George W. Bush's IQ

Great Debates
21

One other comment: I don’t think there’s much of a correlation between being a good president and being intelligent. Clinton is very intelligent, but he’s a lousy president. Nixon was highly intelligent. Carter was highly intelligent. All were failures.

Far more important is personal integrity, good judgement, people skills, and the willingness to delegate authority. And since a president today is at least in part a symbolic figure, a commanding presence and the ability to inspire people is important.

Unfortunately, I think Bush and Gore both lack most of those qualities.

22

I believe that Clinton was a good President with personal failings. I believe that Carter was a good man who was only slowly learning the skills needed to be President and who had the bad luck to be President at a time when no one wanted to listen to the important things he had to say. I believe that Nixon was a so-so President who committed a crime that made the question of his abilities irrelevant.

But I agree with dhanson that there are other qualities which are as important as intelligence. I think that the most important is the ability to realize that even if you’ve worked out a brilliant plan for the country, it doesn’t matter much unless you can sell other people on that plan.

23

Sure, Carter was a good man. Maybe the nicest human to be president in this Century. And, with a degree in nuclear engineering he was no slouch in the brain department. But he was a total failure as a president.

As Bill Maher once said: There’s a difference between a nice guy and a great leader. George S. Patton was a great leader. Dick Van Patton is a nice guy. But you wouldn’t send him to beat the Germans.

24

I’ll make some more blatantly false accusations about Bush.

Is he a criminal?
Is he bad?
Does he kick puppies?

The joke, if you hadn’t caught it yet, is that accusations must take the form of statements. Simple questions (e.g. “Does Bush?”) cannot be accusations.

25

In what sense was Carter a total failure as a President? Give me some specific things that he did or failed to do that indicate he was a failure.

On the other hand, Reagan’s policies of spending more federal money than was taken in plunged the nation in debt so large that it’s going to take decades to repair the damage. Reagan was a lousy President to the extent he was a President at all. Mostly he slept through his term while his aides ran the show.

26

I guess I should respond. My questions about Bush are based upoon statements he made.

When discussing Latin America, IIRC, he made some comment about wishing he had studied Latin in school. Implication: He thinks Latin is still spoken somewhere in Latin America.

On another occasion (or maybe the same occasion) he ticked off a list of countries in South America, including Mexico on the list.

Draw your own conclusions. :rolleyes:

27

spoke said:

I’m afraid that’s an old joke, most recently made about Dan Quayle (about whom it was also false). Unless, of course, you can pull out a source quoting him on this matter…

JMCJ

Give to Radiskull!

28

You may be right on that one, the more I think about it.

However, Bush definitely included Mexico in his list of South American countries.

29

I don’t think that a great intellect is necessary for the job of President.
Both Roosevelt and Reagan were derided as intellectual light-weights before becoming President but both were enormously successful since their skills and knowledge of politics more than compensated.
What troubles me about “w” is his acknowlegded chip on his shoulder, a sort of almost defensive arrogance that you never saw in Reagan. During one heated Cabinet meeting, Reagan interrupted the argument and had everyone look out the window at the crew working in the garden. “They are the one’s doing the real work”, he noted. An “amiable dunce” according to a top Democrat (Clark Clifford?) but well grounded in what he knew and what he wanted to do. Sadly lacking in “w”.
Also troubling is “w”'s lost youth, a period of aimless jobs and heavy drinking. I doubt the cocaine rumors but that doesn’t really matter - the question is whether “w” has an addictive personality and would turn to the bottle in a moment of crisis.
This is much more serious than Bubba’s inability to keep his pants zipped, which to be honest affected his family more than the rest of us.

30

Carter as a ‘failed’ President:

Jeez, I don’t even know where to start. out-of-control inflation (I’ll give him credit for appointing Paul Volcker, who started the fiscal tightening to control it).

‘Stagflation’. Before Carter, inflation was usually caused by too-fast economic growth or a loosening of the money supply (or both). Carter’s presidency presided over a period when there was high inflation, high interest rates, but no economic growth, partly due to the ‘malaise’ he helped bring about (see below).

Revealing military secrets for political gain - as I recall, Carter blew the lid on at least one successful ‘black’ project in order to claim credit for it.

The Iranian hostage situation. The screwed up rescue mission, due in part to micromanagement from the White House.

Failure to be re-elected. The people thought he was a bad president.

