In law school, RMN’s nickname was “Iron Butt”, for his ability to park his butt in a chair and study until the cows came home, and then some. He was a brilliant intellect, for all his failings.
My life is forever changed now that I know the legend of “Iron Butt” Nixon.
My money is on Jefferson (founding father, architect, inventor) and Wilson (college professor and president). Wilson could apparently write Greek with one hand and Latin in with the other - simultaneously.
Sucks that he was a racist and eugenicist, though.
I’ve not heard that about Wilson, but have about Garfield. Browsing his wikipedia page, it seems that Garfield should be in the running for this honor.
And it was the Hoover’s that spoke Chinese. There was a Final Jeopardy question about this a couple months ago.
I can sort of verify Garfield. At least, I remember reading that about one of the late-19th-century presidents, that he could write Greek and Latin simultaneously with different hands. It certainly was not Wilson.
You’re right - I had a brain hiccup.
I would say hoover. He got bad press, because people belived that he caused the Depression-which wasn’t true. His policies exacerbated the depression, but FDR did far worse-the country had sarted to emerge from the worst by 1934-only to plunge into a secondary depression (in 1936). But you don’t read about that one-because democratic historians think that FDR’s “New Deal” solved the depression-it didn’t!
Franklin Pierce was pretty smart-but a disaster as a president. Reagan was not an intellectual-but he realized that his job was to put competent people in charge-not run everything himself.
carter was “book smart”-but a disaster-why? because he surrounded himself with incompetent advisors.
The war solved the depression, the new deal probably kept us from going into another one.
Hoover’s main problem was that he believed in the free market too much. He was too stubborn to do anything about the economic crisis befalling the nation.
My vote goes to Jefferson too. That’s a tough act to beat.
Wow.
I’d like to know how the person who graduated first in his high school class did in life, and also the person who graduated first in his college class, and of course the two people who finished ahead of him in law school.
There’s four people whom I can imagine all at one point said something like “hmph! He’s not so great, I graduated higher than he did!”
What’s that got to do with being smart?
I’ve often noticed bilingualism being held up as a an indicator of intelligence when the speaker is a native born American, but no one ever thinks it’s extraordinary for millions of immigrants to be able to speak English.
I think Bush is very smart, smarter than average at least, but not intellectual. His handlers/the GOP have really played up the “stoopid” meme too, because it’s so easy to weasel out of things. “Don’t mind me, I’m stuuuuupid! WEEEE!” spoken every time something else breaks.
See also: His ranch in Texas.
Could you quote some examples?
I agree. Personally, I don’t think it is possible for a stupid man to become US president.
Given how many 19th Century presidents were pretty much self-educated and wound up with distinguished careers (even ignoring their presidencies) one could make a case for at least a dozen or so.
But at the top of the list, I’d still go with Jefferson.
I think bilingualism is a matter of degree. Someone who is Spanish being able to speak French and/or Italian is not as impressive as someone who speaks two languages which not only from different families, but don’t even use the same concept for the written form.
And let’s not forget that there are several types of intelligence. (BTW, can anyone confirm the Tokyo skyline sketch on there as accurate?)
[h/j]
So, I realize you probably mean that as an arrow sign, not a greater than sign. But what is the official ranking?
CCC>GQ>GD>CS>GR>IMHO>MPSIMS>Pit>ATMB>CSR? 
How about Taft? After his presidency, he ended up as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court - rarely a position held by intellectual lightweights.
It is remarkable that when you think about the really smart US presidents, how many of them messed up in office.
Carter? Killer rabbit, stagflation, hostages.
Jefferson? Killed off the Navy just in time for the War of 1812.
Hoover? (Maybe the smartest of all) made the classic mistake of being elected in 1932.
Taft? (Another smart cookie) well, at least he was forgettable.
It might not be that much of an indicator of intelligence as such, but it certainly speaks to a person’s intellectual curiosity and ambition. An immigrant to the United States more or less has to speak English in order to avoid the very lowest sorts of poverty. If you didn’t grow up speaking English, this means you learn it or you fail. For that matter, even Europeans face very strong incentives to learn at least one extra language - with so many other countries so close by, you close off a lot of very attractive options if you can only speak one European language.
For Americans, it’s different. We have a population of over 300 million people, almost all of whom speak English. We span a continent, for Pete’s sake. It’s entirely possible to have a rich, fulfilling career in one language only, and most people do. So, for someone to go to the effort of becoming fluent in a foreign language - especially a non-European language - means they aren’t just doing it because they have to. They’re doing it because they want to, and that says something very interesting about a person.
Disclaimer: IANB (I Am Not Bilingual).
Just who I was going to mention.
(But Jefferson and Lincoln are 1(a) and 1(b) in my rankings.)
Here’s one: Prior to the debates with Kerry, it was put out that he only had to not look terrible to succeed. Since he was so dumb and bad at debating, to not be embarrassed would be good enough.
There was a funny SNL skit about this. In it, Kerry did the same thing, pointing out how he got C-'s at Yale. Each one tried to one-up the other by claiming to be dumber. By the end, Bush said, “Let’s face it, I’m functionally retarded.”