Bush is quite smart

I don't very much like George W Bush, the eleventy-twelfth President of the Untied States; but I'm beginning to think he's got a pretty good political brain. He is a liar, but he offsets it by being demonstrably gullible, and the net effect is that he is a "man of the people" whom the people allow to mislead them. He holds unpleasant, fundamentalist views, but he expresses them calmly while making sure there are other voices more frightening than his, and thereby places himself in a mock centre-ground. He lacks natural oratory skills, but has successfully painted that as a virtue rather than a failing, thereby rendering the erudition of his opposition a failing rather than a virtue. He also understands that however intellectually unpalatable the policy - pre-emptive war, torture, occupation, detention without trial - there is a limit to the newsworthiness of opposition to it: the longer you carry on regardless, the less concern anyone will have for what you're doing.

His policies are repugnant and the actions of his administration reprehensible. But he ain't stupid.