Speaking of fitting your news coverage to what your readers want to read, every so often you’ll see a news story or op-ed purporting to prove that people holding one set of political views are systematically smarter than those holding another political view. These days I mostly see stories claiming that “liberals” (however defined) are smarter than “conservatives” (however defined) but occasionally you’ll see stories claiming the opposite. This weekend James Joyner commented on one such story.
Perhaps I’ve just been sensitized to such claims but this column from David Corn, entitled “Are Democratic Presidents Smarter Than Republican Presidents?”, struck me as particularly absurd:
Is there any doubt that the collective brainpower of Reagan, Bush I and Bush II wouldn’t come close to that of Carter, Clinton and Obama?
The column suffers from a complete lack of quantitative measures.
It may be a disappointment to some but Bill Clinton isn’t enormously bright and George W. Bush isn’t enormously dumb. They’re both above average in intelligence and, I suspect, in the typical intelligence range for professionals in the United States (one to two standard deviations). Search out the quantitative measures and you’ll probably reach the same conclusion.
To my mind the more pressing question is why so many Democrats feel a need for their presidents to be brilliant?
I don’t need the president to be brilliant or omnicompetent. Indeed, I’d prefer that he or she wasn’t either. I’d prefer that my president be of above average intelligence, savvy, articulate, decent, honorable, and have succeeded at accomplishing something other than in politics. Demonstrated leadership would be nice, too. IMO intelligence is over-rated, particularly for presidents.
Ezra Klein wrote a piece some time back about how Democrats love to elect policy wonks. Clinton was a Rhodes scholar and Carter and Obama have solid academic backgrounds in a way that Nixon, Ford and Reagan didn’t. But, heck, both Bushes had Yale degrees and W had a Harvard MBA.
Meh. Republicans want to claim they elect “real Americans.” Reagan was an actor, the Bushies were part of America’s elite, McCain is wealthy and comes from a line of military elites. It is all part of building up a narrative. Most of which is fake.
I thought the purpose of the article James linked to was not so much to make claims about the respective politicians, but rather the voters. Perhaps I misread it, since I constantly read and get the articles mixed up sometimes. The Corn article just sounds like a hit piece. I wouldnt, and wont, read anything with a title like that.
Steve
Via ovicipitum dura est
Have to agree Dave, isn’t this a variation on the “he’s rich so he must be smart/better than the non-rich”? Liberals would be getting their pitch-forks if someone were to gin up a study on that.
I particularly like Michael’s defense fo the study. A fantasy writer opining about the validity of a statisitcal study.
Well, having had a bit of fun rattling cages yesterday on that thread…..
“Perhaps I’ve just been sensitized to such claims but this column from David Corn, entitled “Are Democratic Presidents Smarter Than Republican Presidents?â€, struck me as particularly absurd:
Is there any doubt that the collective brainpower of Reagan, Bush I and Bush II wouldn’t come close to that of Carter, Clinton and Obama?”
Of course its absurd. As was the study James cited. Although it makes for great thread counts. Although, by Michael Reynolds own account a “creative” like Ronald Reagan will bring up the IQ level for Republicans. Forgive me if I don’t hold my breath for his acknowledgement of such.
“It may be a disappointment to some but Bill Clinton isn’t enormously bright and George W. Bush isn’t enormously dumb.”
I’ve read (don’t know if its true) that Clinton is 152. That’s starting to get up there. He’s a sharp guy. People confused Bush’s intelligence with an inability to articulate ideas well.
“I don’t need the president to be brilliant or omnicompetent. Indeed, I’d prefer that he or she wasn’t either. I’d prefer that my president be of above average intelligence, savvy, articulate, decent, honorable, and have succeeded at accomplishing something other than in politics. Demonstrated leadership would be nice, too. IMO intelligence is over-rated, particularly for presidents.”
Bravo. Now THAT’s insight. Politics and governance isn’t pressing the boundaries of fundamental particle research. Its managing. Not as difficult as writing episodes of Joanie Loves Chachi, I understand, but hard duty.
In a sports analogy, Nick Faldo was once asked about John Daley’s extraordinary length off the tee. Faldo simply responded “good thing there’s more to the game of gold than driving.”
uh, er, “golf”
The only claims I’ve seen along those lines were based on nothing but partisan bluster. His SAT scores are known and SAT scores are pretty closely correlated with IQ. Based on those his IQ is 110.
My view is that Clinton probably tested low, by which I mean his scores were off by, perhaps, a standard deviation. That would put him at something like two standard deviations over normal or, as I said above, well within the standards for professionals in the United States.
