Bush's I.Q. - Can anyone vouch for the accuracy of this document?

Found this in my e-mail box tonight. No idea if it's true, or even if the Lovenstein Institute even exists. But didja think that was gonna stop me from posting it to the Lounge? Stop being silly! :-)

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G.W. Bush Ranks Lowest I.Q. in 50 Years of U.S. Presidents


In a report published Monday, the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania, detailed its findings of a four-month study of the intelligence quotient of President George W. Bush. Since 1973, the Lovenstein Institute has published its research to the educational community on each new president, which includes the famous "IQ" report among others. The Lovenstein Institute has rated twelve presidents over the past 50 years, from F.D. Roosevelt to G.W. Bush, based on the following factors scholarly achievements, writings that they produced without aid of staff, their ability to speak with clarity, and several other psychological factors, which were then scored using the Swanson/Crain system of intelligence ranking. The study determined the following IQs of each president as accurate to within five percentage points:

In order by presidential term: In I.Q. order:


147. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) 182. William J. Clinton (D)
132. Harry Truman (D) 175. James E. Carter (D)
122. Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) 174. John F. Kennedy (D)
174. John F. Kennedy (D) 155. Richard M. Nixon (R)
126. Lyndon B. Johnson (D) 147. Franklin D. Roosevelt (D)
155. Richard M. Nixon (R) 132. Harry Truman (D)
121. Gerald Ford (R) 126. Lyndon B. Johnson (D)
175. James E. Carter (D) 122. Dwight D. Eisenhower (R)
105. Ronald Reagan (R) 121. Gerald Ford (R)
98. George Bush (R) 105. Ronald Reagan (R)
182. William J. Clinton (D) 98. George Bush (R)
91. George W. Bush (R) 91. George W. Bush (R)


The six Republican presidents of the past 50 years had an average IQ of 115.5, with President Nixon having the highest at 155. President G.W. Bush rated the lowest of all the Republicans with an IQ of 91. The six Democrat presidents had IQs with an average of 156, with President Clinton having the highest IQ, at 182. President Lyndon B. Johnson was rated the lowest of all the Democrats with an IQ of 126. No president other than Carter (D) has released his actual IQ, 176. Comments made concerning the specific testing of President GW Bush include:


His low ratings are due to his apparent difficulty with command of the English language in public statements, his limited use of vocabulary (6,500 words for Bush versus an average of 11,000 words for other presidents), his lack of scholarly achievements other than a basic MBA, and an absence of any body of work which could be studied on an intellectual basis.


The complete report documents the methods and procedures used to arrive at these ratings, including depth of sentence structure and voice stress confidence analysis.


"All the Presidents prior to George W. Bush had a least one book under their belt, and most had written several white papers during their education or early careers. Not so with President Bush," Dr. Lovenstein said. "He has no published works or writings, which made it more difficult to arrive at an assessment. We relied more heavily on transcripts of his unscripted public speaking."


The Lovenstein Institute of Scranton Pennsylvania think tank includes high caliber historians, psychiatrists, sociologists, scientists in human behavior, and psychologists. Among their ranks are Dr. Werner R. Lovenstein, world-renowned sociologist, and Professor Patricia F. Dilliams, a world-respected psychiatrist.

on edit : Snopes debunked it 2 years ago when it came out

http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DCForumID12/2815.html#18

My Cat's are smarter then Jr. They at least know how to go to the bathroom on their own. I bet Jr still has his Mommy wipe his butt.

nah, not true. . . the place doesn't exist, for one thing. . . Clinton is conveniently twice as smart as dubya (which also makes him the most brilliant person alive. . . can't say there are very many 180's walking around). . . and. . . Kennedy has an actual, genuine IQ score floating around, I think it's 116. . .

I was looking at this earlier, because I was curious if anyone had anything to say about Bush's IQ. . . and I found one conservative who was debunking this, the best he could do was say Bush was at 115, which is the exact score studies rank the average college graduate at. . . coincidence? ;-)

I don't know if a high IQ would really be such an asset for the job of President. Some studies have indicated severe problems with socialization occur in the 160 and up range. Of course, some are brilliant and easy to get a long with--but I have not met them yet.

n/t

Someone posting a story and asking if it is true? Or the fact that the story is invented?

I don't see how either could hurt the Democratic Party. I mean they did not write it, and I see only positive in the fact that someone wants to know if something is true or not.

Here's a link that debunks the email:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bliq-bush.htm

n/t

You may know something that I don't about the production of this email. Maybe you know that some operatives of the Democratic party produced this, if so, provide your source. If not, I fail to see how this harms the Democratic Party.

It doesn't hurt us from the inside, it hurts from the outside. (In a tiny, cumulative way) Ya know how everytime we see a repub spewing utter bullshit, we add another hash mark to the "Reasons Why Republicans Suck" column? This parody can be seen by repubs in the same manner. It doesn't matter if it was written by a Democrat to hurt bush or not. Some repubs will blame a dem for it.

Now, I've done many extensive calculations and triple checked the results regarding this particular issue. I've arrived at the conclusion that this harms the democratic party to exactly the same degree that geraldo rivera's mustache hurts repukes. ;)

It started at a JOKE website. Someone copied it from that site and that is how it began. The joke website has no party affiliation. I have however found Rightwing sources claiming that the "Left" invented this in an orchestrated manner, and that it hurt the veracity of the Dems. Hey, the Rightwingers are on your side in this debate.

FDR couldn't even balance a checkbook. I'm not quite sure if that was due to his IQ level or the pitchers of martinis he drank.

...which is normal. However, his 20+ years of extremely heavy alcohol abuse have had an effect.

If you want to read about his slurred speech, wandering gaze, lack of balance, swallowing difficulty, and cofabulation when he should be able to remember what really happened, try

http://www.healthcentral.com/mhc/top/000771.cfm

It's all right there, and it's called Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome.