipping creme de whatever tea, and when they return home?___off to hollywood to hide from the real world and bitch about how dumb everyone is__","author":"amus","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-14 00:26:41","modified":"2003-11-14 00:26:41","fileurl":""},{"id":93971,"heading":"President Bush is far from stupid","article":"He will leave a lasting legacy of peace in the Middle East and the economy is on the upturn now after the dotcom bubble fiasco that Clinton left him to deal with.\r\n\r\nPresident Bush will be in the White House until 2008 so stop whining and work with him to make the country and the world a safer and more prosperous place.","author":"Barney","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-14 00:59:06","modified":"2003-11-14 00:59:06","fileurl":""},{"id":93975,"heading":"stupid & ignoraant (we like it that way)","article":"'no one has ever lost money under estimating the intelligence of the American people.'","author":"P. T. Barnum","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-14 01:37:58","modified":"2003-11-14 01:37:58","fileurl":""},{"id":93979,"heading":"The big questions","article":"The big question about George W. Bush is whether or not he's the greatest President in the last 100 years.\r\n\r\nThe big question about Meyer London is whether or not he's smart enough to gain admittance to Glendale JC.","author":"Adult Supervisor","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-12 19:29:54","modified":"2003-11-12 19:29:54","fileurl":""},{"id":93990,"heading":"compliance to the order","article":"The media like to trot out the celebrities to parrot the liberal and (sometimes) left lines because it's good for the ratings, and makes the execs (who are mostly conservative) happy. There are some intelligent celebs, but most of them are pretty average, and they aren't going to be spending much time keeping up on politics.\r\n\r\nBut look at the right wing celebs: Arnold Schwartzenneger, Ronald Reagan, Sonny Bono, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, Jesse Ventura, Fred Grandy, Chuck Heston. I'm not even including the hundreds of pro-war celebs who show up at parades and rallies.\r\n\r\nThey're no smarter than the liberals, that's for sure, but some are possessed with a kind of hubris that causes so many of them to enter politics. (And their record of drug abuse. Sheesh. Did you know Sonny Bono was and addict and high on painkillers when he crashed his car?)\r\n\r\nArnold and Jesse are great examples. What do they know? They're full of hot air, and as Jesse goes, so I think Arnold will go as well. Arnold's only saving grace is that he's a puppet for the Republican Party, and will be allowed to "govern" as long as he listens to his advisors. I'm guessing his IQ is around 80-90.\r\n\r\nAs for Bush, he seems to be a little smarter than average, but he's arrogant. (I think his IQ is around 110.) He doesn't want to accept his weakenesses and limits. He never really dealt with his alcoholism, and just turned to religion as his current addictin. Anyone who's fixated on the coming apocalypse shouldn't really be running things in the White House.\r\n\r\nAlso, given that Bush is such a right wing capitalist, you'd think he'd know the system better. His track record is lousy. He's just a rich kid living off his family fortune. A peacenick liberal like Peter Camejo has done better in business and finance than Bush.\r\n\r\nNow, Clinton... there's a really smart guy. He's probably a genius. It's hard to guesstimate the analytic ability of someone who's clearly more intelligent than oneself, and he's a lot smarter than I am.\r\n\r\nAs for the current crop of candidates, I'm not very educated. I think the smart ones are Kucinich and Clark. I don't think Dean is that smart, but probably above average. Don't know much about the rest.\r\n\r\n(By "smart" I mean they have a high IQ up above 140 and also something that makes them savvy.)","author":"more rational","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-14 05:57:21","modified":"2003-11-14 05:57:21","fileurl":""},{"id":94004,"heading":"Smarts","article":"Liberals and anarchist, by virtue of their political positions, are never in any position to determine who is and is not intelligent. Liberals and anarchists simply don't have the capacity to make such decisions.","author":"L","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-14 13:38:46","modified":"2003-11-14 13:38:46","fileurl":""},{"id":94036,"heading":"Bush an embarassment","article":" The sad fact is that people in other countries do tend, at least unconsciously, to identify Americans in general with buffoons like Bush and Ashcroft. Seeing these two, as well as the other neanderthals in the Bush Administration, constantly making fools of themselves on television by giving imbecile speeches or landing on aircraft carriers that are practically docked in San Diego Harbor has a certain effect. So do the moronic American television shows that are shown abroad. That is why it is a good idea to remind foreigners that not everyone in the US is a racist militia member, an enrollee in the Landlords for Bush Committee, a Rush Limbaugh follower, an Ann Coulter -infatuated lout, or a drunken slob who spends every possible moment sprawled in front of a television watching Fox News or This Week's Interview With An NFL Hero.","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-14 17:19:09","modified":"2003-11-14 17:19:09","fileurl":""},{"id":94184,"heading":"You're right, Meyer.","article":"Not all Americans are like that.