Eisenhower was better than his reputation. He did more behind the scenes than he did publicly. Also, he managed to listen to his smarter advisors and not do anything too stupid.
There’s a rough equivalence between SAT scores and IQ if you make one big assumption. If you assume that people have the same chance to take good high school courses and SAT preparation courses and have the same cultural background, you can sort of make the two things match. Since people don’t actually have the same opportunity for those things, on average the SAT score will overestimate the IQ of a rich kid (and both Bush and Gore were rich kids) and will underestimate the IQ of a poor kid.
O.K., the formula is as follows: The average score in an IQ test is 100. The average score on each part of the SAT test is 500. Since only about half of all students take the SAT (and it’s more or less the smarter half) the average SAT test taker has probably about a 108 IQ. One standard deviation on an IQ test is 15 points, while (if I recall correctly) one standard deviation on a SAT test is 100 points in each part.
So take the SAT score in each part and convert it to the equivalent “math IQ” and “verbal IQ” and then average the two to find the estimated IQ. Bush’s 566 verbal SAT is .66 standard deviations above the average, so that’s equivalent to a 108 + (.66)15 = 108 + 10 = 118 verbal IQ. His 640 math SAT is 1.40 standard deviations above the average, so that’s equivalent to a 108 + (1.40)15 = 108 + 21 = 129 math IQ. This averages to a 123.5 IQ. Gore’s 625 verbal score on the SAT is similarly equivalent to a 127 verbal IQ and his 730 math score is equivalent to a 142.5 IQ. This averages to a 134.75 IQ.
Hmm, that would mean that my 719 verbal is equivalent to a 140.85 verbal IQ and my 772 math is equivalent to a 148.8 math IQ, which averages to a 144.825 IQ. A perfect score of 800 on both portions of the SAT would be equivalent to a 153 IQ.
Don’t take any of these equivalents as being anything but very rough.
Really? Do you think the same relative population of people with IQ scores over 153 correlates with the population of people with SAT scores of 1600? If there were any relevance to to your assumption, I would expect a SAT of 1600 to be more closely aligned with IQ scores in the 190 range…
Nevertheless, I doubt that there’s much direct correlation. The SAT and IQ tests are designed to measure different things: Scholastic Aptitude versus General Intelligence. While there may be some overlap in the populations, it’s not uncommon to find people with high IQs who don’t fare well on the SAT and visa-versa.
190 IQ as an equivalent to a double 800 SAT score isn’t very close either. A 190 IQ is something like one in several hundred million (alas, I don’t have access to a table of standard deviations. Does anyone?), while there are a dozen or so double 800 SAT scores every year (hell, one of my college roommates got a double 800). A 190 IQ is so rare that we should expect no more than half a dozen who’ve taken the SAT test over its entire 50-year history to have an IQ that high. But now that I think of it, 153 IQ does sound a little low for a double 800. Really a double 800 is approximately as rare as a 165 IQ or so. So I think my formula works O.K. for moderate SAT scores but underestimates the IQ for the top scores. It can’t measure IQ’s above 165 in any case. I think (making my original assumption about an even background for all test takers) that everybody with a double 800 SAT is somewhere from 165 IQ and up.
But of course the SAT test and IQ scores aren’t really equivalent. I said that this is no more than a rough equivalence. Don’t take it as being anything else.
One thing I give Bush credit for (speaking as a Texan) is his respect(?) or willingness to observe the Legislative Process, and not (ab)use Executive Fiat to circumvent the process (like a certain President I could name, but won’t, 'less he appear in a vaporous form and begin lecturing me on the various evils of guns and castigating me for opposing his “common sense” proposals on gun control).
Some may say it’s because he doesn’t have the guts of our current President to butt heads with Congress on “issues”, but I think those people might need a quick reminder in civics.
“W” is overall well liked and respected as our Governor, even though he’s lost some battles with the State legislature.
But he talked up and enacted welfare reform well before most other states, and he passed concealed carry (the people wanted it, he promised it, the legislature drafted and passed it, he delivered), just to name a few.
You could do better for a President; but you could also do much worse (like the bozo who invented the internet).
Here’s a question: Do we want a President whose wit fails him in adversarial situations? Do we want a President who becomes “defensive” in these situations, as the article also states? Just asking.
Well, isn’t this the type of person we want when confronted with difficult foreign policy issues, and major domestic economic and political issues? while bullheaded may not be ideally suited for certain situations, its a characteristic I want when its crunch time.
Again, how can anyone back a man who carries these characteristics? Do I want my President looking away when the leaders of the worlds nations confront him? Do I want the most powerful man in the world, and leader of the free world retreating into abstractions and rabmling when dealing with “uncomfortable issues”? Christ, politics and the Presidency is a waterfall of unpleasent issues.
Note that link was posted by a republican supporter. Gore ain’t perfect, and I don’t waste any energy w/ partisan politics, but Dubya is a disater waiting to happen, and I fear could cause some very dangerous effects on our current prosperity and dominant global position.
Omniscient: unfortunately for VP Gore, running a government and conducting international diplomacy isn’t like conducting a debate. Being a rude jerk, talking out of turn, ad hominem attacks on your opponent…that’d go over really well at, say, a START talk, or one of the mid-east peace conferences.
On the other hand (what you failed to mention from the article):
::AND::
A President has a lot more control over the staging of events than a Presidential Candidate does; and I believe every President has played to their strengths and minimized their weaknesses as much as possible. Why lambast Bush for trying to do the very same thing Gore, Clinton, and every other public figure does? Other than the fact that you just don’t like him?
My beef with Gore is the same I have with his boss and her husband; they’re all three disingenuous snake-oil pushers, using fear, hype and feel-good rhetoric where reason, facts and leadership fail them.