"Does anyone in America doubt that Kerry has a higher IQ than Bush? I'm sure the candidates' SATs and college transcripts would put Kerry far ahead."

Howell Raines
- Former Executive Editor of the New York Times
"The 'Dumb' Factor," Washington Post, August 27, 2004

Yale Graduates: Senator Kerry & President Bush

Everyone knows...that is, if you get your information from the mainstream media...that last year's presidential campaign was between a dimwitted incumbent who nearly flunked out of college and a true intellectual who understood the nuances of complex issues. So great was the intellect of the challenger that he could justify voting both for and against the same bill while denying that he waffled on the issue.

President George W. Bush's critics made much of the 1999 release of his Yale undergraduate grades. President Bush's cumulative grade score was a 77 (based on his first three years and a similar average under a non-numerical rating system implemented his senior year). What we didn't know, until this week, was that while President Bush was being mocked about his grades, Senator John F. Kerry was hiding a slightly worse academic past.

Senator Kerry, who graduated from Yale two years before President Bush, received a cumulative 76 during his four years including four D's his freshman year and another his sophomore year. Bush received just one D during his four years at Yale. Add this to the fact that last year it came out that Bush actually scored higher than Kerry in their military aptitude/IQ tests.

And don't forget 2000 presidential candidate Algore who the media also portrayed as an intellectual genius but who, after receiving his undergraduate degree, received F's in five of eight classes he took at Vanderbilt University's divinity school before flunking out leaving without receiving a degree. Algore also enrolled in Vanderbilt's law school but, again, "left without receiving a degree." President Bush meanwhile earned an M.B.A. from Harvard.