John Kerry – Intellectual
Remember how smart Kerry was supposed to be, in comparison to that retard Bush? Well, Kerry’s college transcript was released today.
Bush only got one “D” grade in his four years at Yale (a 69 in astronomy, the highest “D” grade available)- Kerry got at least four, including a 61 in geology (two points away from failing) and a 63 in a history course.
The highest grade that Kerry earned was an 89, one point above Bush’s highest grade of 88 (Yale’s grades at the time were on a scale of 0-100), but Bush received 88s in at least three classes.
Some of you might remember my curiosity on why Kerry chose to attend Boston College rather than, say, Harvard or Yale for law school. It couldn’t have been financial- Kerry was loaded. It couldn’t have been sheer competition, since Kerry came from a very well-connected family, and those universities relied on such things even more heavily then than they do today. It couldn’t have been reputation- Kerry had already returned from a combat tour in Vietnam and given highly publicized testimony to Congress. He had also mounted a serious campaign for the House of Representatives.
All of these features would make him a highly attractive candidate for admission to Harvard or Yale law. Both universities took a pass. I speculated that it was because he was so dumb as dirt that they didn’t want him. It looks like I was correct.
Given Kerry’s current insights on history I’d say a 63 was probably a gift.
Harry Arthur (40c0a6) — 6/7/2005 @ 7:26 amI think Bush also topped Kerry’s military IQ score.
Pigilito (1eccce) — 6/7/2005 @ 7:45 amWow…amazing, isn’t it, that this info somehow didn’t see the light of day during the campaign? Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with the MSM’s liberal bias?
Ann (4ab671) — 6/7/2005 @ 8:22 amThis was the era of the “gentleman’s C”.
Dave Schuler (0fc1c9) — 6/7/2005 @ 8:54 amI have to echo Dave Schuler’s comment. Kerry’s grades were not stellar, but this was long before today’s era when roughly half of all Ivy League students receive A’s in their courses. Back in the 1960s, a student receiving a B was thrilled to receive such a good grade. Today, the B student is ready to slap the professor with a lawsuit for hindering the student’s future career.
Michael Meckler (64091d) — 6/7/2005 @ 9:14 amBC is “dumb as dirt”? Ok, I thought lefties were elitist.
actus (cd484e) — 6/7/2005 @ 9:47 amIf anyone believes that Kranish has the complete Navy file on Kerry, dream on. It wasn’t bad grades that kept Kerry out of of Harvard (or Yale) law school. It was the fact that he didn’t yet have his honorable discharge. That didn’t come until 1978, and as a result of a Predidential review board. Very unusual. He should have had his honorable discharge in 1972 or 73.
The Kranish article looks like a smokescreen to make it appear he has released all his records, and the worst thing found was a mediocre transcript from Yale.
What we should be seeing is Kerry’s discharge status in 1972 and 1973. We should see his fitness reports after he participated in negotiatons with the North Vienamese and the VC. We should see what his security clearance was and if it had been downgraded or revoked.
That information has not come out. Kranish has been polising Kerry’s image for the last several years. He hasn’t changed his colors.
Corky Boyd (4215fa) — 6/7/2005 @ 10:42 amAbout at this point many of us should have spotted a trend in human nature.
Those that are aware of a relative weakness: moral, intellectual, physical, etc. will also feel a need to reassure themselves that the empirically observable deficiency is not what it seems. Even nations do this (DPRK, USSR, Canada, France, etc.)
The louder they bleat about “smartness” the truer the indication that they know that they are dumb as a sack of rocks. They will even redefine the very meaning of intelligence or morality to quell the cognitive dissonance (over a cup of latte from Starbucks).
Stupid is as stupid does. We have 50 years of modern history that emphatically demonstrates the thorough moral and intellectual bankruptcy of modern “liberalism”. The Supreme Court has given us many examples of late of this type of adled thinking on parade (sans Scalia and Thomas).
Paul Deignan (c49fbf) — 6/7/2005 @ 10:53 amMr. Boyd, re above post:
How do we get Kerry’s complete record released to the public?
ttyler5 (77d0e0) — 6/7/2005 @ 11:07 am[…] uring last year’s campaign. It was all a fake. This does tie up some loose ends. As Patterico points out, poor grades and lack of intellectual horsepower are probably […]
Independent Sources » Blog Archive » What John Kerry Was Hiding … His Grades! (4f7430) — 6/7/2005 @ 11:43 amAnn- Kerry didn’t sign his release forms until now. These grades were in his military record.
