Do you believe you're smarter than George Bush?

[tik 🪀✨]

It's my view that 'Bush is an idiot' jokes are easy and that they've become so prolific that they usually amount to stupid jokes for stupid people. The stereotype that the President of the United States is inept, incompetent, dim witted, stubborn, and foolish saturates late night stand up routines and is just a well understood fact.

It's one thing to say that Bush is inept at handling the responsibilities of the executive branch, but a whole other thing to say that he is an idiot. Perhaps people like to believe that they are smarter than the President. Many of us spout off rants about how we would know how better to handle the issues facing Bush, but do you honestly believe that you are smarter than him? This does not have to do with policy decisions, gaffes during speaches, or anything directly related to the job of being the President, this is straight intelligence.

Semi-related: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkQcnDCjyuQ - 'debate' on Scarborough Country featuring a lengthy display of inarticulate gaffes by the president before they discuss his intelligence.

[tik 🪀✨]

No,

Bush just has a speech impediment, imo, that makes him look dumb.

He is more intelligent then the average President.

--James

He's certainly inarticulate, but saying he's more intelligent than the average President is laughable.

[Dr. Cynic]

Well, I can't prove I am, and he can't prove I'm not.

He does come off as this inarticulate country bumpkin, but I think that is a political tool used to get the blame off of him and onto someone else who comes off as more intelligent than he is.

Is he smart? No real way of proving he isn't

Is he lucky? Most definately

Was he a drunkard? Yes

My uncle Barry is living proof that past alcoholisim can ruin your intelligence... He's a smart man, but he boozed up in his past, and thusly his once photographic memory is gone.

I think the same may have happened to George. It's possible.

[RRB]

He is a born again which means that he believes that the sky is going to open up in a ball of fire and corpses are going to fly up to Heaven.  No sane person with a brain cell to rub against the next could believe this.  Therefore my answer is "probably".

[Wakie]

Like George Bush I graduated from one of the top universities in the world (the year I graduated from Carnegie Mellon it was the #2 computer science program in world).

Unlike George Bush I was not a legacy and got in on merit.  Unlike George Bush I graduated w/ a GPA above 3.0.

Like George Bush I am financially successful.  Unlike George Bush my father was a construction worker and I haven't inherited anything financial from him (certainly not connections).

Like George Bush I frequently am responsible for presenting difficult material to audiences who sometimes have a hard time grasping it and who ask tough questions.  Unlike George Bush I do a good job of it.

Unlike George Bush I am willing to accept criticism and open to the idea that it is possible that I can be wrong (and if you can prove it to me I'll change my strategy on a dime).

All that being said ... yeah, I think I am probably smarter than George Bush.  But then again, he doesn't set the bar very high does he?

[Everett]

Probably, but then again I don't have a particularly high opinion of Business majors.

[TheresNoMoney]

Like George Bush I am financially successful. 

Bush was never financially successful by his own merits. All of his opportunities came from his father, whether it was running an oil company (in which he failed miserably) or becoming the owner of the Texas Rangers.

You have a huge leg up on him.

[Sam Spade]

He's President and you're not.  Getting to that level a awful lot of intelligence regardless about how improperly you may feel (or I may feel) he uses it.

You don't get the Presidency handed to you, regardless of your opportunities in life.  That's a nice strawman there.

[Wakie]

He's President and you're not.  Getting to that level a awful lot of intelligence regardless about how improperly you may feel (or I may feel) he uses it.

You don't get the Presidency handed to you, regardless of your opportunities in life.  That's a nice strawman there.

If his name were George Jones and he were the son of a rancher he wouldn't have even been Governor of TX.

The truth is that George Bush is a figure head.  Blaming him for the state of the country is like blaming Ronald McDonald when you get a bad cheeseburger.  Bush has been managed by 2 characters: Karl Rove & Dick Cheney.  Rove leads on the political decisions and Cheney on the policy.

Being someone else's mindless puppet/figurehead doesn't make you smart.

[J. J.]

I think I can beat Bush at Trivial Pursuit.  I don't vote on the basis of who I can beat at Trivial Pursuit.

[Sam Spade]

He's President and you're not.  Getting to that level a awful lot of intelligence regardless about how improperly you may feel (or I may feel) he uses it.

You don't get the Presidency handed to you, regardless of your opportunities in life.  That's a nice strawman there.

If his name were George Jones and he were the son of a rancher he wouldn't have even been Governor of TX.

Maybe, maybe not.  Sons of ranchers have been governors of Texas before and will certainly be again.  Moreover, his father was unsuccessful everytime he ran for statewide office in Texas; his family name

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That's your opinion about matters.  Like I said, he was elected President (or at least came very close to it, if you're jfern) and you're not.  It's very hard to win election to the Presidency, regardless of what some here may think.

[MaC]

yes, in some ways.  I do believe in the multiple intelligence theories though.

[opebo]

Doesn't matter - he's richer, and therefore better in every way in our society.

[Wakie]

He's President and you're not.  Getting to that level a awful lot of intelligence regardless about how improperly you may feel (or I may feel) he uses it.

You don't get the Presidency handed to you, regardless of your opportunities in life.  That's a nice strawman there.

If his name were George Jones and he were the son of a rancher he wouldn't have even been Governor of TX.

