Bush Big Winner at World Stupidity Awards

At trip down memory lane back to 2004. We found this one in our archives which we felt was worth dusting off given the somber tone of the country at the moment.

By Kaleem Omar

President George W. Bush’s verbal gaffes have become the stuff of legend. He didn’t help his case very much when he said, “I stand by all my misstatements.” His critics say that he is the most illiterate president in American history.

His knowledge of geography, too, is not exactly world-class. He thinks Africa is a country. During the US 2000 presidential campaign, he was once asked by journalists if he had ever been to a foreign country. He replied,”I went to South America once. You know, there are a lot of countries down there.” The tone of his reply suggested that this fact had come as something of a surprise to him.

On July 1, 2003, in Washington, D.C., Bush came out with this gem:”You’ve also got to measure in order to effect change that’s just more – when there’s more than there’s just actual – a paradigm shift.” I defy anybody to make any sense of that.

In the six years and four months of Bush’s presidency, the number of such gaffes now runs into the hundreds, if not the thousands. Given this fact, it’s not surprising that Bush was a big winner at the”World Stupidity Awards’ at a gala star-studded presentation ceremony in Montreal, Canada on July 23, 2004.

Bush was voted”Stupidest Man of the Year” by an international audience at the second edition of the awards presented at the”Just For Laughs” festival, the world’s largest and most prestigious comedy festival. Not for nothing is young George known as Dubya.

Awards host Lewis Black, whose biting satire is a highlight of TV’s”The Daily Show”, took pride in the recognition of the United States at the awards, saying:”We are the gold standard.”

“It’s easy to fall down a manhole, it’s easy to put the candles too close to the drapes, it’s easy to launch a military invasion of another country based on a few blurry satellite photos,” he observed.”But this year my people, we scaled the Everest of stupidity and we stand upon the peak.” --- Read More

Then there is this timeless classic ... Fool Me Twice (audio)