The Lovenstein IQ Hoax

Editor:

Since 1973, the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania has published research to the education community on each new president that includes an ‘IQ’ report among others. Its latest such report detailed its "findings" concerning the intelligence quotient of President George W. Bush, and concluded that his IQ was the lowest of the modern presidents, and that on average the IQ's of Republicans were lower those of Democratic presidents. (The foregoing was the opening paragraph of the Lovenstein Institute hoax. The main stream media fell for it for several days.)

At the end of the report, the person who forwarded me a copy added a pointed question concerning the average intelligence of "Dubya's" supporters. Of course, I do not know the average IQ of "Dubya" supporters. In addition to my wife and myself, I do know a lot of bright, highly educated Republicans who are leaders in business, the military, and government, and many others who are financially "comfortable." In fact, Democrats themselves frequently stereotype Republicans as wealthy, and as leaders in business and other nonacademic fields. On the other hand, I do believe that the overwhelming support Clinton and then Gore received from low socioeconomic, abysmally educated minorities included very few measurably bright people. You may be unable to forgive my political incorrectness, but my family was poor and my parents were only high school graduates, and I believe in School Choice and the privatization of Social Security and education to give the poor and uneducated the means to raise themselves up as I did. Presently, the simple act of marking a ballot in a Florida or Illinois voting booth is too much for most hard-core Democrat supporters.

Concerning Democrat presidents, "Genius" Jimmy Carter was easily the most ineffective president of the last half of the 20th Century, Bill Clinton and JFK were the most immoral, and Clinton was only effective when he was dragged unwillingly into supporting Republican programs such as welfare reform and balancing the budget. Clinton famously did not accomplish any of his pet programs, and his (and Hillary's) failed health care plan was as big a blunder as JFK's Bay of Pigs fiasco, and would have rivaled the mess JFK got us into in Viet Nam if it had passed. LBJ continued the escalation of war in Southeast Asia, and left it to Nixon to finally extricate us. LBJ's morality was also typical of Democratic presidents, as Lady Bird recently confirmed, and his Great Society programs started the spending flood that continues to swamp the budget to this day. LBJ took Social Security "off budget" to mask the costs of his escalating war in Viet Nam, thereby speeding its collapse. FDR's so-called Social Security "Trust Fund" does not now contain any funds, only Treasury Bonds that the government will have to redeem by borrowing more when Social Security outlays soon vastly exceed income. Only the government can get away with such a "con" game for over sixty years and counting.

How bright were Republican presidents? Ike was the Allied key to victory in WW II, and as president led Republicans to achieve Civil Rights victories over intense opposition, primarily from Democrats who then dominated Congress. Nixon got us out of Viet Nam, and into China. Ronald Reagan rebuilt our military, replaced Carter's malaise with optimism, and pushed the Soviet Union to the brink of collapse. George H. W. Bush completed Reagan's triumph over the Soviets, and then superbly led allied forces to overwhelming dominance in the Gulf War. By the way, Reagan also reversed the double digit inflation, unemployment, and interest rates he inherited from Carter, and his 1981 tax cut began a period of almost unbroken economic prosperity that lasted right up to the high-tech failures during the last year of the Clinton presidency. Under Reagan, government tax revenues doubled after his 1981 tax cut, but the Democrat-dominated Congress did not keep spending cut promises, so and we ended up with deficits. Later, after Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, they reined in spending and soon achieved surpluses.

In conclusion, it seems that the education elite, who have given us a failed public education system, find Democrat presidents to be just as smart as they are, and further find that the much more effective Republican presidents do not measure up to their intellectual standards. For that we can be grateful!