GWB’s SAT scores are known, too. Based on them his IQ is 124. Note that while it’s possible for somebody who’s smarter to test low, that doesn’t mean that those who are less smart can test high. They just establish a floor and in those two cases they’re a floor I can believe.
Dave –
At the risk of getting into the same gibberish that was going on yesterday over at OTB……..I’d be shocked that Clinton was 110, or even 124. I’ve been around a whole bunch of smart people in my days. (I have a partner who is WAY up there.) I didn’t like the guys politics, or morals. But he was (is) a talent.
But the whole thing is somewhat absurd. I was motivated to go to a site that purported to have the IQ’s of famous people. (No brief here. Buyer beware.) Sharon Stone = Hawking?? Abe Lincoln a relative dunce? And chess players ruled.
Whatever.
Mostly, I’m just suggesting that we should have some objective standards before reaching any conclusions.
I think that Bill Clinton has insight, savvy. Smart? Beats me. There’s an old Yiddish proverb: the wise man knows everything; the shrewd man knows everybody. People keep saying how brilliant the Clintons are and I keep on hearing and seeing them do dumb things.
As a Lincoln-phile, I don’t have a problem with the suggestion that Lincoln wasn’t all that smart. It seems to me that most of the people that knew Lincoln well (AND had themselves been complimented as to their intelligence) were certain they themselves were smarter than Lincoln. This included his junior law partner, who complained that Lincoln didn’t like legal research, but left that to his junior partner to glean the main points of law.
Some of this gets into the value his contemporaries would have placed on book smarts and speech patterns. There was also his management style, which today we would call MBWA (Management by Walking Around). He would ask people what they were doing and why. Some people seemed to come away from these discussions with renewed loyalty for Father Abraham; others thought the questions revealed the ignorance of a backwoods ape.
And Lincoln was slow. He wrote his thoughts out over and over again to glean a course of action. He would assign his cabinet members to write up opposing sides of an issue, and each would do an incredible job because each left the cabinet meeting with the feeling that Lincoln had no idea of what to do.
Seward was no doubt more intelligent than Lincoln, but his brainstorm of seeking war with Britain or France to re-unify the country was too clever by half.
“There’s an old Yiddish proverb: the wise man knows everything; the shrewd man knows everybody.”
Indeed. As you know, I worked at a bank for about 7 years. The last name of my chief credit officer: Lewin. Nuff said.
Formative years. And wonderful years. In fact, if I was to devolve into the essence of the OTB “discussion,” and make a gross generalization, my dealings with the Jewish community would indicate to me a general positive IQ/motivation bias. Talented people. (Hey, maybe alot of jewish guys write sitcoms!!)
“People keep saying how brilliant the Clintons are and I keep on hearing and seeing them do dumb things.”
Agreed. A conundrum. Although I would seperate WJC’s IQ from political operating procedures. (BTW – I have no use for HRC. Never understood the adulation. Just a witch, capitalizing on her main squeeze, but not Presidential material by any measure. I’ve seen this movie before.)
By the way, just for the chuckle factor: GWB and W Clinton with equal IQ. Can you imagine the paroxysms of the left?
PD –
For what its worth (which isn’t much) this website had Lincoln at 128.
I’m an I.Q. skeptic by inclination, but I don’t see how anybody can estimate old dead president’s I.Q. — these seem more to be reflections of a prejudice about what intelligent people do. One of which is that intelligent people don’t get caught and they don’t pursue military careers.
Anyway, this chart says Dave’s wrong. Smart Presidents are better presidents. And the chart was put together by smart people, so they ought to know:
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/election-blog-post.aspx?id=1219
Via ovicipitum dura est means “The way of the eggheads is hard.” — Adlai Stevenson.
Haven’t you ever heard the definition of a good sitcom: talk British, think Yiddish?
That’s the rub. I don’t think it’s possible to aggregate people’s various talent into one numerical score.
I think speculations on IQ are primarily of value to me as an opportunity to irritate people.
“Haven’t you ever heard the definition of a good sitcom: talk British, think Yiddish?”
LOL. Of course, this old saw has been invoked for years in investment banking as well. See: the old “MBA Handbook.”
To be clear: In the 80’s “Handbook” it was bastardized as “Dress British, think Yiddish.”
We have too much time on our hands.
BTW – I can’t believe there hasn’t been a Rod Stewart reference……..Are we that tone deaf??
Or did he self immolate with “Tonight’s the Night??”
Early Stewart, with Ronnie, is priceless.
Yes, the title was a reference to the song. However, betraying my age, for me it’s a Tim Hardin song. Rod Stewart did cover it on the B side of Maggie May, though.