The Volokh Conspiracy

It shouldn't take too much experience with people and life to discern that school grades and mental acuity are not at all the same. (spoken from someone near the bottom of his law school class, I blame my unreadable handwriting, ha!).

Nice try, but Quayle was considered a lightweight not because of his law school grades. He was a lightweight because he not only didn't demonstrate a superior intelligence that one would associate with a man of his position, but repeatedly appeared to be out of his depth on most topics that one would consider vital to his status. His grades, along with his difficulty spelling, were just used as evidence to back that perception up. Most people consider GW a lightweight, and he seems to have gotten average to above average grades in school. Discipline in school, which I would consider maybe the most important skill to achieve good grades in most pre-PHD subjects, is not the same as intelligence.

Biden has repeatedly demonstrated over time that he has an expertise in the area of policy that he has dedicated himself too. Now knowing his famous lack of discipline and his apparent sever stutter at a younger age, I can easily see why he wasn't a great student. But while no one thinks he's Pat Moynihan, if there's a bar to being taken seriously as an intelligent Senator he's easily passed it.

Heh. My older brother graduated from Syracuse after being turned down from Temple, his first choice and my alma matter (though don't feel sorry for him; he makes a lot more $$ than me today). Though he was, unlike Biden I presume, on Syracuse's Law Review.

It kinda makes me feel good that I have just as strong, if not stronger credentials than a VP choice.

Though, Reagan's academic credentials weren't all that hot and he was one of the most successful Presidents of the past era.

Biden has always been considered to be the "wonder boy" in the Senate who never lived up to the hype.

I would say he really has done nothing in the Senate other than chairing the Judiciary Committee at a time when a major leak that he was ultimately responsible for occurred against a conservative black Supreme Court nominee.

It took Republican Senators to force Biden to change committee policy on Supreme Court nominees to prevent the circus like hearing on the Anita Hill allegations from occurring again. Now all personal allegations and other like charges are reviewed in an executive hearing of the Judiciary Committee.

Most of this is not really germane to the qualifications for holding office. Better would be to gather writings of the candidates that they wrote by themselves, especially on matters of law. Since as officeholders they had staff write most legal documents, such as bills and speeches on the floor, one might have to go back to briefs they wrote while in private practice.

It is also a weak credential that one taught conlaw in law school, which both Obama and Biden have done. So did Bill Clinton and the reports are he devoted the entire course to study of one case, Roe v. Wade. Might track down and ask some of their students to evaluate their former professors on subject knowledge.

I have yet to hear a constitutional analysis of any issue from Obama. I have heard Biden talk on constitutional issues and his lack of of underestanding of what I consider rudimentary constitutional concepts was appalling. There is such a thing as knowing just enough to be dangerous. I would love to be able to question them on constitutional concepts during a debate.

Oddly, this post neglects any mention of John McCain's performance at the Naval Academy, graduating nearly at the bottom of his class - and his seeming pride in his lack of achievement.

Very weak argument - 35 years in Senate by definition prevents someone from being a "lightweight."

Yeah, it's hard for McCain supporters to push the "but he didn't do well in school" point or for that matter, the "isn't John Edwards a bad guy" point because of McCain's own past.

@Hawkins

Does that count for John McCain too?

At the very least, this ends the argument about McCain's age (Biden is old too and already has suffered two aneurysms), McCain's status 'inside the beltway' (Biden's 35 yrs is the definition of an insider), McCain's poor performance in the naval academy back in the day (Biden was a poor student in both school and law school and had been caught for plagarism in law school as well), and McCain's closeness to lobbyists (Biden's pretty much owned by credit card company lobbyists).

That said, I'm awaiting McCain to pick either Lieberman (at which point the malkins and foxnews' of the world will implode) or Romney (whose religion is as foreign to most people as Obama's ethnic background is).

Goodness. This blog dropped a bit in my esteem with this post, David. You also forgot to mention that Biden did not pass the bar the first time he took it.

Yet I'm not quite sure what you were trying to get at here with this post. It's one of the more shallow posts I've ever seen for this forum and is better fodder for Above the Law than Volokh.

The comparisons between Biden and Quayle seem way off. Biden has always been more outspoken, articulate, coherent, and respected than Quayle ever was.

Furthermore, there are plenty of success stories from people who (a) graduated from the bottom of their class and (b) went to a "middling law school."

It's a strong ticket. This country of ours is not made up of people only in the 99th percentile.

George Bush went to Yale and Harvard. Hardly "middling schools." And look where it has gotten us.

Attack him on his issues. Not on his academic record.

I tend to agree with the idea that Biden's academic performance (minus the plagarism) and what school he went to shouldn't be a big issue w/respect to his preparedness. (like others have said--many, many successful and intelligent people have come from outside the top 25's of collegiate rankings and haven't been top of the class when they were in school)

I will say that there's a large amount of hypocrisy in this thread though regarding quayle---what exactly made up his reputation for 'stupidity' that makes it ok for others to include his school scores in his narrative? Was it his gaffes? Or was it just partisanship? Quayle, if i remember correctly, was mostly admonished for his inexperience---but had been congressman for 12 years before being selected VP. I don't understand why he's suddenly a completely different case from Biden where old school marks can be used against him.

At least we know who Clarence Thomas will be voting for this election cycle.

I don't think it's relevant. But Biden has shown real sensitivity about this matter in the past. He'll have to get that under control to prevent if from BECOMING an issue (E.g., no more comments about his IQ beign higher than that of someone who questions his academic performance.) If he shrugs it off, I suspect--and hope--that his academic record will be a non-issue.

The plagiarism? It happened a long time ago. And the Neil Kinnock speech he "borrowed"? Not a big deal.

I have not been impressed by his questioning of nominees before the Judiciary Committee. This strikes me as a quite fair topic for investigation and discussion. But his transcripts? Nope.

GPA per se is of relatively little importance, but no one is attempting to advance, much less substantiate the idea that Biden reflects seriousness, reflects gravitas. A telling elision, that.

Image polishers are plentiful, and they will all, necessarily, be in demand by Obama/Biden promoters and enthusiasts. The supply/demand curve will be off the charts.

erp--That was my biggest reason for saying it wouldn't be Biden. The conventional wisdom is that the veep's job is to NOT hurt the campaign. With Biden, we're pretty much guaranteed that some of his off-the-cuff comments will become the story for at least a few days.


His support of the Iraq war can't be gong over well in the leftosphere, can it? Anyone care to check Kos?

A Quayle comparison never occurred to me. Did Quayle have a record of quotes like these while he was a senator? Did he ever misprepresent a Supreme Court justice's statements?

Those are the reasons I laughed my head off at Obama's veep announcement.

To be fair to McCain, his Academy rankings include more than just academic performance. Academy rankings include personal conduct as well and from I what have heard his standing more reflected his issues with his personal conduct than from his academic performance.

"...(McCain's) standing more reflected his issues with his personal conduct than from his academic performance."

Oh, right.

That makes me feel much better.

Gore and Bradley were deemed much smarter than Bush, even thought the latter did better on intelligence-related standardized tests

This is simple. Both Gore and Bradley come across as much more intelligent or "studious" than Bush. I dont think very many people would disagree.

But it does seem that Republicans are subject to a different standard re intelligence than Democrats.

Oh, come on -- your evidence for this is that Biden gets treated differently than Quayle? Is this a subtle, Andy Kaufman-esque joke?

[Editor: Because unlike Quayle, Biden doesn't have a reputation as a lightweight? He certainly used to, I don't follow politics closely enough these days to know if his newfound gravitas is legitimate or a convenient invention.]

I think this is a bad metric of comparison. to the average american, it was when quayle got clocked by bentson in the debate that the "lightweight" label stuck. and the stupid part is largely because of the stuff that came out of quayle's mouht. I believe in liberal bias, but quayle is a bad example of it, in general.

A better example is to point out that neither bush nor quayle would have gotten a pass saying things like there are 57 states. So the real lightweight here is obama, not biden.

It would seem to me that the true measure of the comparative worth of Biden and Quayle would be to see which man's legislation has been cited more in the law reviews.

Might be an interesting way to compare John McCain and Barack Obama, too.

@MQuinn


Your gaffe explanation for the criticism of Bush/Quayle is as shoddy as this original posts'.

Biden HAS made tons of gaffes--including highly insensitive, borderline racist gaffes.

Similarly, Obama has made a boatload of gaffes too and the media has seemingly just brushed it off even though he's pretty inexperienced too. (What separates Quayle/Obama then? Their performance in school.)

The problem with Quayle's reputation wasn't limited to Democrats. From his biography at the U.S. Senate website as the 44th Vice President:

Although some of Bush's top staff considered Quayle a lightweight, the sixty-four-year-old Bush had compelling reasons for picking the Indiana senator as his running mate.

"This is silly." Wings

A set of examples, here. Excerpt:

"Crowley's TNR profile concludes with a striking example of Biden's foreign policy sophistication. In the wake of 9/11, in a meeting with his staff, Biden experienced an epiphany:

"Biden launches into a stream-of-consciousness monologue about what his [Senate Foreign Relations] committee should be doing, before he finally admits the obvious: "I'm groping here." Then he hits on an idea: America needs to show the Arab world that we're not bent on its destruction. "Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran," Biden declares. He surveys the table with raised eyebrows, a How do ya like that? look on his face."

Biden's wings are made of clay, Obama's are manufactured from the wizened confines of BDS and an unbounded egoism; the former has no hope of taking flight, the latter is an Icarus. In that sense, they balance one another out.

@volokh groupie

Every politician makes gaffes. When every word you speak is parsed by scores of reporters and by millions of Americans, you are indubitably going to be heard uttering stupid and insensitive things.

[EDITOR: I was never a big Quayle fan, but the meme that he was a moron started way before he made any embarassing gaffes, including the potatoe gaffe. And in fairness to him, he was relying on printed materials the school gave him, that spelled the tuber that way.]

But Quayle and Bush are famous for their faux pas (what is the plural of "faux pas"?) in a way that neither McCain nor Gore nor Obama are famous. Remember "potatoe" (Quayle)? Remember the bit about gynecologists practicing their "love" on patients all across the country (Bush)? :)

All politicians make mistakes, but Bush and Quayle are especially prone to such gaffes, and I hardly think that is a controversial statement. This propensity to say stupid things is why Bush's and Quayle's intellectual credentials are questioned by the MSM with greater frequency than the others.

Wings wrote:

On the other hand, Dan Quayle can't spell potato.

Wasn't he reading off a card provided by teachers at the school where he was doing a photo op? He should have said the teachers were too stupid to spell potato correctly. I'm sure it would have made the students snigger, but the same people who called Quayle stupid would have been even more ticked off at Quayle for questioning the intelligence of teachers.

"Sure, it would be nice to have Presidential candidates who actually understood the Constitution"; or, indeed, Justices.

Regarding GPA and intelligence/ effectiveness I have heard engineers explain it this way.

"The engineers who were A students are managed by the engineers who were B students who work for companies owned by the engineers who were C students"

(e.g., Gore and Bradley were deemed much smarter than Bush, even thought the latter did better on intelligence-related standardized tests)

No idea about Bradley, but this is just flat untrue for Gore vs. Bush. Gore tested out with an IQ of 133. Bush never took an IQ test that we know of, but got a 1206 on his SAT exam. Gore got a 1355.

Charles Krauthammer summed it up well when he said, Republicans think Democrats are wrong

You ought to read some popular Republican blogs sometime. The comment sections are full of remarks that Democrats are absolutely evil.

