He's the Orator

From today's speech by Dear Leader at the American Legion Convention (transcript at WaPo, story at NYTimes:

"We face an enemy that has an ideology," Mr. Bush continued. "They believe things. The best way to describe their ideology is to relate to you the fact that they think the opposite of the way we think."

I join Paul Waldman at The Gadflyer in shaking my head in disbelief:

For a long time, I argued that it only served Bush's purposes to have liberals mock him for being stupid. First, it makes us look like snobby elitists and reinforces his "regular guy" persona. Second, it allows him to evade responsibility for his own lies, as everyone assumes that when he lies, he must have just made a mistake because he's not too bright.

But my god.

I know that verbal facility is not the same as intelligence. But there's a point of idiocy in communication below which no reasonably intelligent person can drop. When you combine that with the fact that the leader of the free world thinks nothing is funnier than a fart joke, it's hard not to conclude that the man is simply an infant. Sigh.