Dave/Michael- Note that my insulting of Kerry’s intelligence comes primary in two forms: (1) in comparison to President Bush, who, (a) lefties think is an absolute moron and (b) from all exterior records such as grades and testing, is in fact more intelligent than the supposedly brilliant Kerry and then (2) commenting that, despite the huge resume and connection advantages he had, he was only able to secure admission to a lower tier 1 law school, which is abysmal.
Also, grade inflation, while very real, simply makes grades, in and of themselves, less meaningful in across-generation comparisons. However, class standing would remain so, barring dramatic increases (or decreases) in the general ability of the student body, which I do not believe has occurred at Yale in the past half century. I can assure you that Kerry, were he a student today, would, while likely having a higher GPA, would still be sitting in the lower echelons of the class, as befitting someone of only modest intelligence such as the Senator.
Actus- I didn’t say people at BC were dumb as dirt. I said that people with Kerry’s resume and connections only being able to be admitted to BC (as opposed to Harvard, Yale, or whatever) have to have been dumb as dirt, as was shown on his transcript.
Angry Clam (f05866) — 6/7/2005 @ 12:58 pmAngry Clam, actually Kerry’s and Bush’s grades are pretty similar. so if Kerry is “dumber than dirt” what does that make Bush?
James B. Shearer (fc887e) — 6/7/2005 @ 3:08 pmHoo hoo hoo!
I was always surprised to hear in the media that Kerry was an “intellectual,” as though going to law school qualifies one for that distinction. It seemed to happen quite often in the Canadian media.
Peter (3c6dfd) — 6/7/2005 @ 3:11 pmI don’t think that Bush is the sharpest tool in the shed, either.
What I do think is that he isn’t as dumb as his detractors long to believe. That’s part of the reason I rub their face in Kerry’s intellectual mediocrity.
Angry Clam (f05866) — 6/7/2005 @ 4:14 pmClam–I don’t buy your thesis that everyone goes to the best law school they can get into. In fact, I know someone who didn’t. Maybe BC was a better choice for Kerry’s political career.
Bush’s grades and accomplishments were good enough to get him into Harvard’s business school. It wouldn’t surprise me if Kerry’s not that dissimilar resume could get him into Harvard Law.
See Dubya (c83831) — 6/7/2005 @ 5:53 pmI would agree with you, See-Dubya, except for the fact that Kerry applied to both Harvard and Yale, and was rejected.
The best rationalization he came up with was that Yale was “too far” from where he was living, despite his having no real reason (e.g. family employment) to remain in Boston, and that he applied “too late” to Harvard, in his own view.
In other words, he himself indicated that BC was forced upon him by exterior circumstances, not by any conscious decision upon his part.
Angry Clam (f05866) — 6/7/2005 @ 6:23 pmAh. I hadn’t heard before that he applied and was rejected. Is that in the newly released records?
See Dubya (c83831) — 6/7/2005 @ 6:37 pmNo, that’s from earlier, and he gave the rationalizations that I described- Yale was “too far” and Harvard was “too late.”
Both schools took a pass on him.
Angry Clam (f05866) — 6/7/2005 @ 6:47 pmOkay, but “Yale is too far” does not mean “Yale rejected me”. I guess that’s your point, that Kerry was lying about getting rejected, but how do you know that he got rejected other than that statement?
Is Kerry saying that he either turned down an offer at Yale, or that he declined to apply to Yale, because he lived too far away? Or that Yale rejected him because he lived too far from New Haven? Because the latter is about the stupidest rationalization I’ve ever heard. I’ve never been rejected from a law school, but among the myriad rejection letters I have received, “You live too damn far away” has not been one of the reasons they gave. No one gives reasons in any rejection letter, especially stupid ones like that–it’s always vague boilerplate like “we had a very difficult decision and faced a very competitive field of applicants for a position in the Mid-Southern Arkansas Institute of Animal Husbandry.”
(FWIW, Yalies I know tell me that it is actually especially difficult to get into Yale Law as a Yale undergrad.)
None of this really matters, thank God; I’m just curious about what looks like a really amusingly,preposterously dumb lie.
See Dubya (c83831) — 6/7/2005 @ 7:09 pmI thought it was already known that on some Navy officer tests that President George W. Bush had done better than Senator John Kerry.