*sigh*

We talk about intelligence, and we get to hear about Obama's 57 states. As in he believes there are 57 states, as opposed to mispeaking when tired. I just love gotcha politics.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/57states.asp

(BTW, I think there is a difference between jumping on someone for a verbal misstatement as opposed to lack of knowledge . . . if McCain says we'll stay in Iran for 100 years at the end of a long day, instead of Iraq, that's just a slip of the tongue, and he should get the same courtesy. As for why Obama's slip wasn't extensively covered, except in the TeH CHOzEN HUSSEIN obAma IZ A MuZLIm who WanTS to RESTOREz the CaliPHATE to the 57 STATeZ. McCain FTW! . . . it's because everyone knows Obama knew how many states there are.)

"I don't want to get into a debate about a vicious partisan hack like Ann Coulter, but I'll rely on her for my posts and cite her on substantive issues without fact-checking them."

Nice job - you should be a professor of Rhetoric.

DB:

Stick to posts about the DC real estate market. This was the sort of post one would expect from a bottom-of-the-class college grad from a less-than-middling school.

Often, the claim that a politician is dumb is coupled with the claim that his success is properly attributable to something outside him. In the case of Bush and Quayle, this would have been his family connections. For Kerry, it was primarily his wives but also his family. For McCain, we hear both about his father and his second wife.

With Biden, there can be no such claim. He did not come from a notable family, and I do not know of any reason to believe that his success is a direct result of either of his marriages (his first wife died, for the record). Without one of these external explanations available to explain his success, I think it is fair for him to get a pass.

Well, at least now we can confidently predict the following Biden statement during the vice-presidential debates:

"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy: I knew Jack Kennedy; Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. ..."

Perhaps in his Senate career, Biden has dazzled everyone with his honesty and brilliance

Well, if you disregard his plagiarism from Neil Kinnock, maybe.

Bush never took an IQ test that we know of, but got a 1206 on his SAT exam. Gore got a 1355.

Assuming these scores are accurate -- I have no idea -- they translate into IQ scores of roughly 140 for Gore and 125-6 for Bush.

Personally, I don't think such scores should be used to evaluate anybody for anything at all in life except their ability to take a standardized test.

"poatoe"

heh. Guess I won't be VP.

Biden has shown that he is incredibly intelligent time and time again.

Yes, he said that Obama was not prepared to be president. Very astute. Other than that, it's doubtful. Using 500 words when 25 will do is not really a sign of intelligence.

His grasp of foreign policy is unparalleled.

He did back the Iraq War. So, maybe you are right.

35 years in Senate by definition prevents someone from being a "lightweight."

What has Biden actually done in his 36 years in the Senate?

For what it's worth: This is not the first time I've heard questions about Biden's intellect.

E J Dionne was on our campus a few years ago, giving a talk about the Iraq War, etc. He distinguished between the GOP and Demo "positions" on the war. I asked how one defines a Democratic position, given what Biden--then the ranking member on the SFRC--has said about the war.

MY POINT was not about his brain, but rather that he was a Democratic foreign affairs spokesman who was quite hawkish.

Dionne's first words in response were: "Biden is not stupid."

I found that to be a strikingly odd response given the tone of the question--which, again, was in no way critical of Biden-- but clearly something that Dionne had on his mind.

If Academy rankings are any standard, then one must consider that McCain's father and grandfather both graduated in the lower quarter of their class. And both went on to become four star Admirals. I suspect McCain's contrarian temperament was more of an issue, as was high fighter pilot personality.

As for presidential IQs... Bush's 126 is respectable, and higher than either Kerry or (JF) Kennedy. Of course, if we want to go higher, Nixon was around 146. Does that mean IQ is a good metric?

It seems to me that a high IQ, fettered by a mental illness such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (Clinton), Cognitive Disorder of Progressives, or Bush Derangement Syndrome is not necessarily an asset.

It is indeed a Democrat trope (widely believed in the MSM and academia) that Conservatives are dumber than progressives. Heck, they point to the tremendous majority the left has in universities as an example - mistaking correlation with causality.

@loki13

fair enough..as long as you're consistent

<i>"Oddly, this post neglects any mention of John McCain's performance at the Naval Academy, graduating nearly at the bottom of his class - and his seeming pride in his lack of achievement."</i>

1. I think military academy class rank includes more than grades. Does anyone know how it works?

2. Wasn't Einstein a poor student? Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, Harry Truman? I think they were all college drop outs.

3. <i>"Or that leaving his wife after he saw she wasn't hot anymore?"</i>

At the Saddleback interview McCain piped up and said his first marriage was his greatest moral failing. He didn't mention if she was hot.

4. <i>"Bush never took an IQ test that we know of, but got a 1206 on his SAT exam. Gore got a 1355." </i>

According to the ETS, that would mean Gore had a greater probability of succeeding in college than Bush. But, we don't have to rely on that test. We can see that both of them did about the same as undergraduates, and Bush exceeded Gore in grad school.

Even if George W. Bush is smarter than he pretends to be (and there's little doubt that he's canny in certain ways) the very fact that he *acts* like a lazy-minded, illiterate, poorly-educated hick makes a mockery of the notion that Republicans prefer "smarter" politicians.

the problem is that every time you state somebody comes across as more 'intelligent' you never question who drove the narrative of that inelligence---if its media driven then your next question of whether the average person buys that characterization means nothing

also..i can assure you a lot of conservatives probably don't think gore comes across as intellectual or intelligent--they seem to think he's a foaming at the mouth egotistical environmental scaremonger (see manbearpig) regardless of whether that's right or wrong

It has nothing to do with the media nor with the topic of what they are discussing. If you listened to 5 minutes of a speech by Bush, Gore, and Bradley, Gore and Bradley come off as much better spoken, and therefore seemingly more intelligent. This does not mean they are more intelligent, but they appear to be. Bush fits the role of a baffoon - hence his intelligence has been much more of an issue.

EDITOR-

As volokh groupie granted to me, fair enough. If the argument is made by other sources, though, why not use them? I'm sure Ward Churchill must've written/said something that had value, but I wouldn't cite to him in a political post because I know that anything associated with him is tainted.

IOW, if I have I can make a citation to either a) the Census Bureau or b) the "Free Mumia.com website", which do I choose?

Are you preaching to the choir (which, with Coulter, doesn't even include that many Republicans any more) or are you trying to make a point that will be listened to? If you want the "barack HUSSEIN obama" crowd, you've got them already. Others, not so much.

EDITOR Bernstein said:

I didn't "offer proof." I gave an example. Giving one example is just that, not an attempt to PROVE a point.

Fair enough. You didn't "offer proof." Instead, you stated a conclusion -- that Republicans are subject to a different standard than Democrats -- and supported it with a single example. This critique is, well, minor.


@volokh groupie:

I must confess, I am surprised! Your contention makes sense only if you are willing to argue that Bush and Quayle are not more prone to gaffes than the average politician. I doubt that there are many people that would make such a contention. The only other politician that I can think of that was as likely to make similar mistakes is Michael Dukakis.

BTW, you stated that my name is "MDQuinn" even though my screen name is MQuinn. Do we know each other, or was that a typo? My actual initials are MDQ!

Ah heck, one last attempt-

Given that Coulter is widely known as a partisan hack who likes to make up 'facts' (or, at best, play fast and loose with them to advance her cause), citing to her is nearly useless. It doesn't mean that she can't be right.

But here's the analogy- if you use a stopped clock to tell someone the time, and they call you on it, you can't come back by saying that it's not really an argument ad verecundiam and hey, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, so go check and see if it's right this time.

"Additionally, Biden is from Delaware. A state where many credit card companies have their headquarters."

Ummm... a state where MOST COMPANIES have their headquarters. Why do you hate capitalism?

Hyperbole is another charitable interpretation of Obama's "57 states." And, there are 56 jurisdictions sending delegates to the Democratic Convention, including American Samoa, Guam, and "the Democrats Abroad," so in an important sense, Obama was only off by one.

I always thought GHW picked Danny Quayle because he reminded GHW so much of GW. Neither set the intellectual world on fire, and both had fathers with enough clout to get their sons into the National Guard during the Vietnam era, allowing them never to miss a tee time. (Quayle, Sr. was a newspaper publisher back when that was a position of power.)

Few prominent politicians went to "name" schools by the way. The governor of Illinois, a Pepperdine LS grad, continues this tradition.

David Bernstein wrote:

it does seem that Republicans are subject to a different standard re intelligence than Democrats

Then why was this question you raise about Biden's law school career asked and answered 20 years ago? See Biden addresses this question on C-SPAN in 1988

You'll also see an interesting part at the end where Biden says leadership ability is more important in a US President than experience/policy details.

Tony Tutins:

I always thought GHW picked Danny Quayle because he reminded GHW so much of GW. Neither set the intellectual world on fire, and both had fathers with enough clout to get their sons into the National Guard during the Vietnam era...

You bring up a good point.

No, not that point; the point that Biden dodged the Viet Nam draft. Like a lot of others did, I know. But they're not running for VP.

I prefer my Commander-in-Chief to have actual military experience. Voting in the senate to send other folks' kids off to war may be necessary. But I'm a little less impressed with someone who personally refused to serve. I note that Biden's refusal to serve still runs in his family. Maybe it's genetics, huh? The chicken gene. Obama's got it, too.

Now Obama says he'll put every kid into his national "force" [Odumbo's own term]. No doubt the Dumbocrat-in-Chief will issue an Executive Order making his national force uniforms P.C. green. Because brown was already taken by another national socialist.

Coercion for your kids, anyone?

I don't hate capitalism. Quite the opposite, before I became a cop, I spent signifiant time in corporate America. I invest, have pension money and deferred compensation money invested. I like it when companies do well.

The fact is, Biden has been doing the bidding of the credit card companies for years. In return, he gets campaign money. It is no different for the other Senators. But, the other senators aren't running for VP. He will be held up to scrutiny by the nation, and not just the little state of Delaware.

@MQuinn

From what I can tell (and I admittedly was a young'un at the time) Quayle's rep came from the potato episode and the debate question. That seems to have put the dim label on him.

I don't know that he necessarily made many more gaffes than your average politician.

With W, my view is that he was the first president to really be in the middle of the age of new media and heightened political analysis. He had the benefit of 24 hour cable news, partisan bloggers and others looking over his statements much more carefully than before (people seem to forget that gore/kerry and other candidates also seemed to have made more gaffes than previous cycle candidates---drudge was particularly cruel to kerry).

Now I'm not going to suggest that Bush was definitely within the norm in terms of making stupid statements--but I can't say whether or not he was just by comparing him to past politicians---especially considering how many politicians are being exposed for stupid/ridiculous statements nowadays. The biden gaffes aren't unique to him...when McCain picks his VP that guy/girl will inevitably have their own set of stupid statements document on tpm or mediamatters or somewhere (though the extent and content will likely differ).

In any event, I think we'll both agree both Obama and McCain seem like reasonably good guys who also seem somewhat intelligent. Despite that, it'd take a google search to pull up a dozen gaffes by each. Over the next month of heightened coverage, I bet that number will double. Meanwhile, even senate and house candidates seem stupider/more racist/more insensitive etc in this house candidate---whether its because of macaca or making jokes about lesbians chasing us out of iraq the climate has changed.

The issue is getting caught in a useless battle of gaffes like loki articulated--i have tons of substantive criticism of W, Obama, McCain, etc--there's no need to play into the freeper/kos war of gotcha and claims of 'stupidity' based on wide ranging media narratives don't really appeal to me.

1. Full discolure - I'm not Dan Quayle brother/lover/lawyer---after a reread of some of my comments I can understand how one might conclude that.

2. Beau is scheduled to go to Iraq in October. No chickenhawk claims this election (though they were always stupid) as both side will have at least one son in Iraq.

