# What politicians past and/or present were ACTUALLY dumb? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 12, 2015, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475 "2015-04-12T05:22:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/61 "2015-04-13T20:19:10Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > RFK Jr., on the other hand, was one of the early leaders of the anti-vaxxers, and has warned of the dangers to America of the NAFTA Highway. Well, intelligent people can still be cranks on some points; [some engineers are](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Engineers_and_woo). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/62 "2015-04-13T20:20:46Z")
If Rob Ford of Toronto isn’t dumb, he certainly presents a creditable imitation of dumbth. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2015, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/63 "2015-04-13T20:26:34Z")
This might sort of qualify, and is in any case some interesting history. I live in Buncombe County, NC, and soon after I moved here my brother in law told me that our county is where the work “bunk” comes from in its meaning of “a load of bunk.” At first I thought this was a cross between a snipe hunt and gullible’s not in the dictionary. But it’s true: we had a politician so full of shit that [our county became synonymous throughout the English-speaking world with bullshit](http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=bunk). > [@](#): > > The usual story (by 1841) of its origin is this: At the close of the protracted Missouri statehood debates, supposedly on Feb. 25, 1820, N.C. Representative Felix Walker (1753-1828) began what promised to be a “long, dull, irrelevant speech,” and he resisted calls to cut it short by saying he was bound to say something that could appear in the newspapers in the home district and prove he was on the job. “I shall not be speaking to the House,” he confessed, “but to Buncombe.” Bunkum has been American English slang for “nonsense” since 1841 (from 1838 as generic for “a U.S. Representative’s home district”). > MR. WALKER, of North Carolina, rose then to address the Committee on the question [of Missouri statehood]; but the question was called for so clamorously and so perseveringly that Mr. W. could proceed no farther than to move that the committee rise. [Annals of Congress, House of Representatives, 16th Congress, 1st Session, p. 1539] ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/64 "2015-04-14T03:28:35Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > That’s clearly giving into wishful thinking, and trying a scheme that didn’t work (“Maybe if I get the Supreme Court to say that slavery is constitutionally protected, the issue will go away”), but I don’t think it’s stupidity. > > As for George W. Bush, [George W. Bush is smarter than you.](http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/) Oh man, the dude went on a hilarious butthurt rant that’s only tangentially related to the question that he was asked. He really was sticking it to those libs that he imagined were in his class. The idea that Bush was quick to grasp ideas and engaged in policy is contradicted by everything else I’ve read about Bush including pieces by his Treasury Secretary. Posting a rant by a guy that’s tearing down a strawman because he thought his professional career was being threatened doesn’t mean anything. It’s pretty laughable to claim that he’d be acing all his classes too, when he didn’t do that when he was in college. George W. Bush scored a 1206 on the SAT, that was probably around the 80th percentile. He’s definitely smarter than the average person, but to make grandiose, self-serving, claims of his genius can be dismissed by the mountains of contradicting evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/65 "2015-04-14T03:33:21Z")
I don’t know if Michelle Bachmann is stupid, she’d crazy though. She thinks the end of times are at hand with the current Iran situation. Even the “dumb” politicians are smarter than most people. Your average American knows next to nothing about what’s going on outside their immediate family and what they have to do every day for their job. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/66 "2015-04-14T14:18:13Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > I would like to see one truly intelligent, insightful thing Bush ever said. > > People always say “I think he was actually smart,” but base that on…anything? He was the privileged son of an ex-president who practically grew up in the halls of power and wealth, and yet successfully campaigned as a folksy outsider unconnected to the entrenched Washington bureaucracy. It was the most successful PR campaign since they renamed the Patagonian toothfish. Not coincidentally, he was the last Republican candidate to successfully build a tent big enough to draw in moderates. I hated Bush II. Hated most of his principles and nearly all his policies, but give the man his due. Granted, much of the credit should go to Karl Rove but no candidate for president can be a true sock puppet. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/67 "2015-04-14T15:11:46Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > As for George W. Bush, [George W. Bush is smarter than you.](http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/) Paul O’Neill, Bush’s first Treasury Secretary, might [disagree](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,574809,00.html). He described the President as “like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people”; he was shocked that the President didn’t really ask him any questions in their meetings. Even reading the words of Keith Hennessey, I don’t get the impression that Bush was brilliant as much as he was impatient, close minded, dismissive, and dogmatic. That doesn’t strike me as particularly smart. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/68 "2015-04-14T17:40:31Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > I don’t know if hereditary monarchs count as “politicians,” per se… Tsar Peter III of Russia liked to play with wooden soldiers. I think we could come up with dozens of dumbass hereditary monarchs; Petey was just the first one who popped into my head. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/69 "2015-04-14T19:28:48Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > Paul O’Neill, Bush’s first Treasury Secretary, might [disagree](http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,574809,00.html). He described the President as “like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people”; he was shocked that the President didn’t really ask him any questions in their meetings. > > Even reading the words of Keith Hennessey, I don’t get the impression that Bush was brilliant as much as he was impatient, close minded, dismissive, and dogmatic. That doesn’t strike me as particularly smart. What jumps out at me in that link is the rider: _“Don’t take it personally, but President Bush is smarter than almost every one of you. Were he a student here today, he would consistently get “HP” (High Pass) grades without having to work hard, and he’d get an “H” (High, the top grade) in any class where he wanted to put in the effort.”_ Assume, for the sake of argument, that’s true. As far as I know, nobody describes those Stanford grad students in terms of what grades they’d get without working hard, and what grades they’d get if they wanted to put in the effort: they’re _Stanford grad students and they want to put in the effort_; you shouldn’t know what grades they’d get in a class without putting in the effort, because, honestly, _when would that have ever come up?_ ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/70 "2015-04-14T19:31:14Z")
At every educational institution since the dawn of time there has been a range of effort. I worked pretty hard in grad school, but I didn’t put in the same amount of effort as my hardest-working colleagues. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/71 "2015-04-14T19:36:37Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > At every educational institution since the dawn of time there has been a range of effort. I worked pretty hard in grad school, but I didn’t put in the same amount of effort as my hardest-working colleagues. But you “worked pretty hard” while other people put in more effort. The point of the quote is that the guy summed up Bush’s ability to get a particular grade _ **without** _ working hard – as distinct from his ability to get a better grade in some hypothetical class where he wanted to put in the effort. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/72 "2015-04-14T20:54:18Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > I am a veteran of a highly rated MBA program. I wouldn’t get too crazy using an MBA as proof of intelligence. If I was going to choose one adjective to describe my classmates, it would be “ambitious” not “intelligent.” Don’t forget “insanely hard-working”. Most of my MBA classmates got through on sheer effort, not brainpower. My wife once upon a time, worked for the[Texas House research organization](http://www.hro.house.state.tx.us/about.aspx), and her contention was that a LOT of the legislators are functional idiots who look good, talk a good story, and are good with people, but in terms of actual intelligence and understanding of the issues and the fundamental concepts behind them, they seriously lacked, and most didn’t have the interest or motivation to spend the time to figure it out. She did have a short list of ones she liked and respected though. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2015, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/73 "2015-04-14T21:04:01Z")
I would like to see empirical data - i.e., IQ tests, etc. - rather than opinion prejudice. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/74 "2015-04-15T17:15:04Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I would like to see empirical data - i.e., IQ tests, etc. - rather than opinion prejudice. On whom? GWB’s SAT has already been posted and his college grades were published on numerous occasions. I had never thought that GWB was stupid. I was always unfavorably impressed by how intellectually lazy he was. I suppose that one might complain that these are anecdotal, but on incident after incident, he championed beliefs over evidence. When the governor of Illinois declared a moratorium on executions, based on evidence that they were not applied justly, Bush was approached with evidence that Texas made Illinois look like the epitome of judicial responsibility. (This included the practice, widely used throughout Texas, of local judges appointing cronies with no capital case experience as defense attorneys in capital cases while Illinois actually had a professional Public Defender’s office.) Bush’s response was that he was “sure” that Texas had a perfectly fine judicial system. Before he ran for the presidency, he heartily embraced the Wolfowitz term paper that stupidly declared that an invaded Iraq would welcome the “liberating” armies, despite its utter lack of evidence for that claim. Then, predisposed to attack Iraq, he responded to the WTC/Pentagon attacks with demands that his staff find the Saddam Hussein “connection” (which goes a long way to explain how the Office of Special Plans was set up and why he was so quick to accept their lies over the information provided by the professional intelligence services). When the Joint Chiefs informed him that he was dedicating too few troops to the occupation of Iraq, he went with his gut that Wolfowitz, (with neither experience nor training in military exercises), was right and we could handle it with a smaller force. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2015, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475/75 "2015-04-15T18:14:11Z")
[Granted, we don’t necessarily want a pol to be a policy wonk, either.](http://www.salon.com/2015/04/13/the_medias_dangerous_policy_wonk_fetish_why_america_doesnt_need_a_president_with_bold_new_ideas/) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-politicians-past-and-or-present-were-actually-dumb/717475.md?page=3)