# Letter to Gary Trudeau **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 3, 2001, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474 "2001-09-03T03:13:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/1 "2001-09-03T03:13:54Z")
A copy of a letter I sent to Mr. Trudeau today: > [@](#): > > Mr. Trudeau, > > I’m sure you’re aware that today’s (9/2/01) strip is based on an un-true urban legend, namely that scholars have estimated Bush’s IQ at 91 and Clintons at 182. For more info, and info in general on urban legends, please see the site [http://www.snopes.com](http://www.snopes.com), or see [http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/hoaxes/presiq.htm](http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/hoaxes/presiq.htm) for info on this particular legend. You may also be interested to read [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010622.html](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010622.html). Also, I’m sure you’ll find it interesting to know that an IQ of 182 (as you ascribed to Mr. Clinton) would mathematically put him in the top 1 millionth of 1 percent of all humans alive (i.e. the top 138 people of 6 billion). Possible, of course, but I’m sure you’ll agree highly unlikely. > > I’m sure that as the honest, fair political commentator that you are, you’ll make whatever retractions or apologies necessary to put yourself back on the level. > > Best Regards, > Bill Hunt As Mr. Trudeau has been strongly described as “fair” in this forum, I’m interested in others opinion on this matter. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/2 "2001-09-03T03:23:35Z")
Yeah, and President Bush isn’t a talking hat and Bill Clinton isn’t really a talking waffle. I think Trudeau was just using creative license to express the generally held opinion that Clinton, whatever his IQ score may be, is more intelligent than George W. Bush. Hell, I’ve got shoes smarter than Dubya. ---
**Author:** ![Chas.E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/3 "2001-09-03T03:31:53Z")
It isn’t so unlikely that Clinton’s IQ is 182, remember he was a Rhodes Scholar. And it isn’t that impossible to score that highly on an IQ test. I scored 185 when I was 10 years old. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/4 "2001-09-03T03:35:30Z")
Sorry, **gobear** , but that’s a really dumb response. Hats and waffles are creative devices. Quoting a faked study and including specific numbers is quite different. Your shoe comments puts you in the same “facts are unimportant; it’s the message that counts” camp. ---
**Author:** ![Azazel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Azazel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Azazel)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/5 "2001-09-03T03:38:38Z")
[http://www.ucomics.com/doonesbury/viewdb.htm](http://www.ucomics.com/doonesbury/viewdb.htm) Here’s the strip, in case anyone doesn’t have it. Is Trudeau a little harsh? -Of course, that’s why he’s so popular. Should he have included something about the “study” not being factually correct? -Why? These are the comics we’re talking about here. Does anyone really rely on the comics for factual information? ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/6 "2001-09-03T03:39:44Z")
**Chas.E** , as I said, anything is possible, but being in the top 138 out of 6 billion people is pretty unlikely. The math is basic probability. IQ average is defined as 100 and standard deviation 15. By the way, no one has actually claimed Mr. Clinton has an IQ of 185 (except Mr. Trudeau). The study quoted was fake. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/7 "2001-09-03T03:43:03Z")
Oh and **Chas.E** , congratulations! By definition, with an IQ of 185, there are only 43 people in the world smarter than you. And 5,999,999,956 people dumber than you. That’s an admirable brain you’ve got! ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/8 "2001-09-03T03:50:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chas.E \* > \*\*It isn’t so unlikely that Clinton’s IQ is 182, remember he was a Rhodes Scholar. And it isn’t that impossible to score that highly on an IQ test. I scored 185 when I was 10 years old. \*\* IQ tests for children, as I am sure you are aware, are very different from IQ tests for adults, and outlying scores are much higher; back in the day, a kid’s IQ was based on MA/CA where MA equalled mental age and CA equalled chronological age, so it was possible for a kid who merely had book-crazy parents to look like a genius. I was tested at Queen’s University when I was nine years old and got 193. Now my IQ is 135, tops, though that’s self-tested so take it with a grain of salt. I’m a very intelligent person, but I sure as hell don’t have a 193 - that would make me one of the smartest humans on earth, which I DEFINITELY AM NOT. That score, I am sure, had more to do with my parents getting me reading early than anything else. As to the OP, I agree that repeating a very commonly believed urban legend in his strip is quite a bit different from, saying, portraying Dan Quayle as a feather or Bill Clinton as a waffle. Those things are inherently absurd; repeating an urban myth gives the appearance of truth. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/9 "2001-09-03T04:11:23Z")
