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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (46862)	7/24/1999 2:48:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

Are you saying you believe Reagan's intellectual blunderings were deliberate? Books full of howlers have been published. Can the word 'astute' apply to someone who on several occasions publicly spoke of events he had witnessed only on the movie set as though they were events he'd personally witnessed? I suspect he was an actor who could, when not being closely questioned and when in control of the exchange, act the part of an astute person. If he serves on a board, he has briefing papers of a different order of complexity than those he would have been expected to master as president; and he only has to speak to ask questions, which can be written down and placed in a folder for him, and respond with appropriate facial expressions to the answers. Decorative board members are not questioned closely. OJ Simpson was a board member of some large firms. Of course it is known that when he was president, the briefing papers given him were kindergarten-style, the briefest of summaries, unlike those supplied to other presidents. I also suspect your friend's assessment is another example of our old friend, the effect of motivation on perception. If you like a guy, and he's doing what you want, politically, and he appears to the world at large to be a really really dumb, over-his-head guy, and you have met this celebrity, and those to whom you speak haven't, you may say anything you want about him and in the moment get to feel important-by-affiliation, and important as the holder of special knowledge, and like you're doing the right thing, too... and maybe you have been fooled, since you want to be, by an actor.