3. I've been secretly stalking you MQuinn! Actually I'm not sure...maybe it was a subconcious Dr. Quinn the medicine woman connection (if you're a women this'll get eerie)

I note that Biden's refusal to serve still runs in his family. Maybe it's genetics, huh? The chicken gene.

Highly ironic given the last election, but also totally, spectacularly, hilariously wrong (as MNR pointed out).

I prefer my Commander-in-Chief to have actual military experience. Voting in the senate to send other folks' kids off to war may be necessary. But I'm a little less impressed with someone who personally refused to serve.

I wonder how much of a difference such matters actually make. I highly doubt Smokey was stressing the importance of military service in the last election. And I doubt those who cared about it last election will give any weight to the matter this time around.

By the way, speaking of verbal miscues, will Democrats acknowledge that McCain's house comment was a verbal miscue made by a tired candidate?

The Politico reports that McCain actually owns zero houses—-that all of the homes the Obama campaign so gleefully talked about are owned by Cindy McCain, her dependent children, and various trusts--and none by John himself.

Dave N - it was clearly a verbal miscue. Yet McCain's staff admitted to owning 4 houses - so Im not sure the distinction in ownership between him and his wife is as significant as you imply.

Biden reminds me of Professor Erwin Corey.

"Would you respect a blog citing to, oh, Ward Churchill for authority?"

Unlikely, given Ward Churchill's penchant for citing, covertly, Ward Churchill. (Not all that relevant. But I rejoice that an academic poseur was actually debunked and turfed.)

"(e.g., Gore and Bradley were deemed much smarter than Bush, even thought the latter did better on intelligence-related standardized tests) No idea about Bradley, but this is just flat untrue for Gore vs. Bush. Gore tested out with an IQ of 133. Bush never took an IQ test that we know of, but got a 1206 on his SAT exam. Gore got a 1355."

Bullshit.

Find cool gear ("One House, One Spouse, Obama/Biden 08") here: http://www.cafepress.com/politics2go

"According to the ETS, that would mean Gore had a greater probability of succeeding in college than Bush. But, we don't have to rely on that test. We can see that both of them did about the same as undergraduates, and Bush exceeded Gore in grad school.
8.23.2008 5:00pm"

Didn't Gore get kicked out of law school and leave divinity school without finishing?

This claim by Democrats that their candidate is smarter goes back to 1952, from what I can tell. Though there is no reason to consider Stevenson smarter than Ike (who was quite an intelligent man), Ike played down his brains (and ambition). Stevenson supporters overstated their candidate's intellect. (As it turned out, Stevenson was not much of a reader.)


JFK was smart and witty, but was portrayed as more knowledgeable and educated than he actually was. (See, e.g., his "LSE education.")than he was. But no one would have believed that Nixon was stupid. Unprincipled, yes. But not dumb.

Goldwater? Portrayed as a dimwit, though LBJ fared better only by comparison.

Ford was very unfairly portrayed as dim. (He gave his first briefing on the federal budget as president *without notes*.)

Reagan we know had an IQ of 53. I mean, that's how his critics portrayed him. Must have been true. Right?

Bush I was *not* eloquent, and was sometimes compared unfavorably to Dukakis for this reason. But he is in fact a highly intelligent man.

Bush II? We all know his reputation.

There is a double standard on this matter. Democrats can get away with more gaffes, and more "Stooopid" stuff in general. But I think this is largely a result of the "historical narrative." By the same token, a Republican is not going to have to worry too much is he says something that sounds weak or unpatriotic. Since the narrative is that the GOP is the party of strength and the flag.

I frankly never found Kerry to be all that bright. But the "narrative" about him was not that he was dumb. With Bush it was. So in 2004, Kerry could get away with more gaffes. But, by the same token, when he saluted at the convention and reported "for duty," he looked like a fraud. Bush probably could have done the same thing, and no one would even remember.

My only regret: We now have three of the four national contenders. And still no important hair.

"Would you respect a blog citing to, oh, Ward Churchill for authority?" Unlikely, given Ward Churchill's penchant for citing, covertly, Ward Churchill. (Not all that relevant. But I rejoice that an academic poseur was actually debunked and turfed.)
8.23.2008 7:31pm"

Interesting that you quote Ward Churchill on a blog discussing Biden, considering Churchill was kicked out of his tenured position not for being a left wing kook, but, in part, for plagarism.

MarkField

I would like to see the discussion of IQ but the link did not work for me.

So now merely reading an Ann Coulter book is a thought crime?

Thoughtless crime

And every single word, no matter how well footnoted, is presumptively inaccurate?


Including the and and

C'mon, you really think you said anything there.

to be fair..gerald ford did play center and linebacker at michigan

i doubt he had too many brain cells after all those mlb blitzes and keg stands

I personally don't think there's anything wrong with reading Ann Coulter, and for the most part I think there's nothing wrong with citing to her either. (She's an entertaining writer and a penetrating thinker, and the analytical quality of her work is significantly underestimated by her ideological opponents.) However, I would say that the spectacle of someone who denies that they are a conservative and then cites the work of Ann Coulter to prove a point provides increasingly amusing entertainment.

Once you concede that you are using Ann Coulter as samizdat, David, you may as well give up the charade!

Never met Biden but I did me Quayle once, take my word for it he's dumb.

To be fair, Gerald Ford's Wolverines were undefeated national champions his sophomore and junior years, so he probably didn't lose a lot of brain cells on the playing field those two years. Then again, they only won one game his senior year.

Let's also be fair to Gerald Ford and note that AFTER he completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan he then attended Yale Law School--where he graduated in the top 25% of his class. I think even in 1941 Yale was a pretty decent law school.

I am also one of those who think Ford's major gaffe in 1976 ("liberating" Poland) was due to him commenting on something from a classified intelligence summary of Poland--and not something he could easily repudiate as a consequence.

Mark,

According to Wikipedia, sigma 2 would be 95.4%
...wiki/Normal_distribution

Further info for those interested:

"The term "IQ score" is widely used but poorly defined. There are a large number of tests with different scales. The result on one test of 132 can be the same as a score 148 on another test. Some intelligence tests don't use IQ scores at all. Mensa has set a percentile as cutoff to avoid this confusion. Candidates for membership in Mensa must achieve a score at or above the 98th percentile on a standard test of intelligence (a score that is greater than or equal to that achieved by 98 percent of the general population taking the test)."
www.mensa.org

Tests commonly administered by school districts


California Test of Cognitive Skills

IQ 132


Differential Ability Scales (DAS)

GCA 132

Otis-Lennon Tests

IQ 132

Otis-Gamma Test

IQ 131

Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT)
Individual and Multilevel Forms

Ability Index Score
of 130 or above

Stanford Binet

IQ 132

Stanford Binet 5

IQ 130
Woodcock-Johnson Test of Cognitive Abilities
(not the Woodcock Johnson Achievement Test) IQ 132

www.us.mensa.org/

I am a conservative. But I draw the line at Dan Quayle. The guy is a friggin' idiot. But unintentionally, he's very funny!


Eli Rabett:

"C'mon, you really think you said anything there."

Hmm-m. Meaningless jibe. Improper punctuation. I'll bet Eli Rabett teaches at Howard University -- which was rated as the ninth worst out of 569 colleges and universities rated by Forbes in their September 1, 2008 edition. Could 'teachers' like Eli Rabett be the reason?

Eli is making Dan Quayle look smart.

"while Kerry went to a second-tier law school."
Quite possibly because his Navy discharge cerificate at the time other than honourable.

hawkins:

We can see that both of them did about the same as undergraduates, and Bush exceeded Gore in grad school.

I have no idea what evidence exists for this claim. But I would be very careful in comparing performance in law school v business school. Many top business schools dont rank students.

Gore flunked out of Vanderbilt Divinity School; he had five Incompletes that turned into Fs when he failed to do the missing work.

He withdrew from Vanderbilt Law School to run for Congress. His class rank is not known, but class members have claimed that he was in the lower half. Many of his known grades were Cs, but I have no idea of the grading curve used at Vanderbilt Law School. (Note: I taught one semester of Introduction to Astronomy at Vanderbilt when I was a post-doc there, but was never given an expected grade profile.)

not gonna fly--all presidential candidates try to act like the guy you'd like to have a beer with

The way I see it, there's a difference between pretending to be a "regular guy" and behaving like it's cool to be stupid.

For what it's worth, from Rasmussen:

Re: Biden--“Women are notably less enthusiastic than men—33% of women say Biden was the right choice while 27% disagreed. Men, by a 46% to 24% margin, said that Obama made the right choice.”

Hoosier:

This claim by Democrats that their candidate is smarter goes back to 1952, from what I can tell. Though there is no reason to consider Stevenson smarter than Ike (who was quite an intelligent man), Ike played down his brains (and ambition). Stevenson supporters overstated their candidate's intellect. (As it turned out, Stevenson was not much of a reader.)

According to Jean Baker's biography, Adlai Stevenson flunked out of Harvard Law School, and could only have been reinstated by a unanimous vote of the faculty. His final semester of grades included a 51 on agency, a 51 on evidence, a 59 on equity, a 61 on sales, a 62 on property, and a 62 on trusts.

volokh groupie:

...Coulter quotes:

"Liberal soccer moms are precisely as likely to receive anthrax in the mail as to develop a capacity for linear thinking.

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

"Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant.

"If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen.

"If I'm going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.

"I was going to have a few comments about John Edwards but you have to go into rehab if you use the word faggot.

"Liberals love America like O.J. loved Nicole.

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."

More! Please! Give me more!!

grover:

Even if George W. Bush is smarter than he pretends to be (and there's little doubt that he's canny in certain ways) the very fact that he *acts* like a lazy-minded, illiterate, poorly-educated hick makes a mockery of the notion that Republicans prefer "smarter" politicians.

Indeed. One of the many appalling things about the modern GOP is its naked contempt for education. Bush is always delighted to put his rampant anti-intellectualism on display, like when he announced that bad grades lead to success (text, video). And I think the epithet "elitist" is often a codeword for 'highly-educated.'

there's a difference between pretending to be a "regular guy" and behaving like it's cool to be stupid

Exactly. That's an apt description of what Bush does, like in the example I cited.

volokh groupie:

Beau is scheduled to go to Iraq in October. No chickenhawk claims this election (though they were always stupid) as both side will have at least one son in Iraq.

Minor correction. It is not necessarily the case that "both side will have at least one son in Iraq." McCain has one son who has been there and back. Will he be sent to Iraq again? Who knows. McCain has another son currently at the Naval Academy. Will he end up in Iraq? Who knows.

pun:

what McCain said under torture

According to the Bush definition of "torture," McCain was not tortured.

at least find somebody who thinks he is Jack Kennedy."

That would be....Bill Clinton?

Regarding Gore:

GaryC--He finished up at Northwestern, if I remember correctly. I suspect there was some political clout involved in his admission; his grandpa/namesake had been VP, and the family was big in Illinois Democratic circles.

Politics? Nahhhh? Just like I am sure there was no politics involved with all of Gore's kids (Karenna Gore Schiff, Kristin Gore, Sarah Gore, and Al Gore III) all attending Harvard? Certainly no politics there. They were legacies, like Flounder.

@jukebox

yawn.

Some others in the self made category:

Bob Dole, Jindal, Giuliani, Huckabee etc...your absurd conclusion on the metric is belied by the fact that you listed pretty much an equal number of 'non' self made guys of each party and just thought of dems for the self made ones. It's probably a lot harder to prove either is more dominated by 'self made guys'.

