I think that for some things in some jobs there is no off time. In politics, you have to know that there are things you can never say, because if somebody ever hears them they will print them. That’s the nature of the beast. If you are an aid, it is not your job to be commenting on whether you like or dislike foreign leaders. Your job is to assist your leader and NOT to publicly embarrass him or your country. I don’t think it imposes great hardship on the aids to require that they not refer to foreign dignitaries as morons. It’s just appropriate conduct for the position. If you can’t manage not to call other heads of state names, and particularly if you can’t manage to do it and not get caught, you should walk the plank. The reality is that she’s gone with Jean in a year or so anyway so he doesn’t want to bring in a new person for such a short period of time. But, IMO, not taking this more seriously makes the nation look bad. We are not a nation of boors and we shouldn’t so readily excuse away the unprofessional act of an aid that casts that light on us. fadaway: It’s quite all right. I wasn’t offended, just curious. I’ll blame it on my dad. That’s where I probably got it from. He ought to know better, being a Dalhousie grad and all. My parents sometimes use words and terms that are regional to the east coast. That’s why I asked if this was more of a Maritimes thing. Azadre: Ouch! That incident wasn’t the fault of the US. It looks like it was the fault of a couple of individuals who are now being court-martialled for what they did. The fact that the US has taken the matter very seriously actually sends very positive messages to us. I’m sure that this is particularly significant and reassuring to people like fadaway who are applying to serve in our armed forces. Night Ranger was a Canadian show? You have my apologies for that too. edit: MacBeth: I sense a Canadian angle here somewhere. I’m not exactly sure where I picked it up but it seems to me that it’s had some fairly prominent use here. In our media perhaps? Did we have a prominent politician who used it?
What the aid said was not diplomatic. Bush of all people should understand a lack of diplomacy. I do doubt that PM Jean Chretien would force the aid to resign, even if he was entering in first year of office versus his last. The Canadian people will not be calling for her head, so Chretien repsonse to this situation will reflect this. The most I see happenning here is that Chretien forces the aid to make a public apology for her private comment. BTW, if the press were of mind to and rigorously went after all comments made by political aids here in the US, I suspect that the end product would reflect equally poorly on us.
No IQ test for the President has ever been made public. There was a phony story about an estimated IQ for the President and some others that came out last year, but it wasn't based on anything but malice toward President Bush. But even if it were 95, that wouldn't be "moron" status (when "moron" was still a term used to describe lower IQ individuals. 95 would still be 20 points higher than the most intelligent "moron").
By the way, want to know what the highest reported IQ score for a President was? Richard Nixon's 143, a Genius score that put him in the Top 0.4% of the population. Of course, scores are unavailable for Presidents such as Clinton, Carter, either Bush, Reagan, etc. John F. Kennedy's score was reported a 119, by the way. Al Gore posted scores of 133 and 134 on IQ tests taken in high school.
She quit. Good. Ducros quits as Chrétien's communications director Last Updated Tue, 26 Nov 2002 12:29:08 OTTAWA - Françoise Ducros has resigned as Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's communications director. Ducros allegedly referred to U.S. President George W. Bush as "a moron" in Prague last week. Françoise Ducros (CP) Reports say she made the remark to a radio reporter. Ducros offered her resignation to the prime minister last week, but he refused to accept it. Reports say Ducros, 40, decided over the weekend to resubmit her offer to resign. This time the prime minister accepted it. She had been considering returning to the public service. "To avoid continuing controversy, Françoise Ducros has decided to leave her position as director of communications in the prime minister's Office and accelerate by some weeks her planned return to the public service from which she had been seconded," Percy Downe, chief of staff, said in a statement Tuesday. Her replacement is expected to be TV journalist Jim Munson. http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2002/11/26/ducros_resigns021126
