And you thought Bush is a dunce
 TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ MONDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2004 04:16:38 PM ]
Washington: President Bush is not a bozo; in fact, he may be a near-brainiac.
 
 
An American researcher has challenged popular belief and water cooler jokes about Bush's cerebral limitations by arguing - on the basis of available records - that he is not only smart but has a higher IQ than his rival John Kerry.

Based on various academic and military school records including his SAT score (1206), conservative columnist Steve Sailer has calculated that Bush's IQ is between 125 and 130.

That would put him in the "very superior intelligence" category and in the 95th percentile, which means only one out of 20 people would score higher.

In comparison, similar (but not same) records and tests suggest John Kerry's IQ is only around 120, says Sailer in a commentary on the conservative blog www.vdare.com.

Sailer looked at school records and tests both men took when there were enrolling into the US military at age 22 and extrapolated the results to arrive his conclusion

"They provide no evidence that Kerry is smarter. If anything, Bush is smarter than Kerry," he concluded.

Popular folklore though has it that Bush is the dumbest American president in history, and one urban legend placed his IQ at a sub-normal 91. A former political rival famously described him as being "born with a silver foot in his mouth."

Sailer rubbishes such reports, pointing out that Bush has two Ivy League degrees (although he got a C average at Yale), while Kerry not only did not graduate with honors from Yale, but went on to do law at the rather more modest Boston College.

Sailor also suggests that Kerry, who was two years Bush's senior at Yale, got in when admission was less meritocratic.

Yale tightened up entrance requirements later, he says, revealing that the "sudden arrival of so many brainy, bookish, leftwing nobodies may be a major reason Bush became so alienated from Yale during his later years there."

Alma Mater to Kerry and Bush both, Yale University, incidentally, is named after Elihu Yale, an English merchant who was the East India Company's Governor of Madras in 1687 when he was tapped for funds to start the university.

Sailer describes the difference between Bush and Kerry in two words: Bush is competitive and Kerry is ambitious.

Bush, by nature and by upbringing in the hyper-rivalrous Bush-Walker clan, is driven by a need to win. For Kerry, in contrast, being President is the end, the goal of the last 45 years of his life.

Sailer however acknowledges that Kerry would probably beat Bush on a current events quiz, "since Bush has never seemed particularly interested in learning about the duties of his job (as opposed to winning and keeping his job, at which he shows great cunning)."

In contrast, "Kerry has been fascinated by the Presidency since his adolescence."

Republican blogs rejoiced at the word of the US President's high IQ, although some conservative quarters are happy to let Kerry bask in the glory of being an intellectual.

"The only election Bush ever lost was a 1978 Congressional race in the Texas Panhandle, where his opponent made fun of Bush for having degrees from Yale and Harvard," writes Sailer.

"Bush resolved never to get out-dumbed again."