It's Vizzini!

To hear some people talk, you'd think Karl Rove was the smartest guy in the world, but under his guidance the Bush administration has made some of the worst blunders of any administration ever. How they can reconcile the two positions baffles me, unless you believe that Mr. Rove is so smart that he knows exactly how much buffoonery will allow him to get away with seeming stupid. It reminds me of the argument Vizzini makes in the immortal movie "The Princess Bride" when faced with a choice between two goblets, at least one of which is poisoned:

VIZZINI: Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I'm not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool; you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

MAN IN BLACK: You've made your decision then?

VIZZINI: Not remotely. Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows. And Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me. So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.

MAN IN BLACK: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

VIZZINI: Wait till I get going! Where was I?

MAN IN BLACK: Australia.

VIZZINI: Yes -- Australia, and you must have suspected I would have known the powder's origin, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

MAN IN BLACK: You're just stalling now.

VIZZINI: You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? You've beaten my giant, which means you're exceptionally strong. So, you could have put the poison in your own goblet, trusting on your strength to save you. So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But, you've also bested my Spaniard which means you must have studied. And in studying, you must have learned that man is mortal so you would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

MAN IN BLACK: You're trying to trick me into giving away something -- it won't work --

VIZZINI: (triumphant) It has worked -- you've given everything away -- I know where the poison is.

MAN IN BLACK: Then make your choice.

VIZZINI: I will. And I choose --

And then we all know what happened to Vizzini. He got so caught up in trying to follow this kind of torturous reasoning that he failed to realize that Occam's Razor would require both goblets to be poisoned-- and he even stated, at one point, the key insight that the Man In Black might have poisoned his own goblet counting on his strength to save him-- but then he made the mistake of presuming that the Man In Black shared his assumption that exactly one of the goblets was poisoned, and was as educated and as cowardly as he.