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Lots of negative comments regarding the grades Bush earned at Andover and later Yale. I've heard some suggest that Obama must have earned bad grades also because he hasn't released his undergrad grades. Dan Quayle was "C" student. But do grades really matter? Are they a good predictor of ability?
Yes, and no. What's the context? I think grades determine diligence and intellectual rigor. The problem is when people read more into them than what is appropriate.
Since you invoked Bush, though, I would say that people attack Bush's academic record because this evidence is consistent with people's perceptions about him long after he had entered the public forum. I don't necessarily buy that he was 'stupid', as some of the obsessed Bush-hating leftists have asserted, but his poor performance in college definitely suggests a lack of interest in intellectual affairs, a lack of curiosity, a belief that academic discovery isn't such an important process.
And that being what it is, I question whether that's the kind of person you want sitting in a position of such enormous national and global interest. His lack of intellect and his lack of critical thinking undoubtedly played a role in permitting his advisers to goad him into invading Iraq without full recognition of the consequences, and it also probably had a lot to do with his delegation of economic matters to people who were simply not minding the store on his watch. There are no guarantees that someone with all of these qualities would not have made similar errors in judgment, but I think that it would have been less likely.
Bush might have been smart and well qualified to do other things in life, but he never ever should have been president of the United States. I'm not saying that Barack Obama is some kind of genius and that he or any other president doesn't have his/their own shortcomings. But I'm more satisfied with their approach to the presidency than I am with Bush's.
Lots of negative comments regarding the grades Bush earned at Andover and later Yale. I've heard some suggest that Obama must have earned bad grades also because he hasn't released his undergrad grades. Dan Quayle was "C" student. But do grades really matter? Are they a good predictor of ability?
And Gore got the worst grades.
IMO common sense wins the day.
We don't win as a country if the guy is a well educated socialist. That is the reverse of what the goals of this country were when we got started and I don't care if you find a left wing-nut who is supposedly smart.
I think Obama got pet student good grades because they were grooming him for politics. We knew he was a hard drug user who had no females come forward to claim they dated him before his marriage to his mannish wife.
IMO there is a reason he won't release his school records is his writings. I think he probably wrote like a radical communist from his heart and that would never go well with USA citizens.
If Obama had good things in his school records and writings he would be showing them off. Not showing them off tells you things were not so good for him to show off. It is that simple IMO.
If I was hiring a recent graduate, grades would be the only real indicator at that time. The kids with good grades always made sure to emphasize their academic achievement. If I hired a senior research scientist, the subject of grades never came up. You might see something in his/her bio if you were proposing key staff. It was more along the "he graduated with Honors from MIT..." , which implied good grades.
Bush seems to have done fairly well in HS and at Andover, but was a marginal student in college. Gore was recognized as a solid student. Kris Kristofferson was a Rhodes Scholar. GHW Bush was an excellent student, as was Clinton apparently. Reagan was mediocre. Carter graduated from the Naval Academy. Bush's early professional career seems consistent with his academic career. Obama is an unknown.
I saw some info on one of our old neighbors today that got me thinking about the subject. Mostly in relationship to Bush and the blistering he took over his grades.
If I was hiring a recent graduate, grades would be the only real indicator at that time. The kids with good grades always made sure to emphasize their academic achievement. If I hired a senior research scientist, the subject of grades never came up. You might see something in his/her bio if you were proposing key staff. It was more along the "he graduated with Honors from MIT..." , which implied good grades.
Bush seems to have done fairly well in HS and at Andover, but was a marginal student in college. Gore was recognized as a solid student. Kris Kristofferson was a Rhodes Scholar. GHW Bush was an excellent student, as was Clinton apparently. Reagan was mediocre. Carter graduated from the Naval Academy. Bush's early professional career seems consistent with his academic career. Obama is an unknown.
I saw some info on one of our old neighbors today that got me thinking about the subject. Mostly in relationship to Bush and the blistering he took over his grades.
I think actual grades are much less important than actual intellectual curiosity, the desire to always be learning. In relation to grades and politicians, GWB and Gore were both silver spooners. I've got to guess neither would have risen to the levels they did on their own.
As far as presidential qualifications go I've always considered a massive ego to be pretty important. No matter what your CV you would have to have quite an ego to think that you are qualified to be the president.
Lots of negative comments regarding the grades Bush earned at Andover and later Yale. I've heard some suggest that Obama must have earned bad grades also because he hasn't released his undergrad grades. Dan Quayle was "C" student. But do grades really matter? Are they a good predictor of ability?
No grades are useless to evaluate much of anything because a grade A at one school might be a D at another school. I will tell you that an A at UNLV would probably be only a C at a school like Yale. The only sure fire way to tell if a student knows what he should know is by using standardized testing like the SAT or ACT.
Yes, and no. What's the context? I think grades determine diligence and intellectual rigor. The problem is when people read more into them than what is appropriate.
Since you invoked Bush, though, I would say that people attack Bush's academic record because this evidence is consistent with people's perceptions about him long after he had entered the public forum. I don't necessarily buy that he was 'stupid', as some of the obsessed Bush-hating leftists have asserted, but his poor performance in college definitely suggests a lack of interest in intellectual affairs, a lack of curiosity, a belief that academic discovery isn't such an important process.
And that being what it is, I question whether that's the kind of person you want sitting in a position of such enormous national and global interest. His lack of intellect and his lack of critical thinking undoubtedly played a role in permitting his advisers to goad him into invading Iraq without full recognition of the consequences, and it also probably had a lot to do with his delegation of economic matters to people who were simply not minding the store on his watch. There are no guarantees that someone with all of these qualities would not have made similar errors in judgment, but I think that it would have been less likely.
Bush might have been smart and well qualified to do other things in life, but he never ever should have been president of the United States. I'm not saying that Barack Obama is some kind of genius and that he or any other president doesn't have his/their own shortcomings. But I'm more satisfied with their approach to the presidency than I am with Bush's.
You had me up until the last sentence.
The problem with Obama's approach to the presidency as I see it is that it is too authoritarian. I'd rather a president with personal problems than procedural problems. Obama's presidency has damaged the fabric of our society in that he has set a precedent that it is acceptable to circumvent voting as long as you can get away with it. It's one thing to ignore the opposition party and enact your agenda unilaterally when you have the votes to do it fair and square. At that point you have a mandate from the people. But it's quite another thing to do it when you subvert the voting process to do it.
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