As for the self-made to intelligence correlation...sure it makes some minimal sense--you need some intelligence to become successful, but I doubt it correlates so well once you hit that threshold. For example, I know tons of super intelligent people who work in the hard sciences and love it. They'd never do politics. The people I know who're doing well in politics tend to be somewhat intelligent but also are better with respect to people skills. That theory seems limited at best.

And what's with hating on the people who grew up in the upper middle class or with connections but managed to prove that they are very intelligent and did great things on their own? Romney is a respected businessman who has has self made successes and has gained his reputation largely on his own intelligence (he actually has a great academic pedigree [books don't read themselves]). He doesn't fit your argument like the others.

By the way..your and grover's suggestion that republicans and bush celebrate stupidity is pure partisanship. Even your link which i guess was supposed to support the absurd idea was actually just Bush using self deprecating humor at a commencement speech. He sure as heck wasn't/isn't the only college c student who's a high ranking politician. In fact, he actually is trying to be normal there--he's giving hope to students (the majority of which obviously aren't all top grade getters) that they shouldn't just be limited by their letter grades when they try to succeed in life. I can't imagine anything that would be more everyday american than the idea that hard work and dedication can make a person regardless of their past. But go ahead..keep on making claims you can't support and typing partisan drivel.

By the way..claiming the word 'elitist' is always code for 'highly-educated' is laughably elitist itself.

For those interested, here's a link explaining IQ scores.

Well, if Smokey wants to play, let us digress, US News and World Reports ranks George Mason as a Tier 3 place and Howard as Tier 1. Howard is 118 in Forbes, but Mason does not make the list. Forbes' criteria are a bad joke. It would be hard to defend USNWR rankings, but the Forbes ones are as the peace of God in that they defy understanding

IEHO both Forbes and USNWP are, like Smokey, full of, well you know what and don't step in it. In the DC area, for example, UMd College Park is by far the best science and engineering school on the undergraduate and graduate level, but it is way down there in both rankings. American is rated way too high. Ms. Rabett went to business school there and Eli had a collaboration with a couple of folk there so it is not that we don't know the place

What does this mean? Probably that both Forbes and USNWR rankings are marginally more useful than anything written by Ann Coulter and don't trust your kid to them or her.

groupie:

claiming the word 'elitist' is always code for 'highly-educated' is laughably elitist itself

Suggesting that I said "always" when I actually said "often" is laughably illiterate.

Some others in the self made category: Bob Dole, Jindal, Giuliani, Huckabee

I already mentioned the cross-dresser. Another sign that your reading comprehension needs work. Yes, Dole scores high on the self-made scale, especially compared to lots of other GOP leaders. Likewise on the sense-of-humor scale. Huck is also self-made.

your absurd conclusion on the metric is belied by the fact that you listed pretty much an equal number of 'non' self made guys of each party and just thought of dems for the self made ones

Your absurd comment is belied by the fact that your claim ("just thought of dems for the self made ones") is wrong. I listed Giuliani as self-made. I could have mentioned Huck but I forgot. So sue me. I didn't mention Dole because I was trying to focus on people who are currently a little closer to the front page.

And my "conclusion on the metric" is strongly supported by what we see when we look at recent presidents. Reagan was self-made, but so was Carter. But since 1988, the GOP has given us 12 years of Bushes. Definitely not self-made. And now wants to give us McCain. Not self-made. Compared with Clinton and Obama: self-made.

Let's say Dole had been president for the last 8 years. Let's say the GOP was now running Huck. Let's say the Dems were now running Kerry. Let's say Gore had been president instead of Clinton. Then the metric would tilt the other way. But that's not how it is. The last time the GOP gave us a self-made president was 1980.

As for the self-made to intelligence correlation...sure it makes some minimal sense

More trouble with your reading comprehension. I didn't claim such a correlation. I don't have a strong opinion about that, one way or another.

And what's with hating on the people who grew up in the upper middle class or with connections but managed to prove that they are very intelligent and did great things on their own?

It's not about "hating." It's about realizing that you've contradicted yourself. Virtually by definition, members of that group didn't do "great things on their own."

Romney is a respected businessman

Please don't assume that I respect Romney.

was actually just Bush using self deprecating humor at a commencement speech

It's possible to be self-deprecating without sending the message that bad grades are cool. Bush knows he can get away with sending that message when he wraps it inside a self-deprecating tone. He also knows that the message is very appealing to certain people.

He sure as heck wasn't/isn't the only college c student who's a high ranking politician

Are you really this obtuse? It's not that he got bad grades. It's that he brags about it.

I can't imagine anything that would be more everyday american than the idea that hard work and dedication can make a person regardless of their past.

I can't imagine anything sillier than suggesting that Bush's life proves "that hard work and dedication can make a person regardless of their past." Bush's life proves that you can stay drunk until you're 40 and still be president, provided you pick the right parents.

do you mean to tell me that my class ranking will follow me around for the rest of my life and be used to prove I'm just not that intelligent?

Yes, if you run for President of the USA. It is a tough job. You need to have some impressive credentials.

Shertaugh: John McCain finished 894 out of 899 at the Naval Academy. He was passed over for promotion in 1973.

What source do you rely on for the claim that McCain was passed over for promotion in 1973? I read somewhere that after his stint as the Navy liason on Capitol Hill, McCain was offered a star, but declined it, having decided he wanted to pursue a career in politics himself.

Stretching to find something other than shameless partisan nitpicking in this post, one finds the usual disdain for "middling" law schools. Great.

FWIW, the IQs of the captured Nazi leaders, starting from the highest:

1 Hjalmar Schacht 143
2 Arthur Seyss-Inquart 141
3 Hermann Goering 138
4 Karl Doenitz 138
5 Franz von Papen 134
6 Eric Raeder 134
7 Dr. Hans Frank 130
8 Hans Fritsche 130
9 Baldur von Schirach 130
10 Joachim von Ribbentrop 129

Source: here

neuro:

What source do you rely on for the claim that McCain was passed over for promotion in 1973? I read somewhere that after his stint as the Navy liason on Capitol Hill, McCain was offered a star, but declined it, having decided he wanted to pursue a career in politics himself.

McCain has not signed SF-180. Therefore most of his service records are still secret. Therefore we still know quite little about this period. What seems clear, however, is that he had one executive position in his entire career. It lasted 13 months. Then, instead of staying, or moving up, he became Navy liaison to congress, which is a sort of glorified travel agent, and not an executive position. This seems like an odd transition, but the flaming liberals in the press seem to have no interest in looking into it.

Another oddity is that this executive position is completely omitted from his official campaign bio.

So jukeboxgrad, I take it that you can cite no support for the claim that McCain was passed over for promotion.

And how, pray tell, did you come to believe that being "Navy liaison to congress (sic)" amounts to being "a sort of glorified travel agent," an assignment for those with no future in the Navy? James Jones, who went on to sport 4 stars as Commandant of the Marine Corps, served at one time as the Marine Corps Liaison Officer to the United States Senate, his boss none other than Captain McCain at the time. These are not positions in which the military services slot losers, to the contrary, they are ones in which rising stars are groomed.

The most telling revelation to me here isn't anyone's grades or class rank.

It's that DB apparently reads Ann Coulter.

[Editor: I've read two of her books. I've also seen two Michael Moore movies. So?]

jukeboxgrad:

pun:

what McCain said under torture

According to the Bush definition of "torture," McCain was not tortured.

Wikipedia reports that his teeth were broken off at the gum line and bones broken during beatings inflicted every two hours while he was suspended by ropes. He still can't raise his arms above shoulder level, and it took 9 months of intensive physical therapy to enable him to bend his knees enough to be able to fly again. After barely passing one flight physical, which allowed him to have his flight status reinstated, he then failed a second physical which would have allowed him to have a sea command.

By my standards, he was tortured. Not as badly as some of the other POWs in the Hanoi Hilton, but far worse than we have treated anybody in Guantanamo. Waterboarding in particular isn't even close.

I wish I could remember which pundit pointed out, "If you're willing to undergo it to get an article in Vanity Fair, it isn't torture."

Wikipedia primarily cites John G. Hubbell's book, P.O.W.: A Definitive History of the American Prisoner-Of-War Experience in Vietnam, 1964–1973.

Why are people so fascinated with college grades and standardized tests? We all know plenty of smart people who never achieved much academic success, but are behemoths in business, politics, etc. So, what's the issue? The problem with Dan Quayle wasn't that he had this poor academic record--it was that he came off as an idiot. His incredible number of errors practically began "Gotcha" politics.

jukeboxgrad

pun:


Then you guys were not telling the truth when you said torture was not effective?


Torture is indeed effective at getting the prisoner to say exactly what you want him to say, even though the statement is probably false and meaningless (and McCain's experience is a terrific example). Please show us where "[us] guys" ever said something contrary to this.
........................
The claim is that valuable intelligence was elicited from the mastermind of the 911 attacks. If so, then by your definition of torture applied by our side, it must not have been torture?

The claim is that valuable intelligence was elicited from the mastermind of the 911 attacks.

The Administration has indeed made this claim. The claim has been denied by others in a number of published articles and books. It's very hard for the public to know who's telling the truth.

neuro:

I take it that you can cite no support for the claim that McCain was passed over for promotion.

I take it that you are inclined to make unwarranted assumptions. There is indeed some "support for the claim that McCain was passed over for promotion." Although the facts are murky, because McCain won't release his records. In a way, the basic question is this: did he fail to advance more in the navy because he was passed over, or because he just wasn't very interested in a navy career, and didn't pursue promotion? The latter theory seems less plausible when we notice that he worked very hard to regain his flying status after his release from prison. Why bother, if his real plan was to walk away from the navy?

"Support for the claim that McCain was passed over for promotion" can be found in the words of two of McCain's closest friends:

… articles written during the current presidential campaign quote McCain's closest friends about McCain's failure to be promoted to admiral before he retired from the Navy. For example, in an April 26, 2008, National Journal cover story, William Cohen (then a Senator, subsequently Secretary of Defense and the best man at McCain's second wedding) recounts that McCain "knew his career in the Navy was limited." Former Senator Gary Hart, who served as a groomsman at McCain's 1980 wedding, says in the National Journal story that he had been told "that [McCain] was not going to receive a star and not going to become an admiral. I think that was the deciding point for him to retire from the Navy."

Support ("for the claim that McCain was passed over for promotion") can also be found in McCain's own words:

That aspiration [to become an admiral like my ancestors] was well beyond my reach by the time I made my decision [to leave the navy]

That's in his book, and is quoted in the article I cited above.

Speaking of finding 'support' for claims, earlier you said this:

I read somewhere that after his stint as the Navy liason on Capitol Hill, McCain was offered a star, but declined it

"I take it that you can cite no support" for that claim, outside of a puff piece written by those pesky liberals at NYT. Who made that claim even though it's contrary to other evidence, such as McCain's own words, which I cited.

how, pray tell, did you come to believe that being "Navy liaison to congress (sic)" amounts to being "a sort of glorified travel agent"

By paying attention to the words found here:

What came next was an assignment that a warrior such as McCain could have found tedious and, at times, demeaning: The brass sent him to Washington to be the Navy’s liaison to the Senate. McCain describes the post as “the Navy’s lobbyist,” even though, technically, the military is not permitted to lobby. William Bader, then staff director for the Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described the job as that of “a glorified concierge and bag carrier, and soother of senatorial egos and demands.” The liaison’s primary responsibility was to manage travel logistics and deal with senators’ military constituents who had problems with pay or pensions.

(By the way, that 'sic' is pretty gratuitous. If you're going to make a fuss about the fact that I said "congress" instead of 'the Senate,' it would be good for you to first learn that "liason" [sic] is not proper spelling.)

McCain did this job immediately after running the Navy's largest squadron, the only executive position he has ever held, and a job that lasted only 13 months. It seems pretty self-evident that his next move was a step down, not a step up.

