George Walker Bush, 43rd president of the United States was born on July 6, 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut. Oldest son of former president George H. W. Bush, George “doubalya”, as he was affectionately called, grew up in Texas and between 1964 and 1968 attended Yale University where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. By the time he entered his 20’s, he was flying warplanes in the Texas Air National Guard. In 1973, he entered Harvard Business School and graduated in 1975 with an MBA. After serving as 46th governor of Texas between 1995 and 2000, he was elected President in November 2000.
In spite of his Ivy-League credentials and his MBA, a degree that no previous US president had earned, George was often regarded as one of the least intelligent US presidents. In a historiographic study, psychologist Dean Simonton attempted to rank the presidents by IQ based on their achievements and other attributes. In that analysis, every US President had an estimated IQ of 130 or greater, placing them all in the top 3% of the general population in intelligence. For example, the estimate for the IQ of George W. Bush was 138.5, placing him in the top 0.9% of the population, but lower than most US Presidents. However, Simonton acknowledging the fragility of such estimates, stated:
George W. Bush may be much smarter than [our estimate] implies. The counterargument must aim at the score he received on Openness, a score that provided the only information for the imputation of his IQ and Intellectual Brilliance estimates.
In the photo below, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush share a moment of levity as they wait backstage before the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library in April 2013. It’s not clear what everyone is laughing about, but close examination suggests the object of their humor.
Rising above the ridicule of his fellow members of the presidents’ club, good-natured George opened with self-deprecating humor, “There was a time in my life when I wasn’t likely to be found at a library, much less found one.” Though not known for his “school smarts,” George’s acquired skills in leadership and human relationships, brought him an approval rating greater than 85% following the September 11 attacks–the greatest approval rating of any US President before or since.
