D-Minus Clown Smirks Through Class

Someone by the name of Bob Ceska at the Huffington Post remarked the other day that on Sunday's "60 Minutes" interview, George W. Bush engaged in a lot of 'grinning' ... 'laughing' ... and "smirking and smiling" while discussing the "deadly serious" topic of Iraq.

He did it again last night on Jim Lehrer's News Hour.

As we watched, it seemed to us we'd seen such a performance before. After a moment's thought it hit us: some years ago, we saw a brilliant college professor unexpectedly call on the notorious class cut-up, a brash and brutish guy who never did his homework and always cheated on exams.

The prof grilled the class clown relentlessly, asking hard questions and following up with even harder ones. The clown responded with bad jokes, knowing smirks, nervous laughter, and nonsense answers that made it evident he didn't have a clue about the subject or the grace to admit it. He played the fool to what he misapprehended was his audience of student fans. No one else laughed. We were too embarrassed -- for him, for us, for the professor, for the human race.

Digby has an example in his preliminary analysis. And another in a follow-up.

Back then in school, and again this week with Bush, it was deeply embarrassing to witness the class clowns' repellent performance. With Bush, though, there was something more, something very disturbing: the knowledge that unlike the first time, clueless George W. Bush isn't trying to put one over on the teacher and then har-har-har his way down the hall after class.

He's hardy-har-harring past tens of thousands of dead and soon-to-be dead soldiers and civilians -- not to mention the entire nation.