“They refused to include your special words.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/10 "2001-09-03T04:11:28Z")
I would guess that Trudeau would figure half his audience had never heard of the “study” and assume that he was making it up for the strip and that the other half would realize that it was an urban legend and simply laugh at what he had done with it. It isn’t as if he had footnoted the study (which I have seen him do with a few other quotes he has provided). I would never characterize Trudeau as “fair” in any event. I would see him as a liberal who was not afraid to take shots at other liberals when they set themselves up for it\*, but he is definitely not an impartial observer. \*In the early days of the 2000 campaign, he had a wonderful time poking fun at Clinton being clueless as to just how the public perceived him and Gore being clueless as to how to win an election (a bit prophetic, that). ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/11 "2001-09-03T04:13:34Z")
Oh, and as long as we’re sharing… I scored 142. It got me a trip to Yosemite for free when I was failing out of junior high! “Gifted” and all that crap… Least favorite word since childhood: “potential”. stoid ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/12 "2001-09-03T04:15:43Z")
Jesus, Bill, it’s just a comic strip. Lighten up. I thought it was pretty funny. And anyhow, it’s not nearly as biased as Mallard Fillmore. ---
**Author:** ![custard\_dragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@custard\_dragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/custard_dragon)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/13 "2001-09-03T04:17:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Chas.E, as I said, anything is possible, but being in the top 138 out of 6 billion people is pretty unlikely. The math is basic probability. IQ average is defined as 100 and standard deviation 15. I’m not saying that the quoted study is accurate (or even real, for all I know), but according to your numbers, there must be somewhere around 138 people are in the top 138. This is not an issue of probability; President Clinton is not a randomly selected person, he was the leader of the free world. More to the point, Doonesbury is a CARTOON. You will find the news elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/14 "2001-09-03T04:34:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Sorry, gobear, but that’s a really dumb response. Hats and waffles are creative devices. Quoting a faked study and including specific numbers is quite different. Nonsense, I thought Trudeau had made up the study out of whole cloth. As **TomnDebb** has said, I think Trudeau’s audience is more sophisticated than to take a left-wing satirical cartoon as a serious news source. Dumb response, my Aunt Fanny! Dumb is being so blindly partisan that one can’t recognize that George W. Bush, bless his heart, isn’t very bright, and that Clinton, whatever his moral failings, would beat W. on Jeopardy like a red-headed stepchild. [sub]and REALLY DUMB is the GOP picking W. instead of McCain in the primaries[/sub] **Chas E.** , there is nothing more pathetic than some geek proclaiming his IQ. Most of the folks on this board are smarter than the average, due to the nature of this place. It’s like bragging about how smart you are to folks at a Mensa meeting; they’re not likely to be impressed. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/15 "2001-09-03T04:39:29Z")
Hmmm. I got the impression from the cartoon that there _was_ some sort of secondhand “scholarly” appraisal of Presidential intelligence based on speeches and writings. Probably as meaningful as that “study” on the dreams of Democrats and Republicans, but at least a survey that someone actually did. You mean it’s a joke? Just another light-hearted jab at Bush’s competency? All in good fun? Gosh. In that case, let’s move Doonesbury back to the funny pages next to Mallard Fillmore. They’re just cartoons. And they deserve each other. ---
