Shrub: Lowest IQ of All Presidents of Past 50 Years

I was looking at the "Urban Legends" page a little while a go, and I thought I remembered their being a discussion on cc.net about Bush's IQ. Mr. Paige gave a link to the www.snopes.com that probably has the same basic information, but for some reason I can't seem to get it to come up. I think this is a great site when it comes to debunking rumors that tend to float around--not just about Bush, but that's the one I happened to run across that I remember there being a discussion about.

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bliq-bush.htm

 

That report was a hoax. It did manage to dupe many people, including Gary Trudeau of Doonesbury fame. Mr. Trudeau, the good liberal Democrat footsoldier that he is, even went so far as to use it as the basis for one of his cartoons.

 

Bush's IQ is certainly above average. The problem is his ability to use it for many things.

Gail Sheehey in a history of Bush going back to his failure to gain admittance to the local high school, St. John's, despite family connections details how his twin problems of attention deficit disorder and dyslexia have created problems for him during his lifetime.

No time to find the article. Interesting. It also states how these people develop coping mechanisms such as the ability to pick up on social cues quickly to a very high degree in their attempts to deal with the problem.

When all is said and done Bush's intelligence isn't the problem it is his upper class values and world view that don't help ordinary people at home or abroad.

 

I'm an ordinary person. His views help me.

 

What a timely little tidbit you have offered. Have some class. Even if what you quote is true, who gives a ****? The presidency is not about staying up all night figuring our quantum physics theories. It's about delegating and emotion. I cannot think of a post that would have been more improperly timed. You suck.

 

This discussion leads to nothing but more animosity b/w all of us. practice what you preach, hypocrite.

Gore lost, get over it.

 

FLush this thread. It is based on a hoax.

 

Yes, it was a hoax. I think Trudoue (sp?) sort of apologized. Besides anyone who takes a cartoon based on political parodies too seriously has too much time on their hands. One thing is for sure, that cartoonist is pretty open about his political leanings underlying his attempts to entertain, that is more many other pseudo-objective political columnists and radio hosts present themselves as.

If this was not a great example of hypocracy in back to back comments I have never seen it. Glnych has a right to his opinion, it is not like he threatened national security or belittled others views about how to respond to the terrorists acts in this thread.

 

In University Blue's defense, this was a thread that was started back in July. It has only recently been brought back up to prove that it was a hoax.

 

I think President Bush needs all the help he can get at a time like this. Any President would, really. You're assessment of the role of the President is pretty r****ded, though. The implication of what you are saying is that intelligence and hard work are not important for a president. The presidency is about "delegating and emotion?" Really? Why don't we elect a the Jack in the Box guy..he can delegate and get us all fired about, um...what is the President of the United States supposed to do again? I grant you that a President cannot do every single job him/herself and that being a leader requires a certain ammount of an emotional connection with the electorate, but the job has always been more than that. Just like another position of responsibility, Presidents must exert cognitive attention and discipline to make the hard decisions that only they can make. This is not "staying up all night figuring our quantum physics." This is called being a leader.
If Bush is not ultimately responsible for these kind of decisions then he should not be President. He can go back to his ranch and play video games. I think he is doing better than I could have hoped for given the circumstances. Before this crisis it didn't seem that he was up to the demands of the job. Perhaps the times are forcing him to take his job more seriously and I support him. Still, Chance, we are presumably in a democracy..should everyone fall in line just because we are told to? Maybe if more Americans held their leadership accountable for a foreign policy that has too often been at odds with traditional American values of democracy and self-determination we would not be in the difficult position we are in now.

 

Good point.

I know many very smart people that have scored <1100. I know of at least 5 that were straight A students.

On the other hand, I know people who really aren't that smart, who scored >1300.

The SAT is a test you train for. If you really train, learn the vocabulary lists, etc... you will score well.


Also, IQ, from what I understand, is the potential to learn. Like we have learned from our friend Kelvin Cato, potential isn't everything.