Maybe, maybe not.  Sons of ranchers have been governors of Texas before and will certainly be again.  Moreover, his father was unsuccessful everytime he ran for statewide office in Texas; his family name

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That's your opinion about matters.  Like I said, he was elected President (or at least came very close to it, if you're jfern) and you're not.  It's very hard to win election to the Presidency, regardless of what some here may think.

Ok, let me put this another way ... w/o Frank Wills, George W Bush is never President, never Gov of Texas, and never owner of the Texas Rangers.

[nlm]

We (the posters on this board) don't have a way to measure his actual intellectual capacity, we can only guess based on the appearance of intellect he demonstrates. Based on that - he isn't the sharpest tack in the box. Beyond that - his intellectual curiosity appears to be severly stunted, and I would argue that intellectual curiosity is one of the most important traits a President can have. While appearances can be decieving - having a President that appears to be a dim wit lacking any intellectual curiosity isn't that great a thing for the country.

[SPC]

As Joe Biden would say, Yes.

[Citizen James]

Well, temptation would be to ask if a fifth grader is smarter than George Bush, but I'll just touch on that and move on.

As far as I recall, his sat scores were close to mine.  Granted, I have not spent the intervening years heavily drinking, nor do I have to dodge the question about previous cocaine use (I have never used it).

His bigger problems seem to be psychological.  Many would say that he fits the criteria for a dry drunk.  He seems intelectually incurious, having replaced hiding from unpleasant facts behind a bottle with denying them outright with a combination of heavy dogma and and a religious zeal in which he seems to mistake his will for His will and like so many before him acts as though any sin is acceptable as long as he claims to do it in the name of God (which I would consider to be a truer definition of taking the Lord's name in vain than any single vulgarity).

[Ferdinand]

It's possible.

[J. J.]

Well, temptation would be to ask if a fifth grader is smarter than George Bush, but I'll just touch on that and move on.

As far as I recall, his sat scores were close to mine.  Granted, I have not spent the intervening years heavily drinking, nor do I have to dodge the question about previous cocaine use (I have never used it).

His bigger problems seem to be psychological.  Many would say that he fits the criteria for a dry drunk.  He seems intelectually incurious, having replaced hiding from unpleasant facts behind a bottle with denying them outright with a combination of heavy dogma and and a religious zeal in which he seems to mistake his will for His will and like so many before him acts as though any sin is acceptable as long as he claims to do it in the name of God (which I would consider to be a truer definition of taking the Lord's name in vain than any single vulgarity).

Bush has hypoglycemia?

[12th Doctor]

No,

Bush just has a speech impediment, imo, that makes him look dumb.

He is more intelligent then the average President.

--James

He's certainly inarticulate, but saying he's more intelligent than the average President is laughable.

Acctually, I read a serious scientific report once that said that Bush's estimated IQ was between 119-127... making him 19-27 points higher than average and beating Clinton's estimated IQ by about 7 points.

Bush's problem is personality, not intellegence.

[Gabu]

Acctually, I read a serious scientific report once that said that Bush's estimated IQ was between 119-127... making him 19-27 points higher than average and beating Clinton's estimated IQ by about 7 points.

Bush's problem is personality, not intellegence.

How do you estimate a president's IQ?

[Aizen]

Acctually, I read a serious scientific report once that said that Bush's estimated IQ was between 119-127... making him 19-27 points higher than average and beating Clinton's estimated IQ by about 7 points.

Bush's problem is personality, not intellegence.

How do you estimate a president's IQ?

It doesn't matter how because that information came from a SERIOUS SCIENTIFIC REPORT. You can't argue with that

[Joe Biden 2020]

I chose Doubtfully.  Face it, you have to be intelligent to be President of the United States and 98 of the Senators have to be intelligent to be elected (the two exceptions being Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn).

He has a high intelligence and a very good personality in my opinion.  He, like most men, have a hard time admitting he's wrong.

To me, smarts isn't determined by whether you went to Ivy League schools, or Northwestern Oklahoma State University.  I will never say a Yale graduate is smarter than me based solely on the institution.  There are other factors that I believe President Bush, or President Clinton are smarter than I am.

[12th Doctor]

Acctually, I read a serious scientific report once that said that Bush's estimated IQ was between 119-127... making him 19-27 points higher than average and beating Clinton's estimated IQ by about 7 points.

Bush's problem is personality, not intellegence.

How do you estimate a president's IQ?

It doesn't matter how because that information came from a SERIOUS SCIENTIFIC REPORT. You can't argue with that

First off, it was a report which esstimated the IQ of every President this century.  There are ways of doing this analysing thought and speech patterns, along with writing styles.

And before you automatically dismiss the study out of hand, it acctually determined that Jimmy Carter was the most intellegent modern President.

I don't remember too much about it, as it was done pre-9/11

[Gabu]

Acctually, I read a serious scientific report once that said that Bush's estimated IQ was between 119-127... making him 19-27 points higher than average and beating Clinton's estimated IQ by about 7 points.

Bush's problem is personality, not intellegence.

How do you estimate a president's IQ?

It doesn't matter how because that information came from a SERIOUS SCIENTIFIC REPORT. You can't argue with that

First off, it was a report which esstimated the IQ of every President this century.  There are ways of doing this analysing thought and speech patterns, along with writing styles.

And before you automatically dismiss the study out of hand, it acctually determined that Jimmy Carter was the most intellegent modern President.

I don't remember too much about it, as it was done pre-9/11

I wasn't asking as if to say that I didn't believe it; I was asking because I was curious.  Do you have a link to it or anything?