Now he tells us

National Review's Rich Lowry on Bush's Top 10 mistakes, and two items that drew my attention.

Not reading enough history. Bush has admirably applied himself to an extensive reading program as president, but if he had absorbed more history before taking office — particularly about military matters — he’d have had a better grounding to make important decisions.

....

Underestimating the power of explanation. By temperament and ability, Bush was more a “decider” than a “persuader.” He’s not naturally drawn to public argument, giving his administration its unfortunate (and not entirely fair) “my way or the highway” reputation at home and abroad.

I remember a different tune from Rich Lowry. Here's my take on it in my own 2002 Reason column "Intellectual Warfare":

"Maybe we don't want a presidential candidate who can pronounce Kostunica or recite the constituent parts of Yugoslavia," wrote National Review Editor Richard Lowry. ... Sometimes, especially at National Review, the animus against braininess has overlapped with a crusade for traditional manliness -- the idea being that book learning is for wimps.

Appearing on the Fox News show On the Record to discuss a recently released documentary about Bush on the campaign trail, Lowry hailed him as "a more traditional, red-blooded guy" than Al Gore: "He's tough. He's manly....He's not very reflective." To Lowry, it turns out, even familiarity with "hip" pop culture products such as Sex and the City -- a familiarity that Bush, in the documentary, appears to lack -- denotes excessive intellectualism and elitism. "Bush probably knows more about NASCAR, which is more tuned into what most Americans care about, than any of these reporters writing about him," he commented.

And from another column:

In October 2000, at a Cato Institute symposium on the presidential election, National Review Editor Rich Lowry spoke of a “war on masculinity” in America and asserted that Bush appealed to the voters because he exemplified an action-oriented, nonintellectual manly resolve.

Oh yes, that Cato symposium; I remember it well, especially Lowry's enthusiastic praise for Bush's lack of bookishness.

Now it turns out book-learnin' (and a little bit of reflectiveness) can be useful after all.

As Glenn Reynolds would put it: Heh.