The question of whether or not Bush is an idiot comes up a lot, even with smart conservatives who have been secretly -- though not so secretly of late -- afraid that their number one standard-bearer isn't the best advertisement for the intellectual seriousness of their movement.

Some people suggest that he's actually quite clever, and that the aw-shucks dunderheadedness is a pose to keep us off our guard.

But I think both camps are using a common conception of intelligence that isn't quite right. We tend to think of intelligence as a scale, which is measured by things like intelligence tests, ranging from the barely functional 70 IQ Down Syndrome guy sitting next to you on the bus, all the way up to, say, Richard Feynman. Or that Marilyn Vos Savant chick who is supposedly the smartest person ever. And she's part of why I think the conception is flawed.

I believe the IQ test can function very well as an indicator of how far below baseline normal a person is. I don't believe an IQ test can function very well as a measure of how far above baseline normal a person is. That doesn't mean that, if you've taken an IQ test and it said you were a genius, that you're not. Heck, you probably are. But once you're talking about functionality above the baseline, things become more complicated than anything a single number can tell you.

Re: Vos Savant. She is good at figuring out puzzles, yes, and that is undoubtedly why she topped out on the numeric IQ measure. But she writes a column where (inexplicably) people ask her questions about things other than puzzle-solving -- things like sex roles and social mores, and when she writes about these things, in my opinion, she comes across as an airhead. Dan Savage, sex and human behavior advice columnist extraordinaire, comes across as much more intelligent. Is he? Probably not in the puzzle-solving sense. But he is a better writer, and more wise about human behavior.

I have no doubt that I have read works by literary geniuses who couldn't do math, seen works by visual arts geniuses who couldn't express themselves in words very well, and so on.

One we're all above the baseline, individual differences really take over, and in some ways what we perceive as intelligence is really just a characteristic of personality.

Bush has the stereotypical frat boy-business major- corporate drone personality. Now, a frat boy isn't going to be below baseline normal -- he's probably above it. But that's not the point. The point is not that Bush can't think, because of brain damage or somesuch. The point is that Bush does not think, and that's a characteristic of personality.

As the author of The Bush Dyslexicon has noted, Bush rarely misspeaks when he's talking about killing people.