wrote in message
...
On Thu, 04 May 2006 13:04:33 -0500, Conan The Librarian
wrote:

wrote:

On Thu, 04 May 2006 11:33:39 -0500, Conan The Librarian
wrote:

But I have heard _and_ seen Dubya's speeches and what I may or may
not think of FDR or Teddy has no bearing on my opinion of Dubya.

And I didn't say that it did. I simply asked what seems to be a
perfectly reasonable question.

I don't have strong opinions about either of them. Exactly what is
your point here, Richard?

Well, that perceptions are often strongly influenced in a number of
ways, and often, the perception is not accurate. TR, who was fairly
intelligent, was thought by many to have a speech impediment because he
often spoke in such "bursts" that he could be difficult to understand.
Plus he often, as I understand it, sorta, well, tripped over his
phrases. Not quite in the same was Bush does, but if all one heard were
a few snippets, they could get a number of impressions, not all
positive. But since there wasn't the audio-video part of media there is
today, and there is relatively little (compared with Presidents from,
oh, say, Kennedy onward) sound film footage of him, that was something
he never really had to deal with as a public figure.

FDR, on the other hand, had lots of sound recording but because of his
paralysis, there is very little motion footage of him. He wasn't
particularly comfortable in crowds, especially large, "public" ones
(understandable, given his situation, amongst other reasons), but he
gave the impression that he was at ease with any and all. But it was a
"trick" in that many people think they "saw" lots of him when in fact,
they "heard" lots and saw a lot of still pictures. Again, the
perception of him was "skewed" by the image people were given, helped by
a cooperative press.

Well.....gosh......all of that is (not surprisingly) as uninteresting as it
is vapid. So, let's run with it.

Leaving aside the fact that no thinking person ever mistook either of the
Roosevelts for an idiot and that none would ever mistake the current Sock
Puppet in Chief for anything else, or that, left to his own devices, he
would have no more to say than you do and would.....perhaps.....say it even
less intelligibly (if, doubtless, more economically), one need only look at
the vast panoply of morally bankrupt and intellectually vacant actions taken
in his name to get a sense of the richness of his vein of stupidity and
venality.

You see the difference?

Wolfgang
from the rhetorical questions desk.