Rediscover Communication

It appears Yale produces politicians. Who do you believe is smarter?
 

I don't know either of them well enough to say. I would definitely say that Bush is smarter than his popular portrayal, and Kerry is about as smart or is somewhat less smart than his popular portrayal. I would guess that they are probably about evenly matched as far as IQ goes. You don't see either of them doing characteristically "smart" things like spouting Greek poetry, exploring very technical hobbies or contributing to a research field. They both have what seems to be a general, perfunctory undergraduate degree (aside from whatever honorary crap they may have received), and while showing some aptitude for creating/maintaining successful careers, haven't been inordinately brilliant. Remember, all of these guys got where they are because of connections, brown-nosing and boot-licking. That much is certain. If they were extremely brilliant, they would be running some project in the private sector, doing groundbreaking research or hidden in some military research/command facility.
I think we fall into a trap by thinking that because a person comes from a certain place (Texas, New England, wherever) or has (or doesn't have) a particular accent or speech pattern, that intelligence can immediately be divined from the snippets and sound bites of news coverage we get through the media.
That is why these people appear to be so two dimensional. Any sound bite or quote can be taken out of context, mishandled, misquoted and mangled until it means anything but what it was intended. It is fodder for talk shows of all varieties because the sound bites are essentially straw men. Anyone can destroy a single sentence view with 20 minutes of airtime.

I would dearly love to really get to know these people as their close friends and spouses and children know them. Only then could you really know what is what. I haven't read as much about Kerry as I have about Bush (still only a comparatively small amount), but the common theme that I saw among people who have gotten to know Bush have said that he is much smarter than is commonly understood. Just as commonly, they say he is a horrible communicator... that he is very inarticulate. This generates the popular notion that Bush is stupid, though I think that is an illusion.
But again, I don't know either of them well enough to say.
But it would be VERY interesting to get to know each one and what they really think about something.