I'm sympathetic that GWB was smarter than he seemed, but there was plenty of evidence that he wasn't smart in the sense of the very curious and thoughtful high-functioning people that we all know.<p>Listen to him give an answer to a question about Native American sovereignty: <a href="https://youtu.be/kdimK1onR4o?t=25" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/kdimK1onR4o?t=25</a><p>That's not a verbal misstep, that's someone who doesn't know the definition of the word sovereignty. After invading several countries.<p>Or watch the 10-minute interview where he defends his foreign policy to an Irish reporter:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vefD3WSiis" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vefD3WSiis</a><p>If I may quote a telling section:<p>Reporter asking about Iraq:<p>> <i>The world is a more dangerous place today. There are terrorist bombings every single day. It wasn't like that two years ago.</i><p>GWB's response:<p>> <i>What was it like September 11th, 2001?</i><p>The whole thing is a train wreck. So either GWB isn't as smart as the OP claims, or he is smart, and just happens to be profoundly dishonest. I'm not sure how OP can claim he'd get high pass marks without trying though. We have his transcripts, we don't know how hard he tried, but he certainly didn't get anything resembling a 'high pass'. He was a straight C student.<p>I think the most charitable thing to say at this point is that if he was as smart as claimed, his intelligence in no way helped his presidency. For all of the 'grilling of analysis and recommendations' he did, he sure made a number of objectively terrible decisions.
I really don't like this article. It makes me think that I might have been very wrong in my judgement of GWB. More and more I have been finding out how much of life is a mirage of perceptions, many of them far from reality.
I don't think GWB is stupid. But I've never really gotten this article: Keith Hennessey spends some time claiming that if GWB were a student at Stanford, he'd always be getting high grades without trying, and whenever he did deign to try he'd always be at the top of the class.<p>It seems like a high act of trollery, especially since we do have transcripts of just how well he performed at Yale and they don't offer nearly as rosy a picture of GWB's academic acumen.<p>To the extent that he's successfully getting people to not trust media representations of public figures, good on him, I guess.
I don't think he's stupid but I know he coasted through life on his parents money and prestige. It's not much consolation that Al Gore did the same. John Kerry and John McCain both funded themselves with family money and connections as well.<p>I think people are generally fed up that US politics confuses legacy with competence.<p>But when Bush became president, he surrounded himself with the same Republican apparatus that his father did, leading to disastrous results. At the end of the day, it didn't really matter how smart Bush was. His decisions were stupid.
If I recall, he lost his first race for public office because his opponent criticized him for being too academic, which prompted him to change his image.
I don't doubt W. is a smart man, but I seriously doubt this:<p>> One of my students asked “How involved was President Bush with what was going on?” I smiled and responded, “What you really mean is, ‘Was President Bush smart enough to understand what was going on,’ right?”<p>Some presidents delegate more to trusted subordinates(Reagan), preferring to pick a knowledgeable person. Some have a more collegial atmosphere and take on things directly.(Clinton) [[Politics of the Presidency, 6th edition]]<p>I think that's a valid question to ask without meaning "how smart is Bush". For example, many decisions were made about the Iraq war, such as de-baathification of the country. Bremer ordered this, but did bush know and or order it, or did he trust Bremer to make the right call? This is important to interpreting and judging his presidency. And instead of answering that (important) question, he assumes that the student is asking if the president is dumb. He doesn't even let the student answer if that was a correct interpretation!
To lend additional credence to this article, GWB in 2006 alone read 95 books that year:<p><a href="http://www.omnivoracious.com/2009/01/george-w-bushs-reading-list.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.omnivoracious.com/2009/01/george-w-bushs-reading-...</a><p>That comes out to about two books per week. If you look at that list, I wouldn't call any of those books light reading. Considering his job at the time and how he loves outdoor activities, calling him a fast reader would only begin to describe it. I would call it a stretch to say he's half as stupid as a lot of people like to think
The focus on his intelligence is a distraction. He's a war criminal. Who cares how smart he is.<p>This is like discussing something written by Leni Riefenstahl titled "Hitler was a better artist than you."
I know several people who speak English as a second language who are more articulate than Bush in English. I don't care, I refuse to believe that he is some secret genius. I am confident if he were born to a poor family, that he would have risen to the average or lower expectations of those around him.
The only accurate quote in the whole article: "my job involved juggling a lot of balls"<p>He was cupping them as well, and he clearly still is. It's easy for someone to seem smart when a team of people feed him talking points all day, and you're a huge admirer of him as the author seems to be (which is why he made the not very obvious stretch from the student's question of Bush's level of involvement to his level of intelligence).
I don't think he is stupid, but he certainly cultivated an "average guy" persona that had a disdain for expert/elite opinion. It also doesn't excuse the (bad) decisions he made in office on a variety of issues.
This article is rhetorical slight of hand, written by a man who directly benefits if history takes a kinder view of the GW Bush administration.<p>The author asserts that GW Bush is smarter than [the typical reader]. Howard Gardner describes nine different types of intelligence. ( <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences#Critical_reception" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligenc...</a> ) Is GW Bush smarter than me in every metric? I am skeptical. Is he smarter in only some out of nine categories? If so, the the statement "is smarter than you" is missing a dependent clause.<p>The article relies on anecdotal evidence from biased sources. People who were invited into the administration based on loyalty and ideology all think that GW Bush is super smart? That is both unsurprising and unconvincing.<p>The author slams the cultural biases of the coastal elites, while indulging in his own.<p>"He is an intense, competitive athlete and a “guy’s guy.” His hobbies and habits reinforce a caricature of a dumb jock, in contrast to cultural sophisticates who enjoy antiquing and opera. This reinforces the other biases against him."<p>Bush 41 was an athlete. GW was a cheerleader. I understand that the whole point of this essay is to rewrite history but know your limits, man.<p>I readily concede that a group comprised entirely of smart individuals can make bad plans, or execute a good plan so badly that the outcome is the opposite of what they intended. If your best intentions regularly have calamitous results, does that matter when judging your intelligence? I would argue that it does. If you declare Iraq, Iran, and North Korea to be existential threats; let North Korea get The Bomb; dramatically strengthen the regional influence of Iran; and turn Iraq into a hellscape whose only export is terrorism, does your alleged intellectual superiority provide any solace?<p>The author mentions an anti-Texas bias. Having spent decades in close proximity to Texans, I would like to make an observation. There are Texans, and there are Texan Secessionists. I have found the former group to be open, generous, hospitable people more often than not, and frequent contributors to art and culture. The latter group never miss an opportunity to remind you, "Texas can secede if we want. It's in our constitution. We were a Republic before we were a state."<p>Want to understand the term "Ugly American?" Spend a couple of years listening to Texans act like they're doing you a favor by not seceding.
But he didn't get high grades, so why speculate that he would? We know he didn't, and grades are not necessarily an indication of intelligence.
The proverb goes: Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.<p>If GWB was actually brilliant, he must have cultivated this façade to hide malicious, self-serving intent. Via the endless wars he started, he grew his family's oil wealth and enriched his VP through government contracts with Halliburton and Blackwater at the expense of global stability and the United States.<p>This professor does us a service. It's easy to write off an idiot, not so easy to write off someone that intends to actively harm your country for self-serving purposes. Maybe in some just world he and his cabinet would be tried for the war crimes they committed.