Bush dumb? Kerry Dumber?

Dumber yet would be anybody equating GPA with intelligence. Grades have
a lot to do with motivation,
social issues, and (in what passes for education these days), the
ability to parrot back factoids on "exams" that do little to
demonstrate whether the student actually understands the material.

Bush has a lower verbal IQ than Kerry's, and probably slightly lower
than average. This is apparent to anyone who has heard him attempt to
speak without a prompter. He admits he doesn't read, but rather has his
staff read newspapers and periodicals for him and prepare summaries.

Verbal IQ is not the sum total of intelligence. There is another
portion of IQ, spatial reasoning and deduction
(i.e. math skills) where Bush may do very well. While one can observe
evidence of verbal IQ when another person attempts to communicate, the
other aspects are not apparent to the casual observer and are best
evaluated with a specialized test.

There is no doubt that Bush is more shrewd, cunning, and ruthless than
Kerry. If those can be considered aspects of "intelligence", (and they
may well be- they allow a person to be effective against opposition),
Bush clearly wins in that category.

Historians will never consider GWB to be the brightest bulb in the
presidential chandelier, but there is little direct correlation between
college grades and native intelligence. Some very bright people
undoubtedly went to college and screwed around socializing rather than
studying. College doesn't make anyone intelligent. Some emerge
"educated", but that is a different quality entirely.

Smartest presidents in the last 50 years would have to include:

JFK
Jimmy Carter (proving there is no direct correlation between being a
smart person and an extremely good president)
Bill Clinton
Ronald Reagan (in his first term)

Johnson, Nixon, and Bush the First were also pretty bright, but I'd put
them down a level below the group in the previous paragraph

Bush the Second and Gerald Ford bring up the rear, IMO.