He's not a polished speaker, granted, but it goes beyond that. Certain restrictions because of his specially informed position require him to "not know" certain things and to manifest plausible deniability. What he does on his own turf must be very different from what he presents to the world. It's worth remembering that he is a decent, conscientious individual who cares about his actions, and he seems to rely as much on his own moral judgment as he does on his advisory staff.

Why would an "insider" want to speak badly about the president? Unless they want to lose their job, it's in their interest to try to make him look good.

I'm not sure what you mean about "unitellegent about the good", that doesn't make sense. My opinion is that he may seem dumb because he's not such a great speaker. Oh, and ditto what rdrainer submitted.

The truth is that no matter how bad a President is, White House staff will never speak badly about him. George W. Bush may not have been born stupid, but he has achieved stupidity, and now he wears it as a badge of honor. The most obvious expression of President Bush's choice of ignorance is that, at the age of 61, he knows nothing about policy or history -- After years of working as his dad's spear-chucker in Washington D.C., he didn't understand the difference between Medicare and Medicaid, the second- and third-largest federal programs. Well into his plans for invading Iraq, George W. Bush still couldn't get down the distinction between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, the key religious divide in a country he was about to occupy. Though he sometimes carries books for show, he either does not read them or doesn't absorb anything from them. Bush's ignorance is so transparent that many of his intimates do not bother to dispute it even in public. Closely related to this aggressive ignorance is a third feature of Bush's mentality: laziness -- Again, this is a lifelong trait. As George W. Bush says, we misunderestimate him, he was not born stupid, he chose stupidity -- Bush may look like a well-meaning dolt. On consideration, he's something far more dangerous: a dedicated fool.

If he really wasn't stupid, why would he try so hard to come off so stupid in public? He's about as sharp as a bowling ball.....