Word: simpleton
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When Ronald Reagan declared that the unfreedom imposed by communism was simply unsustainable and that it should be not appeased or accommodated, but instead forced--by the power and will of free peoples--into the ash heap of history, he was ridiculed and patronized as a simpleton. Clark Clifford famously called him an amiable dunce. The amiable dunce went on to win the cold...
...ungenerous would say he had a great presidency but was not a great man. That follows the tradition of his opponents who throughout his career consistently underestimated him, disdaining him as a good actor, a Being There simpleton who could read scripts written for him by others. In fact, Reagan frustrated his biographers because he was so complex--a free-market egalitarian, an intellectually serious nonintellectual, an ideologue with great tactical flexibility...
...ungenerous would say he had a great presidency but was not a great man. That follows the tradition of his opponents who throughout his career consistently underestimated him, disdaining him as a good actor, a Being There simpleton who could read scripts written for him by others. In fact, Reagan frustrated his biographers because he was so complex - a free-market egalitarian, an intellectually serious nonintellectual, an ideologue with great tactical flexibility...
...reference is a nice surprise from a President who affects a militant lack of sophistication. More important, the story reveals that Bush has an acute awareness of the impression he makes in the world. His policies may be haphazard, but his public appearances aren't. He is not a simpleton. He just plays one--wittingly, it seems--on TV. "He has a stratospheric EQ," a Senator once told me, referring to Bush's emotional intelligence. "I've never heard him talk much about policy substance or details, but he senses every nuance of interpersonal relations. Every question he asks...
...reference is a nice surprise from a President who affects a militant lack of sophistication. More important, the story reveals that Bush has an acute awareness of the impression he makes in the world. His policies may be haphazard, but his public appearances aren't. He is not a simpleton. He just plays one-wittingly, it seems-on TV. "He has a stratospheric EQ," a Senator once told me, referring to Bush's emotional intelligence. "I've never heard him talk much about policy substance or details, but he senses every nuance of interpersonal relations. Every question he asks...