During Carter’s presidency, the Soviet Union became much more agressive in subverting other countries, including the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. Their increased agression was due in no small part to Carter’s ‘Dove’ rhetoric, which let the Soviets believe they would be unopposed. And they were.

The biggest failing on his part was as a leader. He used to come out and make sad, dire pronouncements about the state of things, and threw the nation into a funk. Later, he made his famous “Malaise” speech to describe a populace that seemed to be lacking in optimism and enthusiasm - and thereby made it worse.

One of the reasons Reagan was elected in a landslide was because he was an incurable optimist, and the people NEEDED an uplifting leader after four years of Carter’s whining. “Malaise” vanished completely on election day. The Iranian Hostages were released on inauguration day. Reagan made his ‘Evil Empire’ speech and threw the Soviets into a tizzy (but the increasing pressure they were putting on the 3rd world stopped immediately).

31

What do you mean unopposed? We boycotted the Olympics. I mean, what more do you want?

32

Sam Stone-

Interesting that you blame Carter for the troubled state of the economy during his four years in office. Does this mean that you credit Clinton and Gore with the booming economy we’ve enjoyed during their tenure? You can’t have it both ways.

I agree that a President need not be a mental giant if he surrounds himself with good people. What is the guarantee that Bush would do so?

I would much prefer a President who has some grasp of world events. Bush has not demonstrated that to me.

Gore has proposed a series of weekly debates leading up to the election. It seems to me that this would be a great opportunity for Bush to prove to us that he does have a grasp of the isuues, and that he is not an intellectual midget. Why won’t Bush accept this challenge?

33

Haven’t any of you liberals read Earth In the BAlance. E Gads, men! Gore is about as rational and clear thinking as abowl of pudding.

And the proof in that pudding that he is not fit to run the country is that he is a DEMOCRAT

34

I’ll only blame Carter for those aspects of the economy he had influence over. ‘Malaise’ was directly caused by him. He presented the ‘misery index’ and paraded it in front of the people to show how bad they had it. He constantly made speeches echoing alarmist rhetoric about overpopulation, recession threats, and a host of other dispiriting topics. Business confidence sagged, consumer spending went down, etc.

Carter wasn’t the only president responsible for inflation. He inherited it from Ford (remember WIN buttons? Whip Inflation Now), and Ford inherited it from Nixon.
Every president inherits problems from his predecessor (including Reagan - one of the reasons for Reagan’s big deficits was that he lost all the revenue from ‘bracket creep’ when Volcker managed to break the back of inflation). However, Carter was partially responsible for the stagflation, due to economic policies and his dour rhetoric. Marginal tax rates at the end of his term hit 70%, as I recall.

I put the blame for increased Soviet Expansionism during that time directly on his shoulders. If someone like Reagan had been elected in 1976 Afghanistan would never have happened. I put blame for the long, drawn-out hostage crisis directly on his shoulders.

35

Sam Stone wrote:

Hmmm. Yeah, I guess if Reagan had been in office, he would have just traded some sophisticated weaponry to the Iranians to get the hostages released. :rolleyes:

36

Here’s the actual quote and who reported it.

37

Oh my GOD!

Is that old Quayle Latin America “quote” still making the rounds? I can’t believe a member of this board still believes that one.

Check out www.snopes.com and probably just about any other reliable reference for a quick and thourough debunking.

From Snopes:

(Attributed to Quayle): “I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn’t study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people.”

Status: False.

Origins: (note to moderator: This is not the whole text)

"With much of the media gleefully reporting every Quayle misstatement and malaprop, it was only a matter of time before demand exceeded supply and someone made up a ridiculous statement and attributed it to the Vice-President. Someone did, and this someone was a rather unlikely source: a Republican congressperson.

In April 1989, Representative Claudine Schneider of Rhode Island told a gathering of Republicans that she had recently attended an event at the Belgian embassy, where Vice-President Quayle complimented her on her command of French. Then, Schneider [attributed the quote in question to the Vice-President].

Ms. Schneider concluded by admitting that the story was merely a joke, but not all the newspapers reported it that way. Several publications, either through carelessness or a desire not to let the truth get in the way of a good story, reported the story as true."

Glad to be of help.

38

If you can’t trust politicians to tell the truth, who can you trust???
Oh, wait a second… what was I thinking?

39

Is there a conversion formula between SAT scores and IQ?

40

Wendell Wagner wrote:

As opposed to Eisenhower, who did nothing but play golf.