These are not positions in which the military services slot losers, to the contrary, they are ones in which rising stars are groomed.

I agree that someone in this job could rise to a higher rank, and some have done so (like Jones). Trouble is, McCain did not. He himself said "that aspiration [higher rank] was well beyond my reach." Why? No one knows. He should release his records so we can find out.

Aside from that, the job appears to have been a demotion from his previous job. The last thing he had done was run the navy's largest squadron, which means he had over a thousand people working for him. Compare this to the career of James Jones, whom you mentioned. His prior job was company commander, which means he was running a much smaller unit, compared with McCain's prior job.

it sounds like you are trying out for the Democratic version this time around of the Swift Boaters

Here is one of several fundamental differences: I'm making statements that happen to be true. Here's another one: I'm not questioning or trivializing McCain's fundamental heroism and service. Nothing I'm doing is remotely the equivalent of putting on a purple band-aid.

gary:

Wikipedia reports that his teeth were broken off at the gum line.

There's lots of bloggery about McCain's teeth. It all seems to trace back to this:

McCain seldom talks about the details of his torture by the North Vietnamese, but he has written about them in clinical depth. Despite the injuries he had already suffered, upon capture he was promptly bayoneted in the ankle and then beaten senseless. The North Vietnamese never set either of his broken arms. The only treatment of his broken knee involved cutting all the ligaments and cartilage, so that he never had more than 5 to 10 percent flexion during the entire time he was in prison. In 1968 he was offered early release, and when he refused, because others had been there longer, his captors went at him again; he suffered cracked ribs, teeth broken off at the gum line, and torture with ropes that lashed his arms behind his back and that were progressively tightened all through the night. Ultimately he taped a coerced confession.

That mostly corresponds to what McCain himself wrote, although the details are a little different. McCain covered the subject pretty thoroughly in Faith of My Fathers. The book is browsable at Amazon. A long and presumably careful adaptation of the same material is here. As far as I can tell, all he ever actually said about his teeth is this:

They cracked several of my ribs and broke a couple of teeth.

Is that the equivalent of saying "his teeth were broken off at the gum line?" Probably not, because you're implying that more than "a couple of teeth [were] cracked." More importantly, you said "he was suspended by ropes." Trouble is, that's worse than what Purdum said: "ropes that lashed his arms behind his back and that were progressively tightened all through the night." This corresponds to what McCain said in his book.

Also, it's a little misleading for Purdum to imply that McCain was "bayoneted in the ankle" by his jailers. That was done by the crowd that dragged him out of the lake.

bones broken during beatings inflicted every two hours

What McCain wrote is this:

For almost two months, nothing happened. Then the punishment sessions began. I was hauled into an empty room and kept there for four days. At intervals, the guards returned to administer beatings. One guard held me while the others pounded away. They cracked several of my ribs and broke a couple of teeth. Weakened by beatings and dysentery, with my right leg again nearly useless, I found it impossible to stand. On the third night I lay in my own blood and waste, so tired and hurt that I could not move. Three guards lifted me to my feet and gave me the worst beating yet. They left me lying on the floor moaning from the stabbing pain in my re-fractured arm.

So as far as "bones broken during beatings," yes, they cracked his ribs, and re-fractured his arm, which had been broken during ejection.

He still can't raise his arms above shoulder level, and it took 9 months of intensive physical therapy to enable him to bend his knees enough to be able to fly again.

That's because he broke both arms and his knee during his ejection. It's not correct to imply, as some do, that this occurred during his imprisonment. This is what he wrote:

I struck part of the airplane, breaking my left arm, my right arm in three places and my right knee, and was briefly knocked unconscious by the force of the ejection. … A crowd of several hundred Vietnamese gathered around me, stripping my clothes off, spitting on me and kicking and striking me. … Someone smashed a rifle butt into my shoulder, breaking it. Someone else stuck a bayonet in my ankle and groin.…

It's relevant to differentiate between what the airplane did to him, as compared with what the crowd did to him, as compared with what his jailers did to him.

Here are some other things McCain wrote that are relevant to this discussion:

My interrogators accused me of being a war criminal and demanded military information … they knocked me around a little to force my cooperation, and I began to feel sharp pains in my fractured limbs. I blacked out after the first few blows. …

I was occasionally beaten when I declined to give more information. The beatings were of short duration, because I let out a hair-raising scream whenever they occurred. My interrogators appears concerned that hospital personnel might object. I also suspected that my treatment was less harsh than might be accorded other prisoners. This I attributed to my father's position …

The Vietnamese never seemed to mind hurting us, but they usually took care not to put our lives in danger. …

By the end of 1969, routine beatings had almost stopped. We occasionally received extra rations. Our circumstances would never be as dire as they had been in those early years.

… even during these difficult encounters my captors were more careful not to permanently injure or disfigure me than they were with other prisoners. When they tied me in the ropes, they rolled my sleeves up so that my shirt served as padding between my arms and the ropes, a courtesy they seldom granted their other victims. The Vietnamese also never put me in ankle stocks or leg irons, a punishment they inflicted on many POWs. With the exception of a rough time I would experience in the summer of 1968, and a few other occasions when a guard or interrogator acted impulsively out of anger, I always sensed that they refrained from doing their worst to me.

He also said this:

I would remain in solitary confinement for over two years…

Just like his torture falls short of the Bush definition of torture, likewise for his "solitary confinement." According to the Bush definition of that term, McCain was not in solitary confinement. I explained that here.

By my standards, he was tortured.

By my standards, too. I am not claiming that McCain was not tortured. Of course he was. I'm simply pointing out that his captors did nothing that would qualify for the Bush-Yoo definition of torture. If you can show otherwise, please do so. There also seems to be a lot of evidence that his jailers did nothing that is not the equivalent of what we've done.

far worse than we have treated anybody in Guantanamo

Really? There are many credible reports of beatings at Gitmo. Like this one:

Guards at Guantanamo Bay bragged about beating detainees and described it as common practice, a Marine sergeant said in a sworn statement

It's also a proven fact that we have beaten people to death (although not necessarily at Gitmo).

he then failed a second physical which would have allowed him to have a sea command

Yes. I think that claim is sourced back to this:

According to Cindy McCain, John McCain failed a critical flight physical that would have precluded him from getting a carrier command assignment, the obvious next step in his ascension in the military. In retrospect, McCain said, he thinks he might have made admiral if he had stayed in the Navy. But his friends at the time said he was certain he would not.

The fact that he "failed a critical flight physical" seems to be at odds with the claim discussed above, that he was allegedly offered a star.

If you're willing to undergo it to get an article in Vanity Fair, it isn't torture

If you're willing to compare a voluntary procedure to a coerced procedure, you're being silly. And there's a long history of US courts treating waterboarding as a form of torture (pdf).

Wikipedia primarily cites John G. Hubbell's book, P.O.W

Yes, I've seen places where that book is mentioned. But I haven't seen quoted passages, and I can't find a place where the book is browsable online. And I can't imagine why anything in that book should be considered more authoritative than McCain's own writings.

The New York Times reported that McCain was told by the Secretary of the Navy that he was about to be selected for promotion to Rear Admiral in 1981

Yes, I discussed this above. Please note, again, that this report is at odds with something else you said: that McCain "failed a second physical which would have allowed him to have a sea command." There are lots of mysterious aspects to his service history that could be resolved if he released his records.

How does that compare to being a community organizer?

Community organizer doesn't pay as well.

PersonFromPorlock:

I am really surprised to see Ribbentrop's IQ that high. He was the dimmest-wit of the lot.

Besides, didn't Quayle's less than great mind crystalize in the public imagination when he corrected a grade school class spelling bee participant. He told her she was WRONG for spelling the word "potato." It should be "potatoe," according to him. And then he made the student spell it back to him with the wrong spelling!

http://www.capitalcentury.com/1992.html

deezrightwingnutz-

What the other poster, in touching on the credit card issue, didn't realize is that in his own way, Biden is a standing up for Federalism. The reason that corporations are incorporated in Delaware has to do with their Court of Chancery and the predictability of their Corporate law due to the large number of corporate decisions on the books (the pro-corporate decisions are actually less important than the predictability, but a great bonus). As for the HQs- Texas followed by NY have the most HQs. The CC companies are, for the most part, HQd in NY.

However, here is where federalism comes into play. States set their usury laws. South Dakota and Delaware have, um, lax ones. Ergo, you mail your bills to processing centers in those states so the CC companies can gouge... um, receive a market price for their services. Regulations are constantly proposed to federalize the usury rates, which the CC oppose and give money to Senators to block. Go Federalism!

"Someone above" . . .

There are 4 separate types of gaffes, which most people here are conflating.

Type 1: misuse of the English language (think Quayle and G.W. Bush)
Type 2: commonly recognized factually incorrect and/or silly statements, often due to changing topics midstream (e.g., fifty-seven states)
Type 2: puffery that crosses the line into falsity
Type 4: "He said what?" statements (usually insensitive or offensive, although sometimes just bizarre opinions or beliefs)

If you have to take the statement out of context to make it Type 3, it's not a gaffe.

Type 1 gaffes mark you as uneducated and/or stupid.

Everyone makes Type 2 gaffes. Some end up a lot funnier than others. If you make a lot (especially if they're funny ones, so that people remember them), you get marked as uneducated and/or stupid too.

Type 3 gaffes don't mark you as stupid, but they can hurt you as untrustworthy. Biden had a big one of this type in his 1988 campaign. Had Richardson's campaign gone anywhere
this year, his claim that he was drafted by a Major League Baseball team would have qualified. These happen a lot at the lower campaign level (it's surprising how many people claim college degrees they don't have), but normally get caught somewhere along the line and end any further hope of political advancement.

Type 4 gaffes hurt if they create or reinforce an image that a candidate is out of the mainstream. If they mark you as a bigot, you're probably in your last term in office (e.g., macaca).

Biden makes a lot more Type 4 gaffes than most politicians, but few Type 1 gaffes or memorable Type 2 gaffes.


Nick

jukeboxgrad,

I also respect the fact that Obama decided to not chase after big money.

Maybe you could try again, but this time without the implied slur against all those who work at private-sector jobs*?

jukeboxgrad:

he then failed a second physical which would have allowed him to have a sea command

Yes. I think that claim is sourced back to this:

According to Cindy McCain, John McCain failed a critical flight physical that would have precluded him from getting a carrier command assignment, the obvious next step in his ascension in the military. In retrospect, McCain said, he thinks he might have made admiral if he had stayed in the Navy. But his friends at the time said he was certain he would not.

The fact that he "failed a critical flight physical" seems to be at odds with the claim discussed above, that he was allegedly offered a star.

Without a sea command, McCain might have gotten his first star, and possibly a second, but had no chance of matching his father and grandfather with 4.

My copy of the May issue of Proceedings isn't handy, and I don't remember the exact numbers now, but Wikipedia says that there cannot legally be more than 216 flag officers in the Navy, with no more than 16.3% having more than 2 stars and no more than 25% of those having 4 stars.

That implies:

9 Admirals (O10, 4 stars)
26 Vice Admirals (O9, 3 stars)
171 Rear Admirals (O7 or O8, 1 or 2 stars)

Promotion to the higher ranks is tough under the best conditions, and John McCain recognized that without a sea command it wasn't going to happen.

[EDITOR: I didn't know that mentioning that someone wrote a chapter on something means I'm vouching for her character! I'll have to keep that in mind.

Do that.

When I find someone persuasive it means, among other things, that I believe the facts they use to support their argument. So those who have no interest in accuracy (be clear: anyone can make a mistake - I'm talking about people like Coulter who don't let facts get in the way) are not particularly persuasive.


