It is worth recalling that Bush is estimated at 95th percentile when it comes to intelligence. Not the smartest man in the country by a long shot, but not so far down the totem pole either.
(It would be interesting to look at the percentiles politicians have in various dimensions- intelligence, height, beauty, verbal ability, wealth, etc.- and see how the distributions differ. This isn’t the Olympics, where you’re selecting on one specific trait, but an aggregation- and it may be that intelligence does play a large role in that aggregation.)
I recall reading somewhere that somebody bothered to check and it turned out that height and physical looks correlate with political success. Which is not surpising considering the Halo effect.
Found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Presidential_IQ_hoax#IQ_estimations_by_academics
I suppose my perception of him was biased, and I’m not even American! Well, time to update...
I recall reading somewhere that somebody bothered to check and it turned out that height and physical looks correlate with political success. Which is not surpising considering the Halo effect.