[knuthom]

Good article. I am amazed at how many university professors think they have cornered the market on intelligence. I was talking to one recently who was appalled that I could question his judgement. He had an advanced degree and spent years studying the subject. How dare I think that my opinion was as valid as his.

[ClearCase_guy]

America is the land of the Practical Man, not the Intellectual. It really doesn't matter if you're smarter than everyone else -- it matters what you can do.

Bush has a great track record of success. (I also happen to think he's smarter than Clinton. His educational achievements alone bear that out.)

[grimalkin]

Excellent!

[Restorer]

There's an enormous difference between technical expertise and general wisdom. One of my favorite saying is from Will Rogers, "We are all ignorant, just about different things."

I have worked for 30 years in a field where I have to make recommendations to homeowners about the repairs their property needs. It is astonishing how many "smart" people think their medical or law degree makes them expert in my field.

That said, if you were arguing with the professor about technicalities of his field, maybe he was right.

[Young Werther]

I grew up in New Jersey and didn't travel outside of the New England area until I entered the service after graduation from college. I was schooled at Keesler AFB Biloxi Miss and was stationed in Texas for 4 years.

At the time I was a young, arrogant know-it-all from Nu Joisey but soon learned an interesting affirmation from good ole southern boy....

"I may be dumn but I'm not stupid!"

It took alittle while but I finally got it. I don't think the Dimbulbs ever will!!!

[js1138]

Steven Spielberg denies the Castro quote. I suppose, having slept with the dog, he is surprised to have fleas.

[Congressman Billybob]

This is not just a good article. It is an excellent article. I've spent half my life in the "arrogant camp," the Yalies and others who think they're better than everyone else because they're smarter than everyone else. The other half of my life I've spent in the real world, where smart is measured by getting things done and doing them right.

I know three definitions of "genius." There's the standard one, of people who ace the standardized tests. There's Einstein's defnition, "Someone who becomes an adult without losing a child's sense of wonder." And there's the practical one, "Someone who doesn't make the smae mistake once." I am sick to death of people who merely meet the standard definition, including myself at an earlier age. I've met entirely too many tenured PhDs who "coouldn't pour p*ss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel."

Instead of that I value, and choose to associate with, people who seek to live by the second two definitions of genius. I try to do that, and often fail. But I know that the real work in the real world is accomplished by people like that. And every day I appreciate the fact that finally a majority of our government consists of that kind of people. We have already seen the disasters that result, when our "leaders" have (alleged) intelligence that is divorced from either morality or common sense.

Thank you for posting this. The thinking behind this article is one of the reasons for the column I wrote this week, which is up on FR and UPI.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, now up on UPI and FR (the title is not a misprint), "Memorial Day 2033."

[Conspiracy Guy]

If GWB is dumb, I'm even dumber. I'm so dumb that it makes me proud that he's our President.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Most excellent article, although I believe that Spileberg has vehemently denied ever making the "8 hours" comment about Castro.

[opticoax]

Actor David Clellon

Surprisingly, not a pillow-biter

[big_Rob]

The purported listing of the IQ's of the presidents is fake. Yes, made-up, phoney, false. Try a google search for "president IQ" and see for yourself.

[MattAMiller]

One of my best professors in college had a sign in his office that read "I'd rather be educated than sophisticated." If only the rest of them could see it that way.

[Prodigal Son]

I met a very intelligent woman once at a bar. A few hours later she made a remark that I find funny to this very day.

She said:

Oh sh!t! I forgot to take my pill!

True story...

[newgeezer]

I think you'll like this article, for no particular reason. ;O)

[Dick Bachert]

Was Clinton's 182 for the BIG head -- or the tiny one between his legs.

My guess is the tiny one must have come in around 200 something as it was constantly outsmarting the big one.

[dark_lord]

Try attending a Mensa meeting some time. A bigger bunch of neurotic individuals you will never meet. Being able to take tests well is only one facet of "intelligence".

[Billthedrill]

The "article of faith" that GWB is stupid goes considerably deeper than that - most university liberals truly believe a priori that to be conservative is to be stupid, and evidence to the contrary before their eyes results in such vapidities as "you don't seem the type" when one of their number turns out to be an NRA member or a registered Republican.

But it is, after all, a bit difficult to make substantive statements about the distribution of intelligence when no one seems to agree on its constituent elements or the criteria for measuring them. From this we get the recent and risible "emotional intelligence" continuum, proposed principally IMHO by those who don't show a great deal of any other kind. It is no accident that university majors in the areas proposing to measure this elusive quality, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, are populated by the ones who couldn't handle engineering calculus or classical languages. They can, however, sling some serious jargon and do seem to do well on talk shows...

[Consort]

The kid was intelligent but he didn't act very wise, assuming that wisdom is the correct use of knowledge. Should the degree of our comprehension, e.g., intelligence, be used as a criteria in determining the degree of our responsibility for our actions by those who judge us?

[Publius6961]

Like millions of intellectual elites and wannabes, this woman presumes an inherent connection between intelligence and goodness, and between intelligence and wisdom, as though there exists some objective domain of ethicality to which Mensa members are automatically admitted.

How about intelligence and common sense?
My experience universally has been that there is an inverse relationship in that case.

I think of Bobby Fisher, a functional moron (literally) in the real world, as one textbook example.

[Shooter 2.5]

“Nothing you will learn in your studies here will be the slightest possible use to you in afterlife, save only this; that if you work hard and intelligently, you should be able to detect when a person is talking rot. And that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole purpose of education.
Professor John Alexander Smith
Oxford 1914



It's ironic that this is from Oxford and didn't the bent one get kicked out of there?

I commend the Freepers for using their intelligence to see through the lies of the left. It's the ones who see the world with rose colored glasses that fall for the lies and distortions of the dem party.

[Just another Joe]

We live in an age when pure intelligence is valued and honored beyond all bounds of reason. There's almost a cult of worship around it, particularly among intellectual elites on the left--those who set the agenda for schools and media.

Then why am I not a god by now.
These people need to worship.............ME!