I am vouching that this particular chapter was persuasive and amusing. So far, no one who froths at the mouth at the mere mention of Coulter has explained why the relevant chapter was not persuasive or amusing, but instead have engaged in ad hominems. I could instead just cite the various quotes she pulls up, but I don't actually own the book.]

I haven't read the relevant chapter. Does she have a good point? What's that saying about blind hogs? The reason I doubt that it's persuasive (what's amusing is obviously subjective) is that I don't think she has the slightest respect for things like facts and logic. That Coulter enjoys a considerable regard among conservatives is evidence of just how anti-intellectual modern American conservatism is.

Just for the heck of it, I looked up a couple of sites that claim to document the errors in Slander. There are a few medium errors, a few minor errors, a few cases of imprecise language, especially with passive voice, that could be interpreted to mean things that would be wrong or ridiculous, but only if read uncharitably, and a few things that aren't really errors but just matters of opinion on which the authors disagree with Coulter. I don't know about her later books, but this is pretty thin gruel for claiming that this means that not a single footnote of hers in Slander is to be trusted.

Navasky and Tony Hiss still insist on Alger's innocence.

I think that's the full list.

kirk:

but this time without the implied slur against all those who work at private-sector jobs

Sorry, but that's silly. Imagine that my friend gives up his job and his earthly possessions so he can spend the rest of his life helping Mother Teresa in an orphanage. Imagine that I publicly express my deep respect and admiration for him. Is that an "implied slur against all those" people I know who didn't do what he did? I don't think so. Do you?

At the same time, I don't mind explicitly condemning people who put undue emphasis on chasing after money. Like, say, someone who leaves behind his kids and his disfigured wife in order to run off with someone not just young and beautiful but also extremely rich. Our society suffers from too much of that sort of thing. Our real religion isn't Jesus, it's money.

And it's also not particularly a public/private sector thing anymore, thanks to the very effective revolving door between those two worlds. Before Cheney helped run a war that earned billions for Halliburton, they paid him millions. And before that, he was in the government, setting the stage for those future achievements. So he's crossed that fence a few times, and he's probably not done crossing it. We have the best government money can buy.

hoosier:

He was tortured by … being hanged by broken arms, tied behind him, and then strung over a hook high in the wall. … This is all described in Robert Timberg's book "The Nightingale's Song."

Really? Are you sure? That book is searchable and browsable at Amazon, here. I haven't read the whole thing, but I've looked around pretty carefully and the closest thing I can find is this (p. 135):

The ropes came next. McCain had never been in torture ropes, but he had heard about them from Bud Day and others. He was moved to another cell where his arms, battered, broken, and bruised in one way or another since the day he was shot down, were lashed behind his back, then cinched tightly together to intensify the pain. He was left on a stool.

That's exactly the same procedure that I've already cited via a couple of other sources. Obviously being "left on a stool" is not the same thing as being "strung over a hook high in the wall."

Then again, maybe the anecdote you described is elsewhere in the book. I hope you can tell us where. Please note that this anecdote is also pointedly missing from McCain's own book, where he seemed to be giving a very detailed account of what he experienced.

People who break limbs don't generally suffer that sort of permanent disability.

Most people we know "who break limbs" enjoy the benefit of quick and thorough medical treatment, which meets first-world standards, not third-world standards. McCain received some medical care, but it was not enough to present some "sort of permanent disability." It's not obvious that the medical care he received was much worse than the care that was generally available to a typical North Vietnamese civilian, in that time and place. McCain himself said that his captors seemed to be making some effort "not to permanently injure or disfigure" him.

being forced to kneel hour after hour

That's what we euphemistically call "stress positions" and "enhanced interrogation techniques." In this pdf you can see Rumsfeld's personal notation where he says this (p. 1):

I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?

By the way, I can find no indication in the two books I've been discussing that McCain was ever forced to "kneel." That word appears a total of this many times in both books: zero.

they beat him so severely the re-broke an arms and, most likely, his leg

McCain said they re-fractured one arm. Please tell us why you think they re-fractured his leg.

So they told him they were sending him home. He refused.

Yes, we hear a lot about that. I encourage you to pay attention to the words of Phillip Butler ("a 1961 graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a former light-attack carrier pilot. In 1965 he was shot down over North Vietnam where he spent eight years as a prisoner of war. He is a highly decorated combat veteran who was awarded two Silver Stars, two Legion of Merits, two Bronze Stars and two Purple Heart medals"):

Why I Will Not Vote for John McCain …

As some of you might know, John McCain is a long-time acquaintance of mine that goes way back to our time together at the U.S. Naval Academy and as Prisoners of War in Vietnam. …

When I was a Plebe (4th classman, or freshman) at the Naval Academy in 1957-58 … John, a First Classman (senior) and his room mate lived directly across the hall from me … he barely managed to graduate, standing 5th from the bottom of his 800 man graduating class. I and many others have speculated that the main reason he did graduate was because his father was an Admiral, and also his grandfather, both U.S. Naval Academy graduates. …

People often ask if I was a Prisoner of War with John McCain. My answer is always "No - John McCain was a POW with me." The reason is I was there for 8 years and John got there 2 ½ years later, so he was a POW for 5 ½ years. …

John was offered, and refused, "early release." Many of us were given this offer. It meant speaking out against your country and lying about your treatment to the press. You had to "admit" that the U.S. was criminal and that our treatment was "lenient and humane." So I, like numerous others, refused the offer. This was obviously something none of us could accept. Besides, we were bound by our service regulations, Geneva Conventions and loyalties to refuse early release until all the POW's were released, with the sick and wounded going first.

Yes, McCain turned down a chance to go home. But so did many others. And while it was a courageous act to turn down the offer, there would have been major repercussions if he had accepted it, because it would have been such a serious violation of regulations. He probably would have been disowned by his father.

The key point is still being ducked. What was done to him is the equivalent of what we do now. And nothing that was done to him would be considered torture under the Bush-Yoo standard.

db:

I looked up a couple of sites that claim to document the errors in Slander

I wonder if you saw this and this. Sorry if you already did.

There are a few medium errors

I guess calling a given error "medium" is in the eye of the beholder. I think maybe your standards are too low. And when a bunch of false statements all tilt in the same partisan direction, they look more like lies than innocent "errors."

Typo alert. I said this:

McCain received some medical care, but it was not enough to present some "sort of permanent disability."

I obviously meant to say "prevent."

byomtov:

When was the last time he was treated like a rock star at a major gathering of liberals?

Video here, jump to 6:06. Romney proudly introducing Coulter at CPAC 2007.

From Wikipedia:

The circulation of The Nation is rising and was last placed at 184,296 (2004)[when Navasky was still editor], more than double the center-left The New Republic, and larger than the neoconservative The Weekly Standard, and the conservative National Review. The Nation has lost money in all but three or four years of operation and is sustained in part by a group of more than 30,000 donors called The Nation Associates who donate funds to the periodical above and beyond their annual subscription fees.

The publisher and editor is Katrina vanden Heuvel. Former editors include Victor Navasky, Norman Thomas (associate editor), Carey McWilliams, and Freda Kirchwey. Notable contributors have included Albert Einstein, Franz Boas, Martin Luther King, Jr., Bertrand Russell, Barbara Garson, H. L. Mencken, Gore Vidal, Edward Said, Christopher Hitchens, Hunter S. Thompson, Langston Hughes, Ralph Nader, James Baldwin, Clement Greenberg, Tom Hayden, Daniel Singer, I.F. Stone, Leon Trotsky, Franklin D. Roosevelt, James K. Galbraith, John Steinbeck, Frank Lloyd Wright, Jean-Paul Sartre and John Beecher.

Sure, you don't need Coulter to debunk Navasky. But the fact that people like him can be so influential in "intellectual" circles and receive so little "mainstream" criticism gives her plenty of ammunition.

"The Nation has lost money in all but three or four years of operation and is sustained in part by a group of more than 30,000 donors called The Nation Associates who donate funds to the periodical above and beyond their annual subscription fees."


It helps when your publisher has more money than God.

LM:

Does anyone know whether violating the Code of Conduct by accepting early release would have been a punishable offense? If not, what would the consequences have been? Administrative? Stigma? None?

US Code of Conduct Section IIIa reads in part:

a. ...I will accept neither parole nor special favors from the enemy.

While 'parole' seems to involve agreeing not to fight against the holding power again as a condition of early release (which was not the case with the offer made to McCain), early release itself must certainly be a 'special favor' and therefore against the Code. At the very least, that would support a charge of 'Conduct Unbecoming' under the UCMJ.

David,

Does The Nation say stupid things sometimes? Sure. Checked out National Review lately?

Besides, Navasky represents a relatively small segment of "the left." Many, probably most, liberals don't consider him representative of their views. To the extent I'm familiar with him I certainly don't.

The Coulters, Goldbergs, Hannitys, Limbaughs etc. reach a vastly larger audience. The defense is always the same: they're polemicists, comedians, etc. Does that mean the things they say aren't influential among the mass of American conservatives?

Incidentally, I doubt that Goldberg, at least, would consider himself a polemicist. He seems to regard himself as a serious historian, daringly breaking new ground - Hitler was a vegetarian!!, and so on.

Here's your authority Coulter - just one example:

"While the form of treachery varies slightly from case to case, liberals always manage to take the position that most undermines American security."

Lovely, David.

smokey:

he had something called "character."

Indeed. Only a real "character" would leave his kids and disfigured wife to run off with a beer heiress barely half his age.

If Obama had been captured by the NVA, he would have been a collaborator within about sixty seconds.

I'm sure it took more than sixty seconds, but McCain did indeed write a false confession, under torture. And he admitted that he gave them more information than he should have, also under torture.

Obama is a rank opportunist

Funny you should say that. Here's what Ross Perot said about McCain:

McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory … After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.

As is no longer in reasonable dispute, the American Communist Party was under the direct control of the Soviet Union, and thus Stalin, and was, in fact, Stalinist in ideology. So, regardless of whether Navasky meant "American Communism" or "Communism" more generally, he is saying that people are trying to make Stalinism an evil caricature of itself. The American Communist Party was an evil institution. The fact that some of the lower level people in it didn't realize what they had gotten themselves into doesn't change that. But you're right that I misparaphrased, it should have been "Stalinism an evil caricature of itself," not the USSR. Apologies.

For me, the political scientist Michael Rogin captured the essence of the McCarthy era when he wrote of the notion that "some kind of alien external force had entered the body politic and threatens to destroy it from within." During the 1940s and '50s the alien force was Communism, and the countersubversive tradition expressed itself by demonizing the American Communist Party (and by extension fellow travelers and pinkos and eventually liberals), making Communism an evil caricature of itself.

Interesting. I read this passage differently than both jbg and Prof. Bernstein. As I understand it, Navasky is saying that the "countersubversive tradition" (by which I assume he means McCarthy) treated Communism as an evil caricature of itself, that is, that the "countersubversives" attributed to Communism their own worst faults. The key word is "itself", which I understand to refer to "the countersubversives" both times it's used.

DB -

Do you really believe Republicans are assumed to be less intelligent solely for the reason they are Republicans?

It seems there are many more likely explanations for individual Republican politicians being branded as stupid - such as their open contempt for education and being less than well spoken (often a political ploy to appeal to the average Joe - see Bush and Allen as prime examples).