\r\n\r\nSome Americans hate America, hate Jews, hate having lost the last 2 elections, and hate everyone who doesn't buy into their perverted vision of reality.\r\n\r\nSome Americans see their own failures as the result of a conspiracy of monstrous proportions and cite lack of evidence of said conspiracy as proof of its existence.\r\n\r\nSome Americans cannot accept the reality of a situation and must invent hideously complicated schemes to explain the perfectly simple.\r\n\r\nSome Americans want to tear down our Constitution, which guarantees freedoms unprecendented in history, and replace it with a failed, murderous form of government.\r\n\r\nSome Americans compare our current administration with a totalitarian regime of the past, demonstrating a complete and utter lack of understanding of both politics and history.\r\n\r\nSome Americans are convinced that marching, singing, and chanting will change the world.\r\n\r\nSome Americans don't think that people of a certain religion should be allowed to live, and rabidly support those who would murder them.\r\n\r\nSome Americans support a perverted form of an otherwise peaceful religion, being willfully blind to the fact that if those whom they support get their way, those oh-so-supportive Americans will be either forcibly converted, enslaved, or murdered.\r\n\r\nSome Americans don't deserve the name.\r\n\r\nThank you, Meyer, for serving as a living example of these Americans to the rest of the world.","author":"nonanarchist1920","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-15 00:39:24","modified":"2003-11-15 00:39:24","fileurl":""},{"id":94192,"heading":"Some Americans Want to Tear Down Our Constitution","article":"Yeah, and you are one of them. Bush is another. Ashcroft is a third.","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-15 01:09:55","modified":"2003-11-15 01:09:55","fileurl":""},{"id":94201,"heading":"Wrong on all three.","article":"In other words, you're being extremely consistent.\r\n\r\nAnd I couldn't help but notice you had nothing to say about all my other descriptions of you.","author":"nonanarchist2109","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-15 02:15:37","modified":"2003-11-15 02:15:37","fileurl":""},{"id":94235,"heading":"question","article":">The sad fact is that people in other countries do tend, at least unconsciously, to identify Americans in general with buffoons like Bush and Ashcroft. \r\n\r\nQ: How immature do you have to be to believe people in other countries tend to unconsciously identify Americans with their political leaders?\r\n\r\nA: At least as stupid as Meyer London.\r\n\r\n>","author":"answer","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-15 13:36:27","modified":"2003-11-15 13:36:27","fileurl":""},{"id":94327,"heading":"wrong on all three?","article":"Well, Mr. Nonanarchist, I put down the only one that was an accurate description - of you, Bush and Ashcroft. Nice company you are keeping. Draped any statues lately?","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-15 19:15:26","modified":"2003-11-15 19:15:26","fileurl":""},{"id":94328,"heading":"OneEyedMan","article":"Hey Meyer, I met someone from Britian the other day, and the first thing I thought was "I bet he's just like Tony Blair." I see you do the same thing. Great minds think alike, don't they?","author":"KPC","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-15 19:17:54","modified":"2003-11-15 19:17:54","fileurl":""},{"id":94388,"heading":"one-eyed-man","article":"I met someone the other day who said he was worried because he had missed roll-call at the half-way house and I thought he's just like the right-wing losers who post nonsense on IMC. ","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-15 21:00:27","modified":"2003-11-15 21:00:27","fileurl":""},{"id":94392,"heading":"OneEyedMan","article":"That's funny, I met someone the other day who was dumpster diving and he said that he was a marxist loser that posted nonsense on IMC. I asked him which one. I mean, there's so many of us idiots posting marxist rivel.","author":"KPC","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-15 21:06:35","modified":"2003-11-15 21:06:35","fileurl":""},{"id":94393,"heading":"OneEyedMan","article":"That's funny, I met someone the other day who was dumpster diving and he said that he was a marxist loser that posted nonsense on IMC. I asked him which one. I mean, there's so many of us idiots posting marxist drivel.","author":"KPC","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-15 21:06:43","modified":"2003-11-15 21:06:43","fileurl":""},{"id":94406,"heading":"proof","article":"The proof that he was a Marxist was that he was horning in on your dumpster even after you had put a claim on it.","author":"Meyer London","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-15 22:04:35","modified":"2003-11-15 22:04:35","fileurl":""},{"id":94412,"heading":"OneEyedMan","article":"True. That a marxist would steal from another marxist is nothing new.","author":"KPC","parent_id":93952,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2003-11-15 22:11:38","modified":"2003-11-15 22:11:38","fileurl":""}]}