Was Bush II thin-skinned, or just not smart?

I can see how his audiences were carefully screened because he wasn't too smart.

I've always thought he was thin-skinned too--too much so for politics. But I might have gotten that idea from the way Republicans/conservatives were so defensive about him.

reports are he was very intolerant of criticism of himself.

.

I know, that's being too kind.

God spoke to him fer chrissakes! Told him to go to war and torture people. Told him to fuck up the country too. Told him charity begins with his base, the mores and have mores.

After 2005 in Cleveland when an unscreened member of an audience nailed him
to the wall about bush breaking an anti missile treaty w/ Russia. Bush told an
older gentleman that he just didn't understand the ABM treaty but then the guy
told him that had helped to write the treaty in 1969. That was last time bush
took q. & a. from an unscreened crowd.

bush also was a famous for surrounding himself w/ "yes men" and getting rid of
people who disagreed w/ him.

An elderly man said that W's star wars / european missile shield projects
broke the 1969 (?) ABM treaty ..... bush told the guy he didn't understand
the treaty to which the man said that he had helped to write the ABM treaty.
bush was speechless for a few minutes but you could tell he was just fuming ....
the next time W gave a speech (West Virginia I think) they bussed in the
crowd from fundy churches ..... the questions were then along the line of
"Mr. President I am praying for you. How can we help you in your goals."
(rough quote of real question)

Bush II was thin-skinned and not very smart.

To avoid negative sound bites and help maintain the illusion of vast public support for Bush.

intellectually challenged, as well as a coward.

rich kid was always my take on W. Entitled to wealth he did not earn and success he did not achieve. Entitled to be believed when he was "fibbing." And really angry and resentful of intelligent non-business-royalty people who dared question that entitlement.

One of the books -- was it Bushworld? -- talked about how, as a young man, W. was sort of the Bush household enforcer, always ready to get nasty with anyone perceived as an enemy of the family. Sort of the Sonny Corleone hothead of the group.

And there was that odd, sneering contempt he had for the press. He apparently considered journalists to be intolerable snobs -- thus that weird situation where he seemed to be trying to talk down to the press, while simultaneously demonstrating that he didn't really know what he was talking about, but with no sense of shame. Like the schoolyard bully who throws down a couple of lame "zingers" before clumsily punching his victim in the nose and claiming victory. "Uh. You just don't unnerstand treaties dude huhuh. Good one. (wham!)."

From an armchair psychology perspective, Bush's personality speaks to me of a rich, athletic, but not particularly bright or motivated kid growing up in a cold, intensely "results driven" family. He was likely patronized and tolerated, but always considered the dumb jock -- the screwup.

So you end up with a guy who has the trappings of success because he was given them, who hates smart people who remind him of how little he deserved it, and feels most comfortable surrounded by a "crew" of properly obsequious nerds who let him cheat off their homework. I'll bet he gave Rove "noogies" in the Oval Office.

Simmer and stir all this and voila: you get the weird, insecure, bully-without-a-clue combination of arrogance, malevolence, and incompetence that defined the man and his entire administration. So sayeth I, anyway.

:)

...and never had to demonstrate his smarts, or lack thereof. His intellect was always irrelevant to anything he attempted.

fray,while his minions have become obsessive about creating a new "truth" to his eight years of failure? He is incompetent to even defend himself, given that he is so "thin-skinned" AND "not smart."