Speaking of IQs and SATs

[Guest]

A friend sent me this, I don't have the reference but I'm sure the report can be found via Google. - Perdita
---------------------------

In a report published Monday, the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania, detailed its findings of a four month study of the intelligence quotient of President George W. Bush. Since 1973, the Lovenstein Institute has published its research to the educational community on each new president, which includes the famous "IQ" report among others.

There have been twelve presidents over the past 50 years, from F.D. Roosevelt to G.W. Bush, who were rated based on scholarly achievements: 1. writings that they produced without aid of staff, 2. their ability to speak with clarity.

Several other psychological factors were considered. All were combined and scored using the Swanson/Crain system of intelligence ranking. The study determined the following IQs of each president as accurate to within five percentage points.

In order by presidential term:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt [D]142,
Harry S Truman [D]132,
Dwight David Eisenhower [R]122
John Fitzgerald Kennedy [D]174,
Lyndon Baines Johnson [D]126,
Richard Milhous Nixon [R]155
Gerald R. Ford [R]121,
James Earle Carter [D]175,
Ronald Wilson Reagan [R]105
George Herbert Walker Bush [R]098,
William Jefferson Clinton [D]182,
George Walker Bush [R]091

Ranked by IQ:

182 . . William Jefferson Clinton [D]
175 . . James Earle Carter [D]
174 . . John Fitzgerald Kennedy [D]
155 . . Richard Milhous Nixon [R]
147 . . Franklin Delano Roosevelt [D]
132 . . Harry S Truman [D]
126 . . Lyndon Baines Johnson [D]
122 . . Dwight David Eisenhower [R]
121 . . Gerald R. Ford [R]
105 . . Ronald Wilson Reagan [R]
098 . . George Herbert Walker Bush [R]
091 . . George Walker Bush [R]

The six Republican presidents of the past 50 years had an average IQ of115.5, with President Nixon having the highest at 155. President George W. Bush rated the lowest of all the Republicans with an IQ of 91.

The six Democratic presidents had IQs with an average of 156, with President Clinton having the highest IQ, at 182. President Lyndon B. Johnson was rated the lowest of all the Democrats with an IQ of 126. No president other than Carter [D] has released his actual IQ (176).

Among comments made concerning the specific testing of President G. W. Bush, his low ratings are due to his apparently difficult command of the English language in public statements, his limited use of vocabulary (6,500 words for Bush versus an average of 11,000 words for other presidents), his lack of scholarly achievements other than an MBA, and an absence of any body of work which could be studied on an intellectual
basis.

The complete report documents the methods and procedures used to arrive at these ratings, including depth of sentence structure and voice stress confidence analysis. "All the Presidents prior to George W. Bush had a least one book under their belt, and most had written several white papers during their education or early careers. Not so with President Bush," Dr. Lovenstein said. "He has no published works or writings, which made it more difficult to arrive at an assessment. We relied more heavily on transcripts of his unscripted public speaking."

The Lovenstein Institute of Scranton Pennsylvania think tank includes high caliber historians, psychiatrists, sociologists, scientists in human behavior, and psychologists. Among their ranks are Dr.Werner R. Lovenstein, world-renowned sociologist, and Professor Patricia F. Dilliams, a world-respected psychiatrist.

 

[A7inchPhildo]

Not bursting any bubbles but that is a far cry on how to come to a persons IQ.

I would think the study favored Democrats not that it is going to do any good. As we all know to be elected as the President has nothing I mean nothing to to with intellectual abilities or achievments.

It is who can play the Sax, who has been in the movies with a monkey, who's dady was a president...

This study might have worked years ago. Not today obviously.

 

[shereads]

I would think the study favored Democrats not that it is going to do any good.

How so?

It's often said that the media in the U.S. is controlled by liberals.(Less often, now that Fox News Network has proven that a "fair and balanced" approach is able to cement people's misconceptions about current events).

I've always wondered why, if one accepts the disputed theory of liberal media, it shouldn't be assumed that the better informed someone is, the more likely that he or she will see things in a certain way.

Maybe that applies to intelligence as well.



::ducks and runs, leaving for the office as I would have half an hour ago if I hadn't found perdita's new thread::

 

[Couture]

I'm sorry, but as much as I wish otherwise, this is a hoax.

