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Required Reading: The Dunce

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newmac Donating Member (727 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-08 07:43 AM
Original message
Required Reading: The Dunce
Edited on Thu Dec-11-08 07:47 AM by newmac
Bush's old professor recalls him as one of the worst and most foul students he ever had:

"In 1973, as the oil and energy crisis raged, Tsurumi led a discussion on whether government should assist retirees and other people on fixed incomes with heating costs. Bush, he recalled, "made this ridiculous statement and when I asked him to explain, he said, 'The government doesn't have to help poor people -- because they are lazy.' I said, 'Well, could you explain that assumption?' Not only could he not explain it, he started backtracking on it, saying, 'No, I didn't say that.'""

http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/09/16/tsurumi/index.html




"Students who challenged and embarrassed Bush in class would then become the subject of a whispering campaign by him, Tsurumi said. "In class, he couldn't challenge them. But after class, he sometimes came up to me in the hallway and started bad-mouthing those students who had challenged him. He would complain that someone was drinking too much. It was innuendo and lies. So that's how I knew, behind his smile and his smirk, that he was a very insecure, cunning and vengeful guy."

Many of Tsurumi's students came from well-connected or wealthy families, but good manners prevented them from boasting about it, the professor said. But Bush seemed unabashed about the connections that had brought him to Harvard. "The other children of the rich and famous were at least well bred to the point of realizing universal values and standards of behavior," Tsurumi said. But Bush sometimes came late to class and often sat in the back row of the theater-like classroom, wearing a bomber jacket from the Texas Air National Guard and spitting chewing tobacco into a cup. "
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Frustratedlady Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-08 08:04 AM
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1. I'm surprised he used a cup.
How, in heaven's name, did he make it this far? Poppa bought him out of trouble?

OK, I'll give us a little space in that I can see the public voting for him once...but, TWICE? I realize the U.S. has dumbed down, but that's pushing the envelope.

I keep wondering where we'd be now if George had never been on the scene. It's kinda like an It's a Wonderful Life moment.

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Shiver Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-08 08:18 AM
Response to Reply #1
3. He probably left the cup lying around afterwards
My roommates used to do that when they dipped. Fuckin' disgusting to accidentally knock over a styrofoam cup and have spit and tobacco juice stain the floor... :puke:
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Liberal In Texas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-08 08:05 AM
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2. The "legacy student" system in these ivy league and other private schools should be abolished.
It's just another way the ruling class perpetrates itself.

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unblock Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-08 10:52 AM
Response to Reply #2
7. the legacy "system" itself is not bad. it's the noteworthy exceptions that are terrible.
but other schools and systems have their failings as well.

i should note that i'm a legacy student myself. my father got into princeton on nothing but brains, and i'd like to think i did the same. he never contributed a dime as an alum, nor have i. being a legacy counts for just 15% of the scoring for admissions, so it's not a guarantee, just a leg up. certainly i heard plenty of stories of legacies who didn't manage to get in.

i think the exceptions happen when really rich alums donate entire buildings and get their kids in, overriding the usual "system". that's where the problems happen, but of course that has to be weighed against the benefit to the school of the building or swimming pool or computer lab or whatever it was that rich daddy donated. these things benefit the entire school population for years, at the risk of having one bad student. doesn't sound bad, and probably isn't bad, except in those cases when it fails spectacularly.

statistically, shrub is not the norm. the vast majority of legacy students, these days, are more like myself. not rich, not from a rich family, just someone with a relative who happened to go to the same school.

keep in mind, while there are certainly plenty of rich kids from rich families at ivy league schools, most of them, these days, are not.
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formercia Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-08 08:51 AM
Response to Original message
4. Il Dunce n/t
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HCE SuiGeneris Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-08 09:30 AM
Response to Original message
5. Always has been, always will be...
a dangerous sociopath.
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YOY Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-11-08 10:46 AM
Response to Original message
6. Error: You've already recommended that thread.
Legacy MBAs! Taking up the good jobs because of family connections without actually trying hard!

I could tell you stories about some of these assholes. Not all legacies are assholes in Top Tier Biz Schools but you definitely know a lazy dimwitted asshole is a legacy...
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