I find the comment interesting that the portrayal of this academic embarassment as the supposed reason Kerry did not want his Navy records released is merely a front to distract from something else. Politics as chess, or fencing. Is it a mistake or a gambit? An attack or a feint?
Was it O’Reilly or Hume or who that received the promise from Kerry that he would sign the form for release of records? What does that person say about whether all of the records were released?
Were these records kept in the National Archives near where Sandy Berger had been working??
MD in Philly (b3202e) — 6/7/2005 @ 7:09 pmIt was Don Imus, I think.
See Dubya (c83831) — 6/7/2005 @ 7:14 pmI do not believe that I.Q. is as important as one might think. I believe that experience,temperament, determination and wisdom play a much larger role than I.Q. in determining one’s success in life and the success of Presidents. Howard Dean is a prime example of a very intelligent man is so emotionally crippled that his temperament disables him. Knowing that the electorate is made up of very few persuadable voters, Bush was very wise to exclude those who were not persuadable from his meetings. How many politicians would have figured that one out? Certainly none of the Democrat Presidential nominees could or did. Further Bush understood that the MSM was a barrier to his message to persuadable voters and therefor refused to campaign in MSM mode. His Texas Goverenship was an invaluable source of experience: a testing ground that enabled Bush to see beyond the headlines of today into the policy driven realities of tomorrow. Get the policies right and the headlines will write themselves. All in all I believe that President Bush is an extraoridinary politician who is under rated as much by his political supporters as he is by his political advesaries; and his adversaries think he’s a dunce. Amazing how this “dunce” seems to have such success in his political career . I guess others would atrribute it to “dumb” luck. I attribute the political success of Bush to his temperament, experience, determination and uncommon wisdom. I.Q. is far down the list of attributes I value in a President.
john (fc4860) — 6/7/2005 @ 11:09 pmJohn, might I recommend “Misunderestimated:The President Battles Terrorism, John Kerry and the Bush Haters” by Bill Salmon. If you haven’t read it already, I think you’ll find several parallels to your comments.
Harry Arthur (40c0a6) — 6/8/2005 @ 6:52 amHarry: Thank you for the suggestion. I will pick up a copy.
john (fc4860) — 6/8/2005 @ 9:04 amBush’s obvious superior performance at Yale is still being downplayed. After reading the various BG accounts and others, the agreement is that both men started out poorly and improved. But by the end of Bush’s third year (when the numeric grade system was abandoned) Bush had already posted an average score higher than Kerry. He had a 77/100 compared to Kerry’s 76/100. Has anyone gone back and looked at the probable average Bush would have had if his best year, the senior year had been included in the average.
Sr Walter (355b2b) — 6/9/2005 @ 8:34 am[…] Considering that Bush graduated from Kerry’s alma mater, doing better than Kerry did, and that the President then went on to get an MBA from Harvard, it’s hard to accept that it was the President to whom he referred when he said “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” That Kerry is retrofitting madly is also evident from the fact that he was giving advice to young students — that is, he seemed to be saying to them that their career choice (not the President’s) was to go to college or be in the military. […]
Open mouth, insert foot « Bookworm Room (7821b4) — 10/31/2006 @ 3:00 pm[…] Considering that Bush graduated from Kerry’s alma mater, doing better than Kerry did, and that the President then went on to get an MBA from Harvard, it’s hard to accept that it was the President to whom he referred when he said “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” That Kerry is retrofitting madly is also evident from the fact that he was giving advice to young students — that is, he seemed to be saying to them that their career choice (not the President’s) was to go to college or be in the military. […]
Webloggin - Blog Archive » Open Mouth, Insert Foot (a2d188) — 10/31/2006 @ 3:38 pm[…] are the ones most creditable to reason and intellect, that their candidates — even the most obviously dull Ivy League graduates — are the “thinking person’s” choice. Of course, by contrast their […]
Obama the intellectual? « Likelihood of Success (4eb6dc) — 6/3/2008 @ 3:20 pm[…] are the ones most creditable to reason and intellect, that their candidates — even the most obviously dull Ivy League graduates — are the “thinking person’s” choice. Of course, by contrast their […]
Best of 2008: “Obama the Intellectual?” (June) | Likelihood of Success (88204c) — 12/28/2008 @ 8:27 am