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Thinking about village idiots it's difficult to resist the urge to trample the memory of George W. Bush.

History is replete with examples of towns, cities, nations and even the odd empire that have had their collective destiny held in the hands of an imbecile.

 

Emperor Nero famously chose to play his fiddle while Rome burned. The Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huang was so keen to rule forever that he decided, on the advise of a shady medicine man, to take a daily dose of mercury to stave off death. With the ensuing madness that followed, he decided to raise an army that would travel to the afterlife with him, so that, in the event that he did slip the mortal coil, he could rule from beyond the grave. Apparently Quirky Qin was not quite clear on how the army would do this, given as they were made of clay, but hell, why let reality intrude on a great megalomaniacal fantasy?

In recent times, much more sinister, but equally mad, rulers such as Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe and the ever ornery Kim Jong Il have, with manic smiles and oddly dorky glasses, guided their nations into more and more troubled waters.

What seemed to stand Mr Bush apart however, was that, unlike most of the other buffoons who ended up in charge of things, he was elected by popular vote (sort of). So he was actually chosen for the job. Held up as the best we've got. And it happened twice.

Under the increasingly horrified gaze of the rest of the ‘free world’, Dubbya managed to lurch from disaster to disaster, with a chimp’s grin and an endless parade of quotes that even Chinese sign writers would laugh at.

In an attempt to galvanise support for the invasion of Iraq, (who had neither weapons of mass destruction nor terrorist links with al'Queda) he told the world that; ‘Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”

Demonstrating the deep knowledge of finance and the economy that led us all headlong into a financial crisis, costing trillions of dollars worldwide, he responded to questions about the federal budget thusly: “it's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it.” Or, to put our minds at ease about the robustness of his decision making: “Whether or not it needed to happen, I'm still convinced it needed to happen.”

But, it does kind of get you thinking, how did this happen in the first place? As stupid as this twit was, he was elected.

There is a lot of controversy over whether he did indeed win the election, and the blog posts and op-ed pieces written on the topic could fill a library, let alone a book. But, leaving that aside, and assuming that he did garner enough votes (in at least one election, if not two) to become president. One has to ask, how?

Over the eight years of his office, I had the opportunity to visit the U.S pretty frequently. During these visits I met people from all walks of life, in all corners of the country. Over the course of an evening and a few beers, conversation would start to flow freely. Generally, my American host would at some point express their sincere condolences over the passing of Steve Irwin, and not long after I would ask something along the lines of “So, George W. Bush, what the fuck?” The somewhat surprising response was generally along the lines of “Yeah, I know, whadda doush. Well buddy, I didn't vote for the guy”. In fact, in all the many conversations I had across the land of free, I only met one person who voted for the guy. I was in a car with another two Aussies and a couple of American chicks, and we started denouncing W in the usual style. All of a sudden the girls grew quiet and we got the sense that this conversation was not welcome. Being good blokes we quickly changed the subject, but one of the girls told me later that night that her friend had voted for George and “she's kind of embarrassed”. I did consider asking why someone would vote for a president who would cause them embarrassment, but I thought better of it.

The speed at which the daggers came out for W at the end of his two terms was a little surprising. No-one in the international community had ever really given the guy a lot of credit in the IQ department, but the panning he has received at home this year seems to demonstrate a long standing lack of credibility on the domestic front as well. So, given they elected the prick, twice, and subjected the world to the fall-out of his leadership, I find this post-presidency criticism a little rude. If you're going to be stupid enough to put a moron in charge, don't shrug your shoulders at us with a goofy smile and say to the world, “wow, he was shit, sorry, our bad.”

Maybe the nation that likes to think it invented democracy should look at its utility, given the idiots it has chosen to make decisions that profoundly affect the rest of us.

If it doesn't avoid another president as bad as George W. at least it should spare us another Guy Sebastian.

 

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