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Mr. Barrett, You Are an Idiot, Sir

October 11, 2006 10:28 AM

evin Barrett's back in the news. For those of you who are unaware, Kevin Barrett is a part-time UW-Madison professor who made headlines over the summer because he was planning to teach a course which, in part, explored the question of whether the Bush Administration was actually responsible for the September 11th attacks. Althouse discusses that controversy here, and you can read about Barrett generally here (although that article may not be neutral, as Wikipedia announces at the top).

Well, now Mr. Barrett is back in the news. Now, say what you will about whether this semi-qualified loser should be allowed to teach this stuff at the UW. Also, you can say what you will about whether he should be allowed to make his students buy a book full of his own ranting essays. But, seriously, Barrett's a raving lunatic, and he's proven it heartily. Here's something he says in the new article:

[I'm] not comparing [Hitler] and [Bush] as people, [I'm] comparing the Reichstag fire to the demolition of the World Trade Center, and that's an accurate comparison that I would stand by.
Wow, you are an idiot. Let me tell you why.

Say what you want about HItler. He was certainly evil. He was certainly cruel. But he was also intelligent, to some degree - he was a failure of a human being until he decided that he wanted to take over Germany, and then he did it. Whatever came later, it takes a certain amount of intelligence to take over a country, even if you do it by playing on people's fears and anger over their shafting after WWI.

In any event, Barrett would have us believe that Bush is somehow responsible for a brilliantly planned and executed plot to kill thousands of Americans. Think about how monumentally complex that must have been. The Best Page in the Universe has an uproarious send-up of the whole idea here. The point is, though, that for Bush to have planned out the whole thing, as Barrett alleges, he and his cronies must have been not only cunning, evil, and soul-less, but he must also have been relatively intelligent.

Remember - in order for Barrett's comparison of Bush to HItler to make any sense at all, it must have been Bush who planned out the attacks and not some of his cronies. Otherwise, you're comparing HItler (who Barrett believes was single-handedly responsible for the Reichstag fire) to Bush (who just went along with the plan). And that makes no fucking sense.

So, Bush must have planned it out, and it would have been a incredibly hard to do so. So, you'd think Barrett would consider Bush some sort of criminal genius! But, no, Barrett instead says:

Hitler had a good 20 to 30 IQ points on Bush, so comparing Bush to Hitler would in many ways be an insult to Hitler.
You just couldn't resist, could you, you smarmy fuck? You had to just go right ahead and go for the cheap Bush insult.

Look, your stupid little comment not only proves your complete inability to reason by analogy, it demonstrates that you're an idiotic liberal who just can't wait to stick it to Bush. This, in turn suggests that your entire theory, internally inconsistent as you've just demonstrated, is the result of extreme political bias coupled with a tenuous grasp on reality. And that, Mr. Barrett, is not at all the image you want to project when you're making an incredible claim.

So thanks for trying. But you're done now. Get the fuck out of our classrooms.



4 Comments


Joint Tortfeasor said:

I am not sure about Barrett, but I will tell you this. If it was an established fact that Hitler was smarter than Bush (as if Bush would allow himself to be tested for fear of letting the world know that his intelligence rivals that of a staple), I would not be the least bit surprised. OF course I am notorious for my love of our misunderestimated leader with a nukular personality.

October 11, 2006 7:08 PM



Vice said:

I know it's always been vogue to mock Bush for his apparent stupidity, but I think the guy must be smarter than anyone really gives him credit for. Don't get me wrong - - by "smarter," I don't mean to imply I agree with anything he does. I just mean that he must be pretty shrewd, at least politically. Sure, he sounds like a moron when he talks. But there are a lot of brilliant people who can't speak publicly to save their asses, and come off like an idiot. I think Bush would have to fall more under that category. You can say he's a manipulator, that he exploited people's fears to get where he is, that he aligned himself with big oil and big business, that he exploits the shit out of the Christian right by supporting every half-cocked "morality bill" Congress can come up with, and I agree with all that. But what that tells me is that he knows politics, and he knows how to get people to support him. The guy is not an idiot.

October 12, 2006 11:35 AM



TheExpat said:

Vice, I Would go one further and say that, rather than just knowing how to get people to support him, he knows how to get powerful people to support him. This stems from his echoing of viewpoints from oil companies and supply-siders who didn't get rich by being Mr. Nice Guy.

In my opinion, Bush is more like the head greeter at Walmart, or a franchise owner for KFC, rather than a strong leader with big ideas. He says what folks want him to say and does so because he fervently believes everything they throw at him. Despite his supposed power over more than half of the electorate in 2004, 'his' ideas have been mostly disappointments. Whether this is because his ideological employers are all too stubborn or that Bush is just too weak willed to bite or even gently gum the hand that feeds him (or both) is more likely to me than many of the other theories I've read about his power. Karl Rove, the VP, Rummy, even Condi; these are the folks to watch.

And Ismael, can we please dispense with the overwrought and 'liberally' bandied-about liberal/conservative dichotomy and just stick to the old-fashioned genius/idiot one? I'm tired of talking heads with red ties and sociology professors with frizzy hair trying to tell me how to think.

October 12, 2006 8:01 PM



Elise said:

The best retort I've heard to the whole "Bush planned 911" argument is that if he planned 911, then why not just frame Saddam from the get-go? Why bring Bin Laden into it at all?

October 16, 2006 12:56 PM



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