Blair says George W. Bush was no ‘dumb idiot’

LONDON - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has claimed in his memoir ‘A Journey’ that ex-US President George W. Bush was no ‘dumb idiot’.

In his new book, he has dispelled any such notion, and said: “One of the most ludicrous caricatures of George is that he was a dumb idiot who stumbled into the presidency.”

“No one stumbles into that job, and the history of American presidential campaigns is littered with the corpses of those who were supposed to be brilliant, but who nonetheless failed because brilliance is not enough,” Politico quoted him, as writing in his memoir.

“To succeed in US politics, or that of the UK, you have to be more than clever. You have to be able to connect and you have to be able to articulate that connection in plain language,” Blair writes.

“The plainness of the language then leads people to look past the brainpower involved. Reagan was clever. Thatcher was clever. And sometimes the very plainness touches something else: a simplicity that is the product of a decisive nature,” he adds. (ANI)