Who's Dumb?

Life Daily, a celebrity and lifestyle website, ranked the US Presidents by IQ.  Of course the IQ index was invented in 1905 and we don’t have scores for most Presidents.  Nonetheless, a group of “scholars” assessed IQ based on speeches written, etc.  Then the 44 were parceled into the smartest 19 and dumbest 25.  Of course Life Daily then published the list of The Dumbest 25, since, you know, we all hate politicians and you have to be really dumb to become President.  

And the dumbest was Ulysses Grant.  Excuse me, I’m trying to remember Grant.  Wasn’t he the only guy Lincoln could find who could defeat Robert E. Lee and destroy the army of Northern Virginia?  Wasn’t Grant the guy who won at Vicksburg, cutting the Confederacy into two along the Mississippi? Wasn’t he the President who stood up to Congressional Stalwarts who wanted to punish the South into submission after the war?  Grant noted that only 10% of Southerners had been slave owners and abolition had true believers there too—so the nation needed to heal. Yeah, that was the dummy Grant. It should be noted, however, that they rate his IQ as 120 whereas the average person is 100.

  Next came James Monroe.  What do we remember about him?  Monroe Doctrine that European powers should stay on their side of the pond or USA would stand in the way of their colonialism.  Pretty dumb guy, I guess. 

Then George W. Bush was third dumbest. Graduated upper third of his class at Harvard with an MBA. Won the Iraq war and handed it to Obama who couldn’t keep the aftermath from erupting into ISIS. By the way, Grant, Monroe and W. were so stupid they were elected two terms each. 

The rest of the dumb Prezes were  Bush 41, Ike, Zachary Taylor, Reagan, Hoover and in fact all the Republicans since TR.  Andrew Jackson, LBJ and Truman make the list. But the real shocker was George Washington. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Washington that self-made farmer who branched out his farming into the brewing business and is estimated as our richest President?  The guy who held the Revolution together?  President of the Constitutional Convention and two terms as our first Prez?  The guy who wisely refused to be king?  You know I think we need to elect more stupidity like this.  Most of these guys were two termers.

So who did these scholars think were smart?  Well, of course the usual suspects among the founders—Jefferson, Madison, Adams & son.  More recent geniuses were Obama, Clinton, Carter, JFK, FDR, and Wilson.  Does this tell us what their bias is?  Obama who couldn’t figure out how to deal with Republicans in Congress, among whom were such uncompromising firebrands like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner?.  Who else makes the smart list?  Well, John Tyler.  You remember William Henry Harrison’s slogan ‘Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.’  When Harrison died, Tyler Too took over and couldn’t get along with Congress. He was very nearly our first impeached Prez. Franklin Pierce and Millard Fillmore were also listed.  Neither could figure out how to negotiate a deal to reduce or gradually eliminate slavery in the South.  Gave up, signed the Fugitive Slave Law and Missouri Compromise and went home after one term apiece. Then there was Rutherford Hayes.  Quick, give me a pithy quote from Rutherford Hayes!  Or well, then try Garfield.  How about Chester Arthur.

But then what must one expect from liberal scholars and celeb watchers?

Maybe we should elect a real dumbo like Ted Cruz.

Reviewing what I remembered about each of these Presidents reminds me of that story by Jerry Clower about how Yazoo City, Mississippi didn’t have money for a college but they still wanted everyone to think they were smart people.  So they hired a famous scholar to represent their city and got him a limo and driver to go around to other colleges and give lectures.  One day the famous scholar asked the limo driver what he thought. “Man, I have listened to your lecture so many times, I could give it myself!” So they traded places and the limo driver gave the lecture at the next town.  Then it came time for questions.  The smartest kid in the college stood up and asked, “Sir, if a dinosaur died in the late Triassic and was buried in a reducing environment under 4200 feet of sediments at 8000 psi of pressure and 300 degrees, what would be the pH of that dinosaur bone as it comes up in a core sample?”  A hush fell over the crowd and the limo driver said, “That is the stupidest question I have ever heard!  Why, that question is so dumb, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.  I am going to have my limousine driver seated in the back of the room come up here and answer that question.”