And George is smarter than people give him credit for. It takes real hard-headed smartness to run up the kind of deficit he has. Remember how much of a problem Richard Pryor had getting rid of all that money in Brewster's Millions. Well, Bush has proven himself near genius in terms of spending large sums of money.

 

[Guest]

 

[shereads]

The reason it's such a good hoax is that the list looks just about right. Nixon was a crafty old bastard, you must admit.

BTW, our president was not only a Yalie, he was a cheerleader at Yale. Try to find a yearbook photo online. And good luck to you. Pictures of Bush as a boy cheerleader are about as easy to find as Osama, the WMD, and our boy's missing military records.

 

[Guest]

Ha ha, thanks Pierce. I kept thinking it was joke but my friend insisted. I like the site.

Perdita

 

[Couture]

The reason it's such a good hoax is that the list looks just about right. Nixon was a crafty old bastard, you must admit.

BTW, our president was not only a Yalie, he was a cheerleader at Yale. Try to find a yearbook photo online. And good luck to you. Pictures of Bush as a boy cheerleader are about as easy to find as Osama, the WMD, and our boy's missing military records.

You can keep the cheerleader pictures, I want to see him kissing Geronimo's skull and porking the dead goat along with the rest of his Skull and Bones Secret Society friends.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I don't know that anyone has considered this, but I think his handlers keep GWB such a wretched public speaker on purpose. Surely if they wanted to imporve his ability a few lessons in public speaking would do wonders. I think they like him sounding like and ignorant rube.

In the first place it plays well to his "common touch", especially for a man raised with so many advantages, but I suspect there is an even more important reason.

Spin.

If you think about it, even on common things he says it sometimes takes his handlers to explain what he meant. Suppose Dubya were to make a really damageing mistake? Something akin to Howard Dean's scream I mean, but where the words rather than the enthusiasm were key. Think how easy it's going to be for them to say:

"Oh, you know Geroge, this is what he meant,"

And folks will buy it.

-Colly

 

[minsue]

I don't know that anyone has considered this, but I think his handlers keep GWB such a wretched public speaker on purpose. Surely if they wanted to imporve his ability a few lessons in public speaking would do wonders. I think they like him sounding like and ignorant rube.

In the first place it plays well to his "common touch", especially for a man raised with so many advantages, but I suspect there is an even more important reason.

Spin.

If you think about it, even on common things he says it sometimes takes his handlers to explain what he meant. Suppose Dubya were to make a really damageing mistake? Something akin to Howard Dean's scream I mean, but where the words rather than the enthusiasm were key. Think how easy it's going to be for them to say:

"Oh, you know Geroge, this is what he meant,"

And folks will buy it.

-Colly

I've always believed he plays his stupidity up, Colly, although I'll still mock him for it. I think it's so that people will be impressed whenever he does anything marginally well. I think he's been playing that game his entire life.

- Mindy

 

[kellycummings]

I'm going to have to agree that he plays up the stupidity. I'm not a fan of our president by any stretch of the imagination but I don't think he's as dumb as he comes off.
It doesn't matter anyway. Clinton really is a genius and look at the stupid things he did. Being president doesn't require one to be highly intelligent. The biggest prerequisites for the job are being a good speaker (GWB I think is better than people give him credit for. His speech after 9-11 really was great.) and nowadays being at least semi-good looking.
The truly intelligent people are behind the scenes, writing speeches, making policy and manipulating other governments. In this day and age, the president is little more than a figurehead.
Am I rambling again? Oh well. LOL

 

[shereads]

I'm going to have to agree that he plays up the stupidity. I'm not a fan of our president by any stretch of the imagination but I don't think he's as dumb as he comes off.

Years ago, when the Doonesbury cartoon strip was still new and he began publishing collections of them in book form, there was one that i kept for years because the title was so great:

"The President Is Smarter Than You Think"

Now, you're thinking that's not so funny. But you see, back in the Reagan era which is when this book was published, the idea that people would need to be reassured about the intelligence of the president - of all people! - was startling.

It was, I swear it was. To accuse a president publically of being less than one of our best and brightest was cutting-edge humor. Not that there hadn't been dumb-ish presidents before, but that it was considered something to be embarrassed about.