That lists seems bogus.

Below 80 is mentally handy-capped(To a degree)

Below 70 is mentally handy-capped(To a greater degree)

And, I believe 100 is somewhere around average.

Bush is no Clinton in terms of intelligence, but he's no dummy.

 

So we're talking completely straight A students, and they couldn't pull an 1100. For real?

 

Yes...Well, not straight A(How many of us are), but close.

IMO, the SAT is not a reasonable college entrance exam at all.

 

I have read many of your posts in the past month before I registered, and once again, you are full of strong opinions based on little fact. St Johns is not just "the local school". St. John's is arguably one the of finest private schools in this entire nation. Please do a better job of disguising your bias next time, lol.

 

Yeah, I saw that whole St. John's thing, too... While it is certainly one of the best schools in Texas (by many accounts, the best in Houston), I can definitely recall (I graduated from SJS so I can speak with some authority on this) that there were plenty of poor students who scored higly on their SAT's. At the same time, there were also some who were straight A students (and yes, I mean straight A's for 4 years of high school) who scored less that 1000 on their SAT's. I really don't think SAT's are that great of an indicator for anyone's ability to do a job well. Nor is the IQ test.

That said, I still think Bush is clever for surrounding himself with people who know his job better than he does even if he isn't the brightest bulb out there. I personally disagree with most of his domestic and foreign policies and see them counterproductive, and, yes, you can criticize me for doing so. While I can certainly understand why everyone believes that it essential to unite in a time of crisis, I think you should always (ALWAYS!) be able to express loyal opposition within the system. If that involves making fun of him, so be it. Honestly, I can't see how all the people who haven't liked Gore or Clinton would suddenly stop poking fun just because others think we should all be sharing the same opinions and "steely resolve"... It should not only be expected that people make fun of the president, but it is healthy. I don't see how it detracts from my stance against terrorism, makes me a member of the Taliban (as a certain Spurs fan would say), or makes me un-American.

 

It sounds like he was quoting Gail Sheehey, so if you want to get all pissy at someone, whine at her.

 

Just for the record, the "A" in SAT refers to "Aptitude". Aptitude is neither solely intelligence (or ability) nor learned effort (e.g., achievement). In theory, the SAT should fall somewhere between IQ scores (intelligence) and measures of achievement (e.g., grades, Achievement tests scores--e.g., AP exams). In terms of predicting college or professional success, no one marker (SAT, high school grades, etc.) is overwhelmingly good but they do a little better in combination and either are better than such things as "personal interviews".


Of course the SAT mainly focuses on verbal and mathematical aptitude, and is pretty well know there are quite a few other relatively independent elements of intelligence (one pretty much universally accepted other example is spatial ability) so there is another reason why it is a limited marker of intelligence.

 

Never said St. John's wasn't a very good school. Bush wound up going to Kinkaid according to the article, which is also a good school, but wealth counts a little more there. I was talking about his problems and why at times he seems smart and at times very dumb to be a president.

Note I said I believe Bush's IQ is above normal.

Regarding IQ. For me an important fact that I remember from a psychology class is about Crick and Watson, the famous guys who got the Nobel for "discovering" dna or breaking the code or something. One had an IQ of 100 and the other had the typical Nobel Laureate 150 or more.

Funny thing I was talking to a psychiatric social worker just last night. She was telling me that Bush's use of cocaine and heavy drinking might be giving him a little organic brain damage. (I tend to discount this as she is a liberal, but that was her professional opinion.)

I thought that I would give you that little tidbit, for what it is worth..

 

Glynch

In her "professional" opinion does she have factual knowledge as to how much George Bush drank and about his use of cocaine? I would be hard pressed to think someone can offer a "professional" opinion on something that they have no direct knowlege of.

 

Bobrek, you know what, you're right, even though she treats problems due to addictions.

The whole thread is rather stupid. Though I did find Sheehy's hypotheses to be of interest in explaining Bush's gaffes.