Thomaska- Tho I can't speak for "the Left" I can say tyhat personally I do believe that Dubya is maybe a bit smarter than he is portrayed, but it reallys isn't him who's doing all the stuff that most folks are complaining about- my "theory" (and I guess that word is where most folks will shift into calling me names, but hell, it IS just a theory or notion if you prefer, not based on anything but my own conjectures since NO ONE knows the real deal and anyone who pretends to is an idiot, plain and simple) is that he was selected to be a believable doofus with whom simple folks can sympathize- the way Dubya has been set up, it is easy for thinking folks to just write off the nonsense he says as what it is, mostly pure jibberish and talking points- at the same time, these simple "triggers" work well, giving a lot of folks with no original thoughts of their own stuff to say that they imagine makes them sound important- hell, if the "president" said it, it CAN't be stupid gibberish, right??
On the other side of the coin, I believe that the TRUE powers in the US government have selected to portray him as SO dumb and allowed him to give himself unconstitutional powers and all that other fun stuff for ONE main reason- that when their little scheme "fails" (and I used parentheses in order to denote the fact that no matter HOW bad the failure is on the face of it, there are a few folks who have profitted IMMENSELY while the trade deficits etc get run up to astornomical levels- after the profiteers walk away with all the cash, the American people will be left holding the bill for decades) they can simply blame Dubya, saying crap about how "It was ALL his idea" and "We were unable to stop him" and such other pap- the real criminals will get off scot free and poor "dumb" Dubya can be the sacrificial lamb so to speak, satisfying many while actually symbolizing nothing
So maybe THAT is what some of "Them" think, I sure know it's what I believe, pretty much