(2013) George W. Bush is smarter than you | Hacker News Reader

(2013) George W. Bush is smarter than you

keithhennessey.com

41 points464192002d7fe1c24 comments

My brother in law, a classmate of Bush's at HBS, said he seemed of pretty average intellect for that group.

HBS students in those days were, as a group, pretty smart.

Bush's real intellectual shame as president was his ignorance. He didn't think hard about most public policy issues until he decided to run in 1999. His debate statements were pretty obvious bluffs. I referred to him as "evil" for running despite being so ignorant and hence unqualified.

None of that precludes him having figured most of it out by the time he'd been president 4-6 years.

I really, really, really, really wish our current President-Elect had 1/3 the understanding Bush took office with. :(

I'm not American, so I try to not chime in with an opinion on this topic because I don't feel like its any of my business.

Now that you've raised it though, I think it's worth considering that GWB at least understood the office he was taking (setting aside how I or others feel about the actual decisions taken). I don't feel like your next president understands this at all, and certainly I don't think even his supporters see any reverence for the office.

I see no evidence, even now, that he has any grasp of the situation he is in, which is incredibly dangerous for global stability.

The point I'm trying to make is that I think there's a very good chance that history will remember GWB more favourably after the next 4/8 years are behind us.

I am very much in line with your general thinking.

I thought both that Bush was one of the very worst presidents in US history AND that he compared favorably (above average) to other world leaders in his time.

Before Trump, we could take it for granted the US president was a serious person who cared about having the country do well and wasn't interested in anything resembling an authoritarian takeover. (Even Richard Nixon had plenty of lines he wouldn't cross, some of which Trump already has.)

Trump is incomparably worse than Bush as a choice for President.

And it's really, really clear that a successful presidency on the part of the currently elected-one (should it happen) will be many folks' worst nightmare.

HBS didn't increase their caliber until after the 70s, when they were shamed by Stanford's Business school Until then, it was more of an easy street and not as rigorous as it is today.

The HBS alumni of that era I knew were smart. There could be selection bias, as I generally know ones who worked in finance or tech, but leaving bias concerns aside, the pattern was consistent.

I also had a small amount of more direct exposure in the late 70s, and it fit the pattern.

Now, these "smarts" were more in the way of getting to a quick, non-stupid analysis of a situation than they were about really deep thinking or about having a nose for additional facts to seek out ... but that pattern fits Bush.

As a "former Harvard public policy research fellow", I'm guessing it's a lot more than just selection bias.

Bush's gift was the ability to be charming. But it's pretty clear he isn't even close to being the smartest person in almost any room, let along a room full of Stanford students as the made-up OP story described.

This paean does not address the litany of massive strategic blunders which happened on Bush's watch, the consequences of which are still plaguing the US today.

- Discouraging counter-terrorism investigations prior to 9/11 [0,1]

- The famous ignorance of government warnings of the coming attack which arose despite that discouragement

- Decision to invade Iraq

- Initially laissez-faire approach to the housing and financial crises. You didn't have to be smart to see those coming, you just had to be paying attention and apply basic economic principles.

These are all executive decisions for which he was responsible as President.

If this is smart, I'd hate to see dumb.

[0] http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=thomas_picka...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Clarke#9.2F11_Commi...

>If this is smart, I'd hate to see dumb.

Well, 2017 is right around the corner.

Spoken like a true, loyal lapdog. Well done!

Meanwhile, he only got into Yale because of legacy, did terribly in school, he got everything handed to him afterwards, and fucked up everything he touched, including the entire world by entering in the Iraq War. Afterwards, the entire Middle East was destabilized, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are dead.

Is moratorium on politics on HN over now?

Estimates online suggest that GWB has an IQ of 120-125, making him smarter than the average college grad, perhaps slightly less intelligent than the average person with an advanced degree.

It's also worth noting that IQ is not a particularly good predictor of presidential success, and only a partial measure of intelligence.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Presidential_IQ_hoax#ci...

http://www.assessmentpsychology.com/

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?”

I'm probably just missing context here (details on what exactly was being discussed at that moment, tone of voice of the asker, etc), but the question as asked seems perfectly sensible. How closely did the head of the executive involve himself vs letting the experts it should have been delegated to deal with it?

I know I'd probably have been torn between protest and silently wtfing if I'd had a professor put words in my mouth like that when I was in college.

Doesn't Hanlon's razor makes a post like that really uncomfortable?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

Not sure why this was flagged/removed without comment, there was interesting discussion going on. Resubmitted.

Thanks for both your original and resubmission. This really made me think about "my own opinions", which I've started to realize are often just other people's opinions (often that of the elite press) hoisted upon me and tricked into thinking are my own.

With much of modern intellectualism simply being an adoption of other people's ideas and beliefs without actual independent consideration, this was a refreshing perspective.

Glad you like it. I think people should really spend more time challenging their deepest held beliefs to find out the truth, or lack thereof behind them.

It was not removed; discussion is at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13196641

It was (I guess) briefly flagged, I created this in that interval, still seems absent from the front page.

Can't delete this that I can see, oh well.

Users flagged it (likely without actually reading the post itself, since the title is clickbaity but the post is balanced), and others (including myself) upvoted it until it became Unflagged is all.

People here will downvote things that dont come across as interesting.

Also, you label things as "fake news", defend pizzagate, and your views, particularly this one, make you come across as a crony of the political establishment you came from. Why do you expect hacker news to love you?

I point out fake news, suggest that possible crimes should be investigated and I am not part of nor a crony of any political establishment. Are you suggesting that truth, law and order and having honest, transparent and competent government are not things that hacker news should love?

Ok, point taken. Merry Christmas.

for what it's worth, this article was posted about a week ago, already.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com