I disagree that he's not as dumb as he seems, kelly. Read the transcript of his interview on Meet the Press last Sunday, posted by Pure on the Sorry/Political/Asses thread, and you'll see someone who's not sure of his story and working hard to stay on script. I think how someone speaks without notes, especially when addressing complicated topics, is a measure of intelligence and involvement.

Being a spokes-head for someone like Dick Cheney is a choice, on the part of the people who put the two of them together as a team, and on the part of each man, whether Bush would ever admit it to himself or not. He's lazy, if you believe any of the accounts of how he operates in a meeting. He wants to 'cut to the chase and get the job done' because he relies on others to have done the thinking for him and to have made the touch choices. When Clinton's people faulted him for his working style, they'd say he was too involved, a micro-manager who was interested in every aspect of government.

Reagan and Bush are both hand-puppets, but that doesn't mean that a smarter and more committed president has to be a figurehead. You're right about one thing; a political figure these days who doesn't have television "presence" had better forget about the presidency. Lincoln wouldn't have made it. He was not only unattractive, but is said to have had a high, unpleasantly nasal voice. I guess people were better listeners. There's a lot of laziness now on both sides.

 

[thenry]

So two things:

First, actual IQ tests are based on more than verbal and writing skills. Math, pattern recognition, spacial skills, etc.

Second, while I do not know an actual IQ, his SAT was something like 1300, low normal for Yale at the time, which translates to a roughly 130 IQ.

 

[Edward Teach]

This rings true, although I'd have thought Dad was smarter than son. Dad sounds more intelligent anyway.

But alas, this appears to be a hoax.

A well done hoax though, with its own website and within, a really cool feature.

I followed Perdita's suggestion of finding it on the web. I'd hoped to intellecturally bludgeon certain stubborn supporters I know.

However, as we all know, intelligence is but one value of one's worth. Too bad there are not tests for honesty, integrity, generosity, empathy and fairness.

Edit to add : Oops, spent too much time researching and composing. Couture beat me to the punch.

The "hoax" site is a hoax.
Perdita is right.
Pierce is wrong.

The "hoax" site is CIA/NSA disinformation.

Ed

Ps- Gotta run. Just received a call from some guy named Ashcroft.

 

[deliciously_naughty]

Clinton was brilliant. The man went to Yale on scholarship and then got a Rhodes Scholarship. They don't just hand those out...you actually have to earn them. He was a great public speaker, charismatic and he made some great advances for us. I wish he could've been reelected...he would've creamed W

 

[Edward Teach]

Following are things I have actually heard people say. I suppose most everyone has.

Being dumb is rather quaint.

Who needs a smart president anyway, RR proved that.

I'd rather he be dumb than screwing an intern.

He can't be too dumb, somebody like Laura wouldn't have married him if he were.

 

[kellycummings]

I watched the Meet the Press interview and agree that he had problems with the whole thing and seemed to be struggling with it. I didn't mean that he was actually intelligent, just smarter than he looks. He is not as smart as Clinton or Carter or even Nixon. And I agree that not all presidents are mere figureheads but it seems to be the case more often than not.
I really think it just depends on your opinion of the man. Some people will swear he's one of our best leaders while others think he's the anti-christ.

 

[shereads]

I watched the Meet the Press interview and agree that he had problems with the whole thing and seemed to be struggling with it. I didn't mean that he was actually intelligent, just smarter than he looks. He is not as smart as Clinton or Carter or even Nixon. And I agree that not all presidents are mere figureheads but it seems to be the case more often than not.
I really think it just depends on your opinion of the man. Some people will swear he's one of our best leaders while others think he's the anti-christ.

I know. There are people in the Cuban exile community here in Miami who have legitimate reason to be grateful to Nixon. What's unfortunate is that history gets rewritten to fit an image. Literally, in this case. During the Elian Gonzalez chapter of Miami history (there is a museum to the poor kid in Little Havana) the private school he attended received a lot of local publicity. A history textbook mentioned nothing about Watergate in its chapter on President Nixon except that he had some enemies who forced him out of office.


Edited to add: I don't think GWB is smart enough to be evil. Cheney is the anti-christ.