That would be a good measure, assuming he took the test himself, didn’t cheat and it was scored honestly.
Is there any reason at all to suspect otherwise?
I mean, I can predict how the responses will go, but despite his shortcomings in office, even his dishonesty in office, I haven’t any suspicion that he cheated on his SATs. I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem terribly likely to me.
That really is an interesting video. I’m no doctor, and I’m certainly not endorsing the diagnosis offered, but there really is a breathtaking disparity between the oratorial skills of George W. Bush the Governor, and George W. Bush the President. I’m well aware that those clips have probably been specially selected to highlight this disparity, but I am not aware of any example in the last few years where Bush spoke with the panache and confidence he exuded as a young man.
Because he’s Bush. I doubt honesty would occur to him.
There are many dumb atheletes who have had their test taken for them, so I don’t find it impossible that the same could have been done here. If the score had been average, I wouldn’t question it- but after seeing and hearing this guy for years, I don’t see him as being in the upper 25% of Americans. And he can be finagled into Harvard without the grades and pilot school without the grades, I don’t see this as being a stretch.
Unless as others have implied, that he used to be of normal intelligence, but certain substances have addled his brain…
Except I don’t think you really realize what “average” means.
There are some really really really really really dumb people out there. And that’s excluding the mentally retarded, I’m talking about normal but dumb people. People who had trouble graduating from high school. You can’t honestly think Bush is of below average intelligence, if the average is for the entire population of America.
It’s only when you compare him to Bill Clinton that he seems really really dumb. Heck, he’s probably average compared to the population of this board, or perhaps the average of college graduates. But compare him to the guy working at WalMart and see how he looks.
Scoring in the top 75th percentile on your SATs is actually pretty pathetic for the so-called leader of the Free World. It’s not that the President has to be the smartest guy in the country, it’s just that you’d expect the President to at least be sort of clever.
According to wikipedia:
The study can be found here (not free): http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2006.00524.x
I don’t know anything about the merit of this study other than that it was published in the flagship journal for its field (political psychology). The findings are also consistent with Bush’s IQ based on his SAT score.
It means being average relative to the whole population. If a normal person, lacking his wealth and connections was as incompetent as Bush they’d end up in prison, dead or washing walls ( badly ) somewhere. The average American is capable of running his or her life without Daddy and the Saudis and so on running to the rescue repeatedly; Bush is well below average.
It’s kinda embarrassing to imagine Putin pulling a ruble coin out of a mesmerized GWB’s ear.
Dubya admittedly was doing his heavy “partying” in college correct? Most college party animals I know get a degree from state college in seven years, not Harvard in four. And I know smart people who had to study, hard, to get similar degrees. Yet he is so bright, he got an MBA in between lines of coke and shots of tequila? Out until the sun comes up, then strolls in to his 8:00 class and aces a test? I just don’t see it.
Imagine he was a SDMB member and his posts were as coherent as his infamous verbal blunders- everyone would eat him alive, right?
Dumb “atheletes”, huh? 
If you had any actual evidence that this hypothesis was true, then it would be interesting to see it. As it is, we have only your speculation. Which, frankly, is worth nothing.
I’ve seen longer clips from Bush’s career as governor, and that Youtube clip seems fairly representative. I have no idea what the explanation is, I want to avoid any sort of crazy theory, but it is kinda hard to ignore away. I’d be interested to hear if anyone who is more familiar with Bush’s time as Texas governor has to say.
As to the OP’s question, I don’t think he’s dumb but just of average intelligence in the sense that Lemur discusses, and his families influence and his natural charisma have allowed him to rise a lot higher then his intellectual abilities would warrant. In 2000, he seemed kind of aware of this, with all the talk about how he’d surround himself with “smart people”.
Touche 
And yes, if anyone had any concrete proof, there would be no need for the thread.
You’d think Cecil would do a column about it. Oh, wait…
I thought he went to Yale? Probably would make it a bit harder to get to class at Harvard on time.
He’s of above average intelligence. He lets fly a lot of malapropisms, but he’s far from a drooling idiot. There’s no real reason to suspect he cheated on his SAT (AFAIK), and that would place him slightly above average. He comes across as dumb compared to the last three presidents, but, well, the last three presidents were two really smart guys and one career actor. Of course he’s going to sound dumb compared to them.
Horseshit. Bush has shown through test scores (if one is using that metric to denote ‘smart’) that he’s above average in intelligence. Had Bush been born into another family without all of the social, political and monetary advantages he would have been a product of THAT environment…instead of the one he was raised under. Unless you think that ‘lazy’ is an inherit condition? Same with if you took someone of above average intelligence and raised him/her in the same conditions Bush was raised under…my guess is you’d come out with someone essentially the same (intelligent but spoiled and lazy).
-XT
Yale undergrad, Harvard Biz School.
I gave his SAT scores. That’s concrete. I’ve known many very intelligent people who were terrible public speakers. Saying that he might have had someone else take his SATs for him adds more complexity to the explanation than is necessary.