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Comment by stephentmcm | Hacker News Reader

I've heard (and believe) this too but does anyone have any decent sources for it? I find the portrayal of Bush in the media interesting as while he played the fool regularly, there's no way he got to POTUS without being a smart operator.

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Use Wikipedia for his environment: Born in New Haven, Connecticut, graduated Yale. His father (who also graduated Yale) was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to Senator Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush. Prescott Bush was a Wall Street executive banker and a United States Senator, representing Connecticut from 1952 until January 1963, whose father was Samuel P. Bush, an American industrialist born in New Jersey. The father of Samuel P. Bush, Rev. James Smith Bush was attorney, Episcopal priest, and religious writer. He entered Yale University in 1841, the first of what would become a long family tradition.

I read a lot of reports that people who met W Bush were surprised by how intelligent/sharp he was. The media looks for gaffes for ratings, but gaffs have no bearing on intelligence. Once the "Hur hur Bush is stupid!" angle gets traction every minor mistake is seen as damning confirmation. Bush also made many terrible decisions, but that doesn't mean he was stupid. Probably just unprepared and blinded by ideology.

>I read a lot of reports that people who met W Bush were surprised by how intelligent/sharp he was.

So did I. They were virtually all from ideological supporters. I don't remember an opponent ever saying it.

> The media looks for gaffes for ratings, but gaffs have no bearing on intelligence.

Most gaffes actually went unreported. He made them nearly constantly if he wasn't following a script. At some point his handlers cottoned on to this and after that you very rarely saw him speak in public without a script.

And yes, it demonstrates a very real lack of intelligence. Bush was not a smart man.

If he really is that sharp, he deserves an Oscar for best actor, ever. Fooled so many people, for so long...

Listen, smart people don't go to Latin America and wonder if people there speak Latin. And smart people do NOT make so many terrible decisions.

Put yourself in his shoes. You have a choice of the following headlines on the New York Times. A: President can't pronounce 'nuclear'. B: President orders ten thousand nuculer bombs. The smart choice is of course A.

His ASVAB scores put him in the top 5%, and his IQ is supposed to be in the high 130s. I've always thought it ironic he's more intelligent than the vast majority of people who think he's stupid.

It's probably human nature to think someone who doesn't agree with your politics is stupid.

No, he wasn't the brightest bulb in the box. Perhaps not the caricature the liberal media made him out to be, but still - we have enough of his gaffes on record (people in Latin America speaking Latin, etc.)

You mean the way Obama remarked he didn't know how to say something in Austrian, or how he hadn't been to all 57 states?

If you follow anyone around with a microphone 24/7 you're going to come up with some pretty dumb stuff.

Who said anything about Obama? Not a fan either, but at least he speaks proper English.

You're missing the point. They all do it.

Look on youtube for his reaction time to the shoe-thrower.

Sharp as a tack - moved like a pro athlete.

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