(1) This silly obsession with college grades and standardized test scores in the face of the ready availability of actual real-world performance data is easily explained: standardized test scores are a more objective measure of pure intellectual prowess than are grades, which in turn are more objective than real-world performance data. Those who find that their standardized test scores overpredict their grades, or that their grades overpredict their real-world performance, naturally cling, as a self-defense mechanism, to the comforting notion that the overpredicting metric is the "true" measure of their worth and that the disappointing results (whether they be grades or real-world performance) are somehow the result of "unfair" subjective evaluation and that the overpredicting metric would be proven valid if only they could be subjected to "fair" evaluation. That real life is not lived through filling out bubbles with a number two pencil nor through writing papers to please a single individual is an idea that is naturally suppressed by such individuals.

(2) At the risk of starting (another) flame war, I would proffer an opinion regarding the law school versus business school discussion above. At schools of similar stature, the law students are, on average, significantly (but not overwhelmingly) more intelligent than the business students. At my law school, there was a program where law students and business students could take classes together. Some of these were law-focused and were taught by law professors, some were business-focused and were taught by business professors, and some were evenly mixed and taught by a law professor and a business professor. All indications suggested that the program attracted 33-67 percentile types (that is, the broad middle of the class), at least from the law school. Though no comprehensive comparison between the two student populations was ever disclosed by any of the professors, every bit of evidence I saw, from classroom performance, to the quality of written work, to interactions in small groups, to anecdotal evidence from peers, strongly suggested that the law students, on average, significantly outperformed the business students in all three class types, including business-focused classes taught by business professors. My impression was reinforced after working for a Fortune 100 corporation, where I noticed a startling disparity between the vocabulary, breadth of knowledge, quickness of wit and analytical skills of, on the one hand, lawyers, engineers, computer scientists and PhDs, and on the other, MBAs, accountants and the like.

Golda, I'm not going to waste time explaining the simple logical analogy I presented. But I never said conservatives, or Republicans, or anyone else are "persecuted." Indeed, the fact that the MSM treated conservatives in such a biased fashion over the years likely helped some of them get elected, e.g, the bumper sticker "Vote for Reagan, Annoy the Media."

Anyone who has spent time at a liberal northeast or midwestern college will have met people who think of conservatives as slackjaws driving pickup trucks with a houndog in the back.

And I haven't "defended" Ann Coulter; I've just made it clear that I don't blacklist her, so that if she makes a persuasive point, I'll cite her like I'd cite anyone else. Heck, I've actually linked to many bozos over the years who happen to have something interesting to say in a particular instance. But if you'd like to point out where I "defended" her, feel free.

loki - I see it as a Type 4, if anything. He wasn't factually wrong and this isn't something, under the circumstances (i.e., his wife owns investment properties on her own), that he would necessarily know. It's also not that bad an effort to punt or evade a "gotcha" question.

MarkField - typed documents fall under Muphry's law :-D

Nick

gary:

Without a sea command, McCain might have gotten his first star

Probably you understand some of these details better than I do, so maybe you can explain it to me. The statement you made seems at odds with this statement:

According to Cindy McCain, John McCain failed a critical flight physical that would have precluded him from getting a carrier command assignment, the obvious next step in his ascension in the military.

According to you, his next step would have been to "have gotten his first star … without a sea command." According to the passage I cited, "the obvious next step in his ascension in the military" would have been "a carrier command assignment." Which is obviously a sea command, right?

So was his obvious next step a sea command, or was his next step a star without a sea command? You are claiming the latter, but I see another source that claims the former. Which is it?

And if you're correct, what got in the way of him collecting his star?

Both his father and grandfather had reached the top of the Navy hierarchy. Not CNO, but O10 (Admiral), with major command responsibility. John McCain's inability to qualify for a sea command meant that he was on a track that would never lead to that level. If we believe the Lehman quote in the NYT, then he was promised a promotion to O7, but he had to know that was likely to be the end of his Navy career. He would have one or two jobs in the Pentagon, which might have been interesting and might not, with the possibility of getting one more star before he retired.

This would not constitute "ascension in the military" in his mind, since he would have fallen so far short of his ancestors rank.

One alternative was to get into politics, in Arizona, using his new wife's family ties, influence, and money. His time as Navy Liaison to the Senate apparently convinced him that he would enjoy that career path, so he took it, first winning a race for Congress in 1982 and then for the Senate in 1986. (By the way, I find it amusing and possibly important that he was preceded in the House by John Jacob Rhodes Jr. and followed by John Jacob Rhodes, III.)

Accepting promotion in the Navy would have delayed his entry into politics, and I assume that he was aware that Rep. Rhodes was considering retirement in 1981, when McCain had to make his decision, opening up a Republican-leaning seat.

Above a certain point (which we can refer to as super high IQ, maybe 150 or more if you want a number) it becomes hard to relate to other folk. Think of how you would feel if everyone else was a three year olds. I've known a couple of such people (they are VERY rare and not necessarily blessed), and as my wife once described the wife of one, she was his ambassador to humanity.

Smokey:
A couple of questions for GaryC:

As you state, "Both his father and grandfather had reached the top of the Navy hierarchy. Not CNO, but O10 (Admiral), with major command responsibility. John McCain's inability to qualify for a sea command meant that he was on a track that would never lead to that level."

Could John McCain's POW-inflicted injuries be the medical reason he couldn't qualify for a critical flight physical? As a result of those beatings, McCain is still unable to raise his hands high enough to comb his hair. I'm just asking, since you raise the issue.

Next question, GaryC: which unit did you serve in?

By the way, Smokey, the top half of my post was a comment by jukeboxgrad to which I was responding. I failed to insert his name in the block quote.

Jukeboxgrad,

Your analysis of McCain's torture is pretty repulsive. I mean, I'm repulsed by you. Mere refusal of medical treatment is a form of torture. Imagine the mental anguish of knowing your body is never going to be right again because some inhuman jerk, apparently like you, thinks that it's not torture. Not that his captors gave a damn about the definition of torture.

That didn't cover all the reasons your analysis repulsed me either.

I don't think any of the candidates are qualified run the country, but I also think they are no worse qualified than what we have experienced over the past eighty years or better either. So perhaps they are qualified to be president.

mark:

I read this passage differently than both jbg and Prof. Bernstein.

I didn't think of this. I think yours is the more plausible interpretation. I do feel comfortable accusing Navasky of this: writing a sentence that could have been clearer.

I want to note that my criticism of Bernstein stands. I think it's not his fault that he didn't think of your interpretation (I didn't either), but I think it is his fault that he thinks it's OK to freely exchange the terms "Communism" and "Stalinism." Especially in this context, where Navasky was talking about the American Communist Party, not the USSR.

01123:

I noticed a startling disparity between the vocabulary, breadth of knowledge, quickness of wit and analytical skills of, on the one hand, lawyers, engineers, computer scientists and PhDs, and on the other, MBAs, accountants and the like

Some evidence to support your observation can be found in the performance of America's first MBA president.

ejo:

I can't see the controversy in pointing out that the backbone of the Democratic party consists of groups that are the most educationally challenged and least accomplished

Naturally. Take Jews, for example. They overwhelmingly vote D, and are an important source of financial support for the party. But everyone knows they are one of the "groups that are the most educationally challenged and least accomplished." Right?

By the way, please note what I said above about people with graduate degrees picking Kerry over Bush.

As a group, urban poor (black and hispanic) do quite poorly by any measure of educational achievement, have the worst social pathologies but can be counted on to vote consistently Democratic-if the shoe fits, wear it.

Right. And please pay no attention to the rural white poor in the South who vote R. They've got lots of "educational achievement" and are free of "social pathologies," right?

And speaking of where "social pathologies" can be found, you'll find this interesting:

In red states in 2001, there were 572,000 divorces … Blue states recorded 340,000 … In the same year, 11 red states had higher rates of divorce than any blue state … In each of the red states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Mexico, 46.3 percent of all births were to unwed mothers … In blue states, on average, that percentage was 31.7 … Delaware has the highest rate of births to teenage mothers among all blue states, yet 17 red states have a higher rate … Of those red states, 15 have at least twice the rate as that of Massachusetts … There were more than 100 teen pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15 to 19 in 5 red states in 2002 … None of the blue states had rates that high … The rate of teen births declined in 46 states from 1988 to 2000 … It climbed in 3 red states and saw no change in another … The per capita rate of violent crime in red states is 421 per 100,000 … In blue states, it's 372 per 100,000 … The per capita rate of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in Louisiana is 13 per 100,000 … In Maine, it's 1.2 per 100,000 … As of 2000, 37 states had statewide policies or procedures to address domestic violence … All 13 that didn't were red states … The 5 states with the highest rates of alcohol dependence or abuse are red states … The 5 states with the highest rates of alcohol dependence or abuse among 12- to 17-year-olds are also red states … The per capita rate of methamphetamine-lab seizures in California is 2 per 100,000 … In Arkansas, it's 20 per 100,000 … The number of meth-lab seizures in red states increased by 38 percent from 1999 to 2003 … In the same time frame, it decreased by 38 percent in blue states … Residents of the all-red Mountain States are the most likely to have had 3 or more sexual partners in the previous year … Residents of all-blue New England are the least likely to have had more than 1 partner in that span … Residents of the mid-Atlantic region of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey were the most likely to be sexually abstinent … Residents of the all-red West South Central region (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana) were the least likely … Five red states reported more than 400 cases of chlamydia per 100,000 residents in 2002 … No blue state had a rate that high … The per capita rate of gonorrhea in red states was 140 per 100,000 … In blue states, it was 99 per 100,000.

More on teen pregnancy here.

Sorry to confuse you with the facts.

smokey:

Could John McCain's POW-inflicted injuries be the medical reason he couldn't qualify for a critical flight physical?

As I have already said, it's relevant to differentiate between what the airplane did to him, as compared with what the crowd did to him, as compared with what his jailers did to him. Before he reached the ground he had already broken both arms and a knee.

These problems were compounded by poor medical treatment (certainly by US standards). Some of this was probably because treatment was intentionally withheld, but some was probably just a result of generally low standards in that country, during that war. I think it's hard to know exactly where to draw this line. I don't think it's fair to claim that North Vietnam should have given him better medical care than they were currently able to give their own citizens and soldiers.

As a result of those beatings, McCain is still unable to raise his hands high enough to comb his hair

This has already been discussed extensively, above. It seems to be the case that the problem with raising his arm is a result of a broken shoulder. The shoulder was not broken by his jailers. His shoulder was broken by the crowd that dragged him out of the lake. I've already cited McCain's words describing this event.

And we're still waiting for a couple of people to explain why they claimed that McCain was hung by his arms. According to hoosier, this is in Timberg's book. Trouble is, I can't find it in Timberg's book, and I think it's not in there.

Jukeboxgrad,

"I'll be waiting patiently while you find an example of me claiming that McCain wasn't tortured."

Here you go:

According to the Bush definition of "torture," McCain was not tortured.

"Yoo declared that it's not torture unless it's pain at the level of "death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions."

"Please show your evidence that McCain's captors ever did anything that would have violated Yoo's very loose standard."

You went out of your way to paint McCain as not being tortured to the level of "serious impairment of body functions" when it is clear he currently has them. Withholding medical treatment for broken bones and the like obviously crosses the threshold of such a standard.

Meanwhile, you link to instances of rogue soldiers who are brought up on criminal charges by our military as if that were approved behavior. People who withheld medical treatment to death. You then again try to argue that in YOUR MIND this does not meet a standard of torture that rises to "serious imparment of body functions".

The workings of you mind is what disgusts me. You claimed that your mind had processed the standard and was operating within it when making these judgment calls. You did that and came up with totally disgusting judgement calls, just like those rogue US soldiers, who probably didn't even read Yoo's memo.

Why should anyone trust you to interpret what Yoo's memo allows or doesn't allow? Even if we accept what you claim is in there. You can’t even seem to understand that withholding medical treatement for broken bones meets the criteria you are claiming.

