The giant IQ sucking sound

I've noticed something strange about the Bush II Administration. You get folks who, in previous government jobs, did a decent or even exceptional job, and put them to work as a Bush administration employee, and it's like there's this giant sucking sound that sucks out every iota of intelligence in their brain. Let's take Donald Rumsfeld, for example. This isn't the first time he's been Secretary of Defense. He was Secretary of Defense under Gerald Ford, after all. In his previous stint as SecDef, he was basically responsible for building the all-volunteer military after Nixon had finished LBJ's job of destroying the draftee military in Vietnam. He did a fine job of it too -- the various policies he put into place resulted over time in the U.S. military becoming the best trained, highest-morale military in the world.

Then he joins the Bush II administration, and.... suuuuuck!. Every little bit of brains in his tiny little noggin seem to have bled out of his ears and oozed to the ground, leaving vacuous sound bites, energetic karate-chopping hand movements, and a general grouchiness that makes the late Walter Matthau seem like a bundle of joy.

Or let's take Dick Cheney. He's no stranger to the situation in the Middle East. Under Bush's Daddy, as Secretary of Defense, he strongly argued against invading Iraq during Gulf War I, saying that doing so would result in being an occupying power for decades. He even mentioned the situation in Israel, noting that the Arabs couldn't defeat the Israelis militarily, but were making life miserable for them with suicide bombings and such, and stated that the United States shouldn't get involved in that sorta mess.

Then he joins the Bush II administration, and.... suuuuuuck! Every little bit of sense he ever had deserts him, and he is spotted wandering around Washington mumbling things like "weapons of mass destruction... 9/11 connection... fight them there so we don't have to fight them here..." that make utterly no sense since Saddam had no WMD, no 9/11 connection, and no Iraqi-based terrorist had ever committed any act of terrorism against the United States. It's as if every bit of brains in his noggin got sucked out into some giant black hole, leaving only pure evil behind.

What can we make of this phenomenon, then? I have a pet theory that I'll trot out for you, and I'll trot it out now for public derision: George W. Bush isn't actually human. His body was actually hijacked at some pont in the 1990's, and now is in the service of an interstellar IQ vampire, out to destroy all semblance of intelligence in Washington D.C. by sucking out the intelligence of anybody who goes to work for him.

Consider: Until the late 1990's, Dubya was known as a slick talkin' con man. He had no problem debating Ann Richards under the table when running for Texas government. Folks might describe him as lazy, vicious, and a bit of a rascal, but "dumb" wasn't a word used often to describe the young Dubya.

Now, though... his inarticulousness, warped grammar, strangely mutable vocabulary, and fumbling when asked unscripted questions are just plain embarrassing. Almost as if an alien, for whom English is a foreign language and the various culture mores of American politics were foreign concepts only vaguely understood, were responding. And what's more, when he appears at those unscripted press conferences, the IQ OF THE PRESS SEEMS TO DROP TOO! It's as if he's sucking out all intelligence from the Washington press corps, reducing them to asking stupid questions like "What do you feel about your critics?" when he ought to be being asked questions like "Did you lie to the American public about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq".

And then there was the "debates" between him and Kerry. Yeah, he came out looking stupid in those debates. But KERRY LOOKED ALMOST AS LAME! Almost as if the alien who now possesses Bush's body somehow, via strange mental powers, was feeding on Kerry's brain, reducing his IQ by at least 30 points as we watched!

This also explains the strange hump on Dubya's back... it's Puppet Master!

Now, here's what I want to see: I want to see a reporter at one of these press conferences to dare George W. Bush to take off his jacket, shirt, and t-shirt, and turn around 360 degrees to show us that he's not wearing a wire -- or something worse. Then, and only then, can the theory that George W. Bush is actually an alien IQ vampire be vanquished forever.

- Badtux the Snarky Penguin