Word: offing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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I wish I could offer George W. Bush some advice about how to fend off efforts to portray him as a dimwit, but even Dan Quayle rejected the only slogan I came up with when he had a similar problem: "Definitely Not the Dumbest Guy in the Deke House." Political...
A front-page story in the New York Times last week pointed out that candidates opposing Bush seem intent on implying that he doesn't have wattage sufficient for the job. This is difficult to combat gracefully. By joking about his own temper, John McCain not only helped defuse the...
At least it has seemed so until now. One of the New Republic pieces, by Jonathan Chait, argued that, partly because voters seem to be in a mood to prize personal authenticity over ideas, candidates see some advantage in presenting themselves as, if not flat-out stupid, at least aggressively...
If Chait is right, "Definitely Not the Dumbest Guy in the Deke House" would be precisely the sort of slogan Bush's campaign should avoid. When reporters ask him questions designed to discover whether he really has read James Chace's biography of Dean Acheson, he shouldn't answer with...
It's a risky strategy, though. Acknowledging that he's not much at absorbing the intricacies of government policy might leave the impression that Bush is sort of like Ronald Reagan, but it could also leave the impression that he's sort of like Dan Quayle. It's too early...