I agree that there are different "types" of intelligence and that often
people that are gifted in one area lack others.

But I disagree that no one has them all. Some people do excell
in almost all areas. People can be good at math, numbers, the
abstract, the practical, and with people all at once.

As for Bush. I think his verbal and abstract reasoning skills aren't
very good. I think these are skills that are very important for a
president. He does seem good at some other things. I've heard
he is quite good with people in-person.

I used to think he was just a nice but not too bright fellow. Now
I'm starting to think that he is not nice and is brighter than I had
thought. Not a great thinker, but an excellent manipulator and
reader of what he has to say to get what he wants.



"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
I don't agree, Harry. The ultra-left has painted GW as a good natured
moron. IMHO, he is neither.


There are a number of facets to intelligence. Nobody scores extremely
highly in
every category.

Whatever brains Bush has, they are not
apparent in what some would call his verbal IQ. He may be a whiz with
space/size relationships.....(I'm not, I used to look at those complex
diagrams
of unfolded forms on school tests and make a wild guess which of the
optional
shapes
would result when the object was refolded).
He may be slick with arithmetic or even complex math. There is abstract
intelligence and pragmatic intelligence.
Bush's ability to reason in the abstract is not very good, so perhaps he
is
strong in the pragmatic.

My wife is a good example. She is a very bright woman, but she is perhaps
about
average in the verbal category. She is excellent with numbers and
accomplishing

projects. She has a knack for dealing with people. She outshines me in
many of
the aspects where she excels. She has less imagination than I do, and
often
gets lost in the middle of a sentence while whe figures out how to say
what she
is trying to communicate, but neither of those characteristics make her
less
"smart" than someone who speaks more effectively, just different. In the
areas
where she is more talented, she is among the best.

Nobody has an overdose of all types of intelligence. Bush is deficient in
the
verbal category, and that is an area where a national leader, (called upon
to
answer questions at press conferences and to make speeches), should be
proficient enough to stave off objective criticism of
obvious errors in grammar and syntax.
Unfortunately, politicians fall into a category where they *are* judged by
the
words they choose and their ability to speak.