Given what the CIA did during his eight years, he HAD to become proficient in promulgating gobbledygook, and proficient he indeed was.
Our most intelligent president may well have been John Quincy Adams, who despite his towering intellect was nonetheless a terrible failure as Chief Exec, though a great man in many if not most other respects.
I think many Americans might feel more comfortable with a shrewd and long-headed president on the order of Lincoln than with a perhaps more rarefied scholar like Adams, who was by all accounts less skilled at taking the measure of and handling men.
Of course, one might argue that this is another type of intelligence entirely, namely emotional intelligence. It is a point worth considering.
Yes. Yes. Of course he’s AD/HD, and dyslexic too. No doubt. Those aren’t exactly disadvantages. I would like to cite the post that describes how dyslectics visualize in three dimensions, rather than “thinking” in one or two, but don’t know how. What?
Sam, I already stipulated that flying time has jack to do with the kinds of intelligence required by a President. Why are you still obsessed with his flying record of all things.
So you don’t like the cites provided? Find your own.
But he has no inkling what or how the average american person feels.
He(like his father) is too rich to think that all of our factories and high tech jobs closing and moving to asia is not what every average american wants.
He has never wanted for anything, and cant understand why some people worry about buying groceries, and making car and house payments, those things just have no relevence for him.
He thinks most americans want him to spend all of his time trying to run Iraq, and the UN, instead of trying to make things better in America for the poor and middle class americans. It will be his undoing.
JQ was plagued and hounded throughout his single term with the cry of “Corrupt Bargain” by the Jacksonians because of the outcome of the 1824 election. JQ’s political troubles were not all his own making. Jackson had it in for him, and Jackson was a hell of a mean fighter.
I remember way back before the last election I said I thought GWB was stupid. While he was campaigning he said a many things that were, well, stupid. Many jumped in to say exactly what many are saying here: Just because he’s not a good public speaker and “misspeaks” doesn’t mean he’s stupid.
Well, how else are we supposed to judge his intelligence? I’m not talking about the silly misuse of words like “They misunderestimate me” or “Make the pie higher”. I’m talking about not reading a policy report because it was too long, asserting that Social Security is not a government program and trade with Canada isn’t foreign trade It’s his belief that pollution doesn’t cause pollution that lead me to believe he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And let’s not forget the mother of all stupidities: Evolution and Creationism are equally valid scientific concepts.
Some of his inanities are downright scary. His belief that it is divine providence that has him answering The Call to save the world from the axis of evil. Good rhetoric if it is just meant to rally the faithful. But he actually believes this shit. Not a mark of great intelligence, if you ask me.
ElvisL1ves: Just correcting the record. You made the claim that he probably had about 300 hours of flying time in the F-102. Your own cites suggest that it was probably at least three times that number, and maybe as high as a couple of thousand hours, depending on how many average hours he flew on a flight duty day.
Before the present SAT there was a correlation between SAT scores and IQ scores. (The present SAT has been changed and this correlation no longer exists) If Bush’s pre-1974 SAT score was a combined 1206 as reported here and as reported on the internet — than this SAT score converts to an IQ of 129 on the Otis IQ test. The Otis test is reported to have a standard deviation of between 15 and 16 which makes the converted score almost two standard deviations above the norm.
A lot of people are saying “the guy’s not a good public speaker but that doesn’t mean he’s stupid”.
Firstly, he’s not just a “not bad” public speaker - he’s appalling. I know 5 year old Romanian kids who could deliver a better English sentence than this guy, who happens to be the President. That’s going too far of course, but the problem with his public speaking is that it sounds as if none of it’s actually coming out of his brain. It’s almost as if he doesn’t understand what he’s saying - that’s his public speaking style. He’s constantly pausing in the wrong places, emphasising the wrong things. It’s like he’s trying to remember the way they did it in rehearsal, but screwing it up. That’s the way it strikes me anyway. And believe me, I’d love to be proved wrong. I’d much prefer the leader of the free world to be able to speak his own language.
Secondly, it’s not just the way he delivers speeches. It’s the way he answers questions in press conferences. I find myself cringing every time he opens his mouth. Call me naive, but I think a guy of at least average intelligence should be able to express what he believes about a particular thing, coherently. But this guy flounders every time, and always seems to sound like a sort of village idiot.
Thirdly, who’s more prejudiced? The people, like myself, who see his performances as cringe-worthy and idiotic, or those who brush over all that as merely “bad public speaking” but think there’s a lot more to the man. How do you know there’s more to him when we only have these embarrassing episodes to judge by?
Fourthly, don’t you think that public speaking is a massively important thing for a politician to know how to do? One of the most important things? i.e. communicting with the country he serves. I don’t understand how any politician not competent in this area can get to a high position. For example, in Europe, if you’re a politician you have to be able to perform well in un-scripted, spontaneous debates. If you’re unconvincing, you won’t last 10 minutes.
Fifthly, the most disturbing thing: if he is stupid, and I think he probably is, how did he manage to get into a position of such power, and remain there? Is there maybe something fundamentally wrong about the way that Presidents are elected that allows stupid people to get into office? For example, if I had an enormous amount of money, and a fantastic P.R. set-up, was American, and was a complete moron, could I potentially become the President of the USA? Isn’t that worrying?
Finally, and most controversially, if he is stupid, and therefore dangerous because of the power at his disposal, does not another country have the right to invade the USA and remove him from power before he does anything really bad, or at least assasinate him? You could call it pre-emptive action. After all, I believe the USA has WMD, doesn’t it? He’s already caused major instability in one of the most volatile regions of the world, the Middle East. And created the world’s most dangerous terrorist state, Iraq.
The problem with being intelligent but bad communicator is that it has many if not all the disadvantages of being stupid. What good is being intelligent if your intelligent ideas cannot be expressed adequately?
It’s like having a very fast internet connection, but the data is getting corrupted and has to be constantly re-sent. Whatever advantage the speed gave you is wiped out.
Is it too much to ask that of all the potential people in the US that can be president that one out of the millions is found that is both intelligent and a decent speaker? Is that so goddamn rare that we have to settle?
I would think that it is eally the media, and their habit of hanging labels, that has the “track record.” Compared with the medias’ steady diet of real life murder mysteries and absolutely hilarious situation comedies – politics would bore most watchers into a stupor unless there is a simple, easy to grasp theme that ties it all together. Easy jokes means the watcher will stick around long enough for the commercials. Therefore – I’m pretty sure that while it is important to the media how you pronounce the word “nuclear” – those large concerns don’t seem to be reflected in SAT scores — And don’t make the OP’s premise that “George W. Bush is actually stupid” -
Because the only people who will care that you mispronounce things are those who don’t like you anyway.
I mean, please. Bad communicator? Do you think that Rumsfeld will understand his orders from Bush less if they contain the phoenetic “nukular” rather than the proper “nuclear”?
Bush doesn’t have any trouble getting his point across. Ever. So he mangles some pronounciation or some sentence structure. Does that really negate the conveyance of his ideas?
cmkeller, it may not be full-on misunderstanding, but surely a better speaker in more convincing in his arguments. Don’t you think that say, Ronald Reagan, would have a better chance of convincing the UN to agree with Iraq issues?
IMO it’s not too much to ask that we find one guy every four years who can speak well.