the real dumbasses are the people who can't understand a metaphor . . . 
not giving the president a pass, but just pointing out obvious dumbassedness here.
I know that Bush was trying to make a metaphor. And that he didn't actually suggest that Hussein killed Nelson Mandela.
But the problem:
Bush thought Nelson Mandela was dead.
That is unbelievably stupid, considering he's the president of USA, the most powerful job in the world.
If a white thrash hillbilly in West Virginia would've stated that "Mandala" was dead, I wouldn't thought much of it. But this is Bush, a man who's supposedly fit to make decisions on world politics.
It scares me that he has no idea that Nelson Mandela is alive.