Top all-time · #3369
Keith Hennessey
Personal blog · keithhennessey.comeconomicspolitics
Keith Hennessey's personal blog at keithhennessey.com covers economics and politics. Since 2009, 23 different Hacker News readers have linked it 31 times, most often “George W. Bush is smarter than you”. The last post was in 2021, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (17) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this 2013 post arguing that George W. Bush was smarter than his public image, citing firsthand accounts from former staff and policy experts who worked with him.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 17 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- George W. Bush is smarter than you12 people · 17 mentions · first linked 2013-04-25
- /2013/04/24/smarter/4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2018-01-18
- George W. Bush is smarter than you (2013)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-11-30
What Hacker News says?
Let's not fall into the trap of thinking that Trump is stupid. He may be a lot of things, but stupid people don't make it into the White House. And speaking of people who may be smarter than we think: http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on “Trump Fires Acting Attorney General”Submitted George W. Bush is smarter than you as a story · 97 points
HN discussionWhat do you really know about George W. Bush? http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on “MIT dean to start new university: “No majors, no lectures, no classrooms””Submitted George W. Bush is smarter than you (2013) as a story · 63 points
HN discussionI am not sure about Boris, but I am 100% certain that the narrative about Trump playing 4D chess is bullshit. I believe that George Bush may have had a persona to some degree ( https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/ ) because it pays off to speak like a man of the people. But everyone who's worked with Donald Trump and spoken out afterwards tell the same story about how utterly stupid he is. In Denmark, we o…
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on ““I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you””Submitted George W. Bush is smarter than you (2013) as a story · 46 points
HN discussionHere's a first hand account from a former member of his staff, in an article aptly titled "George W. Bush is smarter than you": https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on ““I thought I'd share this Boris Johnson story with you””Submitted (2013) George W. Bush is smarter than you as a story · 41 points
HN discussionThe people who worked for him have pointed out he was quite a lot smarter than them[1]. The interviews he gave during his library's opening. Dick Cheney has said Bush is smarter than him. This SNL BS is seriously messing with how people think. It's like the number of people who believe Ford was an unathletic clutz. 1) one example http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on “Obama administration had restrictions on NSA reversed in 2011”Submitted George W. Bush is smarter than you (2013) as a story · 8 points
HN discussionRelated: 'George W. Bush is smarter than you'. Elite leaders often make themselves look dumber than they really are. https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on “Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders”Submitted George W. Bush is smarter than you (2013) as a story · 7 points
HN discussionBush was a very intelligent man contrary to what many believe. http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on “H. G. Wells’ interview with Stalin (1934)”Submitted George W. Bush is smarter than you as a story · 6 points
HN discussionA friend of mine has a politician for a parent. They worked with Bush and told me that there are two myths people commonly believe about Bush. First, that he's dumb and second that he's nice. I don't know the author of this article, http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/ , but it echoes many of the things I've heard from others.
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on “Why are working class kids less likely to get elite jobs? They study too hard”Submitted George W. Bush is smarter than you (2013) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionI also discuss how many feel that George W. Bush was dysrationalic. No, he outright makes that "diagnosis" of the former president, going so far as to title the chapter 1 "teaser" of his book "Inside George W. Bush's Mind". It's available here: http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/excerpts/stanovich_what.p... Maybe he's being cagey about it because his "evidence" is incredibly weak sauce. He expects most of the audien…
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on “A Test to Measure How Rational You Really Are”Submitted Roadmap to the President's White House Economic Advisors as a story · 4 points
HN discussion> George W went to Yale as far as I remember. I doubt that he scored super high in any IQ test. What exactly do you base your doubt on? Publicly he can be quite inarticulate, but there's accounts of him being highly intelligent.[1] [1] https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on “Who cares about the Ivy League?”Submitted George W. Bush is smarter than you (2013) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionGeorge W.Bush is actually incredibly smart. I have read the book Bushisms. I know he has said plenty of stupid things on camera, and that he wasn't an A student at Yale, but I am tired of hearing this myth. http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on “Stephen Douglas, the politician who was too smart for his own good”Submitted George W. Bush is smarter than you as a story · 3 points
HN discussion<some counted him (GWB) as one of the least-talented (intellectually) Presidents the U.S. has ever seated> That's the popular media and pop-culture narrative, but it just wasn't true. Read firsthand accounts from non-media policy experts who were there, for example... http://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/ Similarly, Eisenhower and Reagan were portrayed as a dottering grandfatherly types disinterested in poli…
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on “Jeb spent $2845 per vote in Iowa”Submitted Practical Suggestion for Legislation to Address Preventing Oil Spills as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> They already do, of course. Heard of the WTO? It's unclear that the WTO hasn't passed its peak of "good". There hasn't been much progress since 2006 and the recent G-20 meeting abandoned the term "free markets" as a goal. Note the backslide from paragraph 12 from http://keithhennessey.com/wp-content/uploads/files/Summit%20... to paragraph 3 from http://www.g20.org/Documents/g20_communique_020409.pdf . I'm perfectl…
Comment linking /wp-content/uploads/files/Summit%20-%20Leaders%20Declaration.pdf
on “Why the U.S. carrier group is scrap metal”Submitted George W. Bush is smarter than you (2013) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionMy first instinct is to treat this as what it is: a ridiculously transparent political piece that has no business on hacker news. However, since I see these things coming up all the time, and there doesn't seem to be any great movement against them, I'm going to attempt an intelligent response. First, as said already below, this graph compares eight years of the Bush administration to three years of the Obama admini…
Comment linking /2011/11/21/the-presidents-missed-opportunities-for-deficit-reduction/
on “Effects on the deficit in one graph”As someone who had a low opinion of George W. Bush when he was president I found this article interesting: https://www.keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on “Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?”You may have fallen for propaganda from your own team, trying to convince you that the opposing team is stupid: https://www.keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
Comment linking /2013/04/24/smarter/
on “Cognitive ability is a powerful predictor of political tolerance”It's 2700 pages long, prior to maybe been amended by the Senate in reconciliation. There will be plain English explanations forthcoming now that there's final stuff that's been voted on (what happens with reconciliation is TBD), but they'll necessarily be long. And it'll take a while to come up with them. But don't worry, this issue will now suck most of the nation's political oxygen for this year and probably throu…
Comment linking /
on “Healthcare bill one step closer to passing”