Obviously withholding medical treatment to the point of death violates that obligation. Yet you are here on this thread claiming that it is US policy to torture people to death.

During this whole process you have no moral concern over what that does to our collective reputation. Sure I think Bush and Co. did some stupid stuff, and crossed some boundaries they should not have, but ... you are painting every incident as if it was a premeditated goal or policy.

So, in summary, you go out of your way to interpret our enemies’ actions of not crossing a high standard for torture which they obviously did as a matter of policy at the highest levels. You do so at the expense of the victim, McCain. In the meantime when talking about the US you do your very best to take the least charitable interpretation of every event.

All the while arguing that McCain was not tortured to levels he clearly was. Including dismissing the notion he had his teeth broken off at the gum line. Last time I checked we don't say "He broke off a couple of tooth". It's teeth and it's plural when you go beyond one.

What kind of mind goes into such obviously incorrect minutia in order to paint his political enemies as monsters?

I think water boarding is torture. I think it violates domestic laws that apply to all US citizens internationally. Thus I think somebody in the Bush administration is guilty of violating some serious criminal law. I don’t however think it rises near the level of what was done to McCain.

brian:

You went out of your way to paint McCain as not being tortured to the level of "serious impairment of body functions" when it is clear he currently has them.

You are going out of your way to claim that McCain was tortured to the level of "serious impairment of body functions" even though:

A) it is not clear that McCain has "serious impairment of body functions," and,

B) it is not clear that his impairments were caused by his jailers.

Some information regarding A. Courts have generally defined "serious impairment of body functions" as this (pdf):

an objectively manifested impairment of an important body function that affects the person’s general ability to lead his or her normal life

Some further detail on this (pdf):

A serious impairment of body function is “an objectively manifested impairment of an important body function that affects the person’s general ability to lead his or her normal life.” MCL 500.3135(7). For an impairment to be objectively manifested, there must be a medically identifiable injury or a condition that has a physical basis. Jackson v Nelson, 252 Mich App 643, 652-653; 654 NW2d 604 (2002). The injury must be capable of objective verification by qualified medical personnel either as visually apparent or as detectable by medical testing. Netter v Bowman, 272 Mich App 289, 305; 725 NW2d 353 (2006). Whether a person has suffered a serious impairment of body function is a question of law for the court if there is no factual dispute concerning the nature and extent of the injuries, or if there is a factual dispute concerning the nature and extent of the injuries but the dispute is not material to whether the plaintiff has suffered a serious impairment of body function. MCL 500.3135(2)(a).

Determining whether a person is generally able to lead his or her normal life requires considering whether the objectively manifested impairment has affected the course and trajectory of the person’s life. The court must examine how, to what extent, and for how long the plaintiff’s life has been affected by the impairment. The court must examine the plaintiff’s life before and after the accident, and consider the significance of the affected aspects on the course of the plaintiff’s life. In order to determine whether the plaintiff’s general ability to lead his or her normal life has been affected by the objective impairment, the court may consider factors such as the nature and extent of the impairment, the type and length of treatment required, the duration of the impairment, the extent of any residual impairment, and the prognosis for eventual recovery. Kreiner v Fischer, 471 Mich 109, 131-134; 683 NW2d 611 (2004).

You are apparently claiming that McCain's impairments are so serious that they significantly effect his ability to lead his normal life. Really? The following information is from his web site:

At the present time, Senator McCain enjoys excellent health and displays extraordinary energy.  While it is impossible to predict any person's future health, today I can find no medical reason or problems that would preclude Senator McCain from fulfilling all the duties and obligations of President of the United States.…

4)  Orthopedic Status:

• He was a Navy pilot in Vietnam , and his plane was shot down in October of 1967.  He broke both arms and a leg after ejecting from his plane.  He was a prisoner of war in Hanoi for 5.5 years. 

• As a POW, he was beaten and tortured repeatedly, and suffered fractures of both shoulders.  Because he received no treatment for his fractures, all fractures healed with significantly reduced range of motion of his shoulders, arms and right knee. 

• He does not complain of bone or joint pain and does not take pain medication.

So while there is "significantly reduced range of motion of his shoulders, arms and right knee," he does not take pain medication, and there is "no medical reason or problems that would preclude Senator McCain from fulfilling all the duties and obligations of President of the United States." So what's your basis for claiming that his impairments are so serious that they significantly effect his ability to lead his normal life?

By the way, the statement that "he received no treatment for his fractures" is contradicted by what he wrote in his book ("Faith of My Fathers," p. 196 and p. 199):

I was rolled into a treatment room, where a doctor tried to set my broken right arm…In early December, they operated on my leg.

Those procedures were primitive and unsuccessful, but how is it accurate to claim that "he received no treatment for his fractures?"

Now let's talk about B. You are claiming his impairments were caused by his jailers. Trouble is, he was already injured before he arrived in jail. During ejection, he broke both arms and his knee. While being pulled from the lake, someone in the crowd broke his shoulder. These injuries are not the responsibility of his jailers. And while they are to be blamed to the extent that they withheld treatment, they are not to be blamed for the fact that the treatment they were able to provide was not up to Western standards. And it is not clear where to draw the line in this exact instance.

One more thing about what it says on his web site: "he was beaten and tortured repeatedly, and suffered fractures of both shoulders." This is quite misleading, because one of this shoulders was broken before he arrived in jail. And there is also no reference in his book to the idea that his other shoulder was ever broken. Also, he describes his beatings in detail, and does not claim that the beating broke bones, with the following exceptions (p. 243):

For almost two months, nothing happened. Then the punishment sessions began. I was hauled into an empty room and kept there for four days. At intervals, the guards returned to administer beatings. One guard held me while the others pounded away. They cracked several of my ribs and broke a couple of teeth. Weakened by beatings and dysentery, with my right leg again nearly useless, I found it impossible to stand. On the third night I lay in my own blood and waste, so tired and hurt that I could not move. Three guards lifted me to my feet and gave me the worst beating yet. They left me lying on the floor moaning from the stabbing pain in my re-fractured arm.

In other words, his beating broke bones as follows: they "broke a couple of teeth," they "cracked several" of his ribs, and they "re-fractured" his arm. As far as I can tell, he makes no other claim about his jailers breaking his bones.

As far as I can tell, in his book he does not claim that the other shoulder was ever broken. And he does not claim that beatings re-fractured the shoulder that was broken by the crowd that pulled him from the lake. In other words, his book leads one to believe that his jailers broke this many shoulders: zero. But his web site leads one to believe that his jailers broke this many shoulders: two. Why the discrepancy?

Given all these facts, please explain how McCain's jailers violated the Bush-Yoo torture standard. I know they violated my torture standard, but the facts seem to indicate that they did not violate the Bush-Yoo standard.

Withholding medical treatment for broken bones and the like obviously crosses the threshold of such a standard.

Only if the result of "withholding medical treatment" results in serious impairment. I just explained why McCain's condition is not fairly called a serious impairment.

Aside from that, it's not clear where to draw the line between the effect of withholding treatment deliberately, as compared with the reality of what treatment was realistically available in that country at that time. It's not obvious that the medical care he received was much worse than the care that was generally available to a typical North Vietnamese civilian, in that time and place. I don't think it's fair to claim that North Vietnam should have given him better medical care than they were currently able to give their own citizens and soldiers. McCain himself said that his captors seemed to be making some effort "not to permanently injure or disfigure" him.

you link to instances of rogue soldiers who are brought up on criminal charges by our military as if that were approved behavior

Typical GOP behavior: blame the little guy, and let the big shots off scot-free. Those "rogue soldiers" were the inevitable end result of guidance that started at the very top, with the Yoo memo and other documents, which called for "enhanced interrogation techniques." In this pdf you can see Rumsfeld's personal notation where he says this (p. 1):

I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?

All this fits right in with what Taguba found: "senior defense officials were involved in directing abusive interrogation policies." More from Taguba is here.

just like those rogue US soldiers, who probably didn't even read Yoo's memo

They didn't have to, because the attitude embodied in that memo was passed down the line to them. Read about Taguba's investigation.

Why should anyone trust you to interpret what Yoo's memo allows or doesn't allow?

I'm not asking anyone to "trust" me. All the facts are readily available, via public sources.

you are here on this thread claiming that it is US policy to torture people to death

Not exactly. But it's true that we've tortured people to death. It's also not clear that all the people who are truly responsible for this have been punished. Also, it is indeed US policy to torture people (if you claim that what was done to McCain is torture, as I do). Also, according the Bush-Yoo standard, McCain wasn't tortured.

Last time I checked we don't say "He broke off a couple of tooth".

I wonder what you've "checked." I cited p. 243 where McCain said they "broke a couple of teeth." Please make sure to not believe your lying eyes when you see those actual words printed with actual ink on the actual pages of McCain's actual book.

What kind of mind goes into such obviously incorrect minutia in order to paint his political enemies as monsters?

What kind of person indulges in various forms of puffery, exaggeration and distortion when the original story is impressive enough with no exaggeration whatsoever?

And what kind of person says that a given act is torture only when someone else does it to us, but not when we do it to them?

I think water boarding is torture. I think it violates domestic laws that apply to all US citizens internationally. Thus I think somebody in the Bush administration is guilty of violating some serious criminal law

Bush has said we don't torture. But you claim waterboarding is torture, and everyone accepts the fact that we've done waterboarding. Are you calling Bush a liar?

anon:

If you don't know the American Communist Party was Stalinist, you don't have any business commenting on the subject.

I'm not inclined to accept your uncorroborated opinion on that subject. Likewise for Bernstein's uncorroborated opinion. And even if your opinion is correct, it's still not OK to claim that Navasky said something he didn't say. Someone who does this is revealing more about their own credibility than they are about Navasky's credibility.

You're also ignoring what Mark said about the proper way to interpret the sentence.

You have a hard time understanding that just because some guy on the internet says something is a known fact doesn't make it a known fact. You also have a hard time understanding that even if it's a known fact, it's still not OK to claim that Navasky said something he didn't say.

brian:

What part of my claiming that the Bush administration commited felony torture didn't you understand?

Earlier you said this:

somebody in the Bush administration is guilty of violating some serious criminal law

When you make vague statements about "rogue soldiers," and "somebody in the Bush administration," it sounds to me like you're trying to push the blame downward, and deny that there is responsibility at the top.

You also sound like you're not sure how serious the situation is, when in one breath you talk about "serious criminal law," and then you say this:

Bush and Co. did some stupid stuff, and crossed some boundaries they should not have

Is it "some stupid stuff," or is it "felony torture?" There seems to be a bit of gap there, as if you're having trouble making up your mind.

Anyway, now you're coming up with a statement that's less equivocal: "the Bush administration commited felony torture." That sounds like an acknowledgement that there's responsibility at the top. Maybe that's what you meant all along. In any case, thanks for clarifying.

Speaking of clarifying, you should explain why you claimed that what was done to McCain would be considered torture under the Bush-Yoo standard. I showed proof that your claim is wrong.

hoosier:

One just needs to read a book or two.

You're joking, right? The last time you told me about something I could find in a book, I found that it wasn't actually in the book, after all. And that's not something that happened long ago, and far away. It happened in this thread, recently. And you have studiously avoided taking responsibility for your falsehood.

Your credibility is shot, so you're in an exceptionally poor position to claim that what I need to do is "read a book."

Speaking of ignoring things, you're also ignoring this simple point: even if "the Stalinism of the American Communist Party" is unquestionable, it's still wrong to claim that Navasky referenced the former when he actually referenced the latter. Bernstein misquoted Navasky, and then backpedaled into another misquote.