Kerry dumber than Bush

Via Instapundit, Dean Barnett of Soxblog tells the world how he was right about Kerry not being so bright:

[P]roof has come and Soxblog has been vindicated. The Boston Globe obtained a copy of Kerry’s undergraduate transcript and it is inferior to Bush’s (even though the Globe insists on calling them “virtually identical”). The Globe refers to Kerry as a “lackluster” student; not to quibble with Globe reporter Michael Kranish’s choice of words, but four D’s in one’s freshman year (as Kerry received) suggests a performance considerably more execrable than “lackluster.”

My thoughts:

(1) Obviously Democrats who harped on Bush’s lackluster performance in college are hypocrites, with 20/20 hindsight.

But with foresight it could have been figured out. The guy from Soxblog brilliantly wrote last summer:

If you’re not from Boston, you might be unaware of the following truth: No one here, in spite of Boston College’s undeniable strengths, would eschew an invitation to attend Harvard Law School to attend B.C. It’s simply not done. Thus we can reasonably infer that Kerry did not get in to Harvard Law.

And that’s remarkable. Given his family connections and his post graduate work both in the war and later protesting it, his admission should have been a given. The only thing that would explain Kerry not getting into Harvard would be that he performed dreadfully at Yale. Indeed, he would have had to perform at a level that would have raised the prospect that he couldn’t handle the work at Harvard. His efforts were probably so weak, they could even be described as sub-Bushian.

That Soxblogger guy is a genius. I wish I had caught that.

In October 2004, before the election, Steve Sailer performed a quantitative analysis of Kerry’s test scores,and estimates that Kerry would have scored 1103 on the SAT compared to George Bush’s 1206. (Check out Steve's I told you so post.)

So we see that two bloggers, probably both unaware of the other one’s efforts, figured out before the election that Kerry wasn’t so smart. But the liberal media, too lazy to do research or draw conclusions, happily promoted the idea that Kerry was the smarter candidate. (The NY Times really needs to hire a journalist like Steve Sailer who knows how to do research.)

(2) Is this a legitimate area of public inquiry? I say yes. Presidential candidates say their character is important. Whether they were studying in college is an important part of their character. Both Bush and Kerry fail. In our next election, can’t we have some candidates who had better than a C average? The press should demand that all candidates release their educational transcripts.

(3) The problem with Bush is not merely that he had poor grades in college, but he continues to act dumb. He has no shame that he sounds stupid.

* * *

Michelle Malkin offers a huge list of links to blogs writing about this, and she also wonders if more juicy stuff is being hidden.

Jay Tea of Wizbang wonders if this was the real reason Kerry withheld his military records until now: “I've heard some speculation that Kerry held this back because one of his biggest strengths in the campaign was his perceived intellectual superiority to Bush, and this would put a big dent in that image. But I'm wondering if this is just some "red meat" to keep attention away from a REAL smoking gun...”

Mark of Decision ’08 titles his post: Is John Kerry the Stupidest Politician Alive? I say no, I’ve seen some members of Congress on news shows who were total morons, making either Bush or Kerry seem like rocket scientists in comparison.

Captain Ed points out that Kerry’s and Bush’s academic and military records are very similar. He then comments: “The key difference, of course, is that Bush never pretended to be a great student at college, just as he never pretended to be a war hero.”

Comments

[Michael H.]

Hi Half Sigma
Interesting story but I'm not sure I would put much weight on what people did in college. Coyote Blog made the same point. Many people just goof off in college. I have to admit that I didn't do my best when I first went to college, but I came back very strongly after a several year absense.

I never thought Bush was dumb. I never thought Kerry was much smarter. I think both of them were similar in that they tended to blow off academics in order to network, and it paid off for both in the long run. More so for Bush.

What I think is curious is that Kerry thought that the poor grades would hurt him more than the benefit he would get from the revelation that some of the swift boat veterens had given him commendations recorded in his military records. That shows a vanity streak of Kerry that really cost him. Any advisor would tell him that grades wouldn't matter. Not releasing his military records hurt Kerry.

[JLP ata AllThingsFinancial]

Nice Blog! I found it through Catallarchy.

I agree with the other commentor, Kerry lost because he failed to relaase his medical records. Of course, he was probably hiding something so he probably would have lost anyway. Either way, I'm happy!

JLP

[probligo]

This whole "debate", in fact the whole campaign for the last Presidential election, has always seemed somewhat like an episode from that "famous" (or is it "infamous") piece of hollywooden entertainment called -

"DUMB AND DUMBER"

[dave s]

When Barry Goldwater was in the Senate, he said of (fellow republican senator) Scott of Virginia: "If he was any dumber, he'd be a tree!"