Who is less intelligent: GW Bush or Sarah Palin

[hangfan91]

Simple question.

IMO I think Palin is less intelligent simply because she has no clue what she is talking about half the time and the other half brings god into conversation.

At least Bush knew what he wanted to say, but he was just a piss poor communicator and was not a confident speaker (at least as President).

[Modernity has failed us]

At least Bush went to Yale.

[IceSpear]

At least Bush went to Yale.

Eh...I'm sure Palin could've went to Yale too if her daddy was a president.

Still Palin though.

[Chance92]

Bush was just way too average for the job, whereas Palin is that special blend of both crazy and blindingly stupid.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Bush wasn't unintelligent. In fact, his genius move was to drop the elitist, East Coast WASPy snobbery that pretty much defines the rest of the Bush clan, in favour of that "I'm a small-town hick" act.  That way his liberal opponents all went for the easy elitist attacks, allowing BUsh to maintain a populist image.

Neither is Palin. She was just tragically unprepared for prime-time. An alternative planet where Palin was never chosen as veep could have kept her as a serious political player now, rather than the laughing stock she is right now.

[politicus]

At least Bush went to Yale.

Eh...I'm sure Palin could've went to Yale too if her daddy was a president.

Still Palin though.

Still, they must have some minimum criteria to keep up their reputation.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

Palin of course. Bush was probably faking it.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Bush invaded Iraq. Palin resigned as Governor and has made millions by saying what everybody who listens to her already thinks. Clearly Palin is the greater mind of the two.

[TDAS04]

Bush managed to be President.

[dead0man]

Palin might be the dumbest politician everybody knows the name of in a long long time.  Bush the Lesser was a lot of things, but dumb isn't one of them.

[Rockefeller GOP]

How the hell is this a question?!

[RR1997]

Palin of course.

[AggregateDemand]

Bush is a poor public speaker, but he doesn't really want for IQ. Palin strikes me as 100 IQ at best.

[NewYorkExpress]

Palin... Bush at least knew something about foreign policy, whereas they apparently had to tell Palin where Saudi Arabia was on the World Map.

[Paul Kemp]

How am I supposed to know?

[tpfkaw]

My HS history teacher, who is a very smart man and a Democrat, met Bush personally and had a long conversation with him; he thought that Bush was highly intelligent and well-informed.

If you look at videos of Bush speaking publicly, you see that he frequently reads speeches from a paper copy on his lectern instead of a teleprompter, and is probably a bit nearsighted, so he pauses and/or stumbles over words frequently.

That, combined with the natural tendency to ascribe every negative quality to one's political opponents, and classist disdain for his "Good Ol' Boy" act,* was what caused the charges of "stupidity" on his part.

*Which probably hurt Democrats quite a bit; the caricature of Bill Clinton as "Bubba" by coastal Republicans had similar effects.

(GWB was of course perfectly capable of turning his act on and off as needed).

Bush is a poor public speaker, but he doesn't really want for IQ. Palin strikes me as 100 IQ at best.

Palin's teleprompter malfunctioned halfway through her universally-praised* 45-minute 2008 convention speech and she ad-libbed the rest without skipping a beat. That's not something that a person of average or below-average intelligence is capable of doing. Palin is probably around an IQ of 110 with a high verbal component. GWB I'd say is around 125.

*At the height of Palinmania, but it pretty much holds up.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Palin is dumber. Bush is more incoherent.

[The Dowager Mod]

Palin is stupid.
Bush is just Intellectually lazy.

[anvi]

How the hell is this a question?!

This. 
If Palin is smart about anything, she hides it completely. 

Bush '43 is very intelligent--not an intellectual, but politically and socially, he is extremely smart. 

(it's easy to be fooled by intellectualism anyway.  I might be considered an intellectual because of my job, but I'm actually fairly stupid. Not kidding.)

[Mordecai]

The one who didn't become President.

[morgieb]

Yeah, would have to agree with most in this thread. Bush wasn't the brightest man to ever be President, was somewhat lazy and wasn't as bright as his dad and brother, but his folksiness was more of an act than Palin's and he does at least have some academic credentials. He's brighter than Palin and Perry at least (not a hard bar to clear, granted).

Granted, Palin has played the political game quite well since her VP run, but it's hard to know whether she actually has a brain or just has really good advisers. Plus her time as the nomination for Vice-President just led to gaffe-after-gaffe. At least Bush was somewhat competent while campaigning at the top of the ticket.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Bush's act is just that.

[ingemann]

I don't think either are stupid or even average intelligence. But I think Bush was  more knowledge about the world around him, he may not have know who the president of Kazakhstan were, but he knew where it lay, while Palin likely didn't. Some would say that make her stupid, but honestly it's just make her uninterested in geography.

[Del Tachi]

They're both smarter than most posters on this Forum.

[tpfkaw]

Perry isn't unintelligent either (watch his more recent public appearances), but he was clearly whacked out on Xanax for a large portion of his 2012 run (in particular, his infamous debate appearance and that speech in NH).