**Author:** ![DPWhite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d26b3c/32.png) [@DPWhite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPWhite)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/16 "2001-09-03T04:51:01Z")
Statistically there may only be a few hundred people on the planet with an IQ in the 180s, but then again, has it occurred to anyone that IQ is complete b.s anyway? It is a statistic. Now I am a reasonable smart person. In fact, my IQ is 146, within the statistical margin of error for run of the mill genius. Whatever the hell that means. I know for a fact that I am better educated than most and a bit quicker than average, but no way am I near genius. One of the very smartest and quickest people I know (seems like an alien smart) has met Clinton on a number of occasions and knows him personally. She says that Clinton is the smartest person she has ever met, in spite of his fits of stupidity when the blood was not going all the way to the top floor. Other people I know who have also met Clinton, but do not know him as well, agree with this assessment. Clinton is certainly the smartest president we have had in my lifetime. Now, W, I do not know, and I know only one person who has met him. Interestingly, back in Yale. (For those interested, hashish was the obligatory and habitual and grossly abused drug of choice for the crowd W was running around with. She did not personally observe W ever use drugs nor say he was using them.) Now W appears to me to be barely able to read, he thinks that Jesus was a philosopher (I’m a Christian, Jesus was God, not a philosopher) and his favorite book is the Very Hungary Catepillar, the only thing that he is able to read without a lot of stumbling. He is intellecutally most uncurious, and definitely Jeb’s dumb brother. W is to Jeb as Billy was to Jimmy or Roger to Bill. (Or Teddy to Jack snicker…). Perhaps Warren Harding was dumber than W, but we are talking Curly Joe smart here, not the leader of the free world smart. Yes, it was unfair of Trudeau to cite a plainly false study, but Rush Limbaugh does the same thing several times an hour, and I don’t hear any complaining about that. And Limbaugh doesn’t pretend to be a comic, where it is implied that it is all a joke, he expects his audience to believe every word. Trudeau was trying to make the point that W is a stupid mean SOB. I just wish he were better at it. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/17 "2001-09-03T05:04:05Z")
To all saying “The facts are unimportant. It’s a joke; lighten up.”: Of course I can’t stop you from posting, but I find it interesting that you’re attracted to this place where the core message is curing ignorance. If someone posted a similar letter as the OP about something quoted by say Mallard Duck (he writes plenty quoting various studies) and you demonstrated that it was based on phony facts, I like to think that I would not say “facts be damned; it’s the message that matters”. As I say, I can’t stop you from posting, but perhaps you should look inside about why you can cast aside facts so freely. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/18 "2001-09-03T05:16:25Z")
**custard dragon** wrote > [@](#): > > I’m not saying that the quoted study is accurate (or even real, for all I know), but according to your numbers, there must be somewhere around 138 people are in the top 138. This is not an issue of probability; President Clinton is not a randomly selected person, he was the leader of the free world. Excellent point. After all, for someone to get that far in life, they are a special person capable of much more than the average person. I really think this is an excellent point. So, let’s apply it to Mr. Bush… ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/19 "2001-09-03T06:14:40Z")
Bill H. wrote: > [@](#): > > As Mr. Trudeau has been strongly described as “fair” in this forum Have you got some links for that ? An 18 month search for Gary Trudeau in the pit and in GD only seems to turn up things like: > [@](#): > > And, of course, Gary Trudeau (sp?) is the most conversative cartoonist out there. Or: > [@](#): > > I have yet to see a single issue on which Trudeau has ever given even a nod, much less deserved credit, to those on the right side of the aisle. Does a description really merit the intensifier “strongly” if it only shows up in passing, at most, a time or two over an 18 month period ? The posts asserting the contrary seem much more common. It seems “possibilistic” that you’re being a tad oversensitive here. Here’s another [Link to the cartoon](http://www.ucomics.com/doonesbury/viewdb.cfm?uc_full_date=20010902&uc_comic=db&uc_daction=X). ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2001, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474/20 "2001-09-03T06:24:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Have you got some links for that ? In [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=83800](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=83800), **Chance the Gardener** wrote > [@](#): > > Like (Gary Trudeau) or not, you have to admit he’s fair. Also, > [@](#): > > And if you ( **Bill H.** ) can cite some examples as to how Doonesbury isn’t fair, feel free to provide. […] Sure, there’s a liberal bent to the strip, but Trudeau does try to be fair, and succeeds. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-to-gary-trudeau/79474.md?page=2)