Who was the smartest president?

John Adams should be on that list and not Woodow Wilson.

Who's voting for Tricky Dicky?

R2 I did. Tricky Dick was one cunning political operative. He also always did his research. He was also very unrelatable to most people- he did not like small talk and wanted to jump into the issue.

Unfortunately, Dick Nixon outfoxed himself. He is the only one that could have done it.

Tricky was a very politically smart man. And he knew U.S. history, too. So yeah, I havve no objection to him. He got in his own way because he had issues. Bill Clinton is like that. Brilliant man. Politically astute and wicked smart on policy. But he got in his own way. He had issues.

Bill Clinton!

Why isn't the smartest man in the whole, wide world, Donald J. Trump, on that list?

Ma and I seen him on the tee-vee. They just don't let any idiot have his own show on the tee-vee.

Clinton ruined himself, just overcome by his horndoggery and childhood imprinting. Overall, he was a very good president, and managed a balanced budget.

Hillary would have fared much better had she left him following the Monica debacle. She was tarred with his brush and scandals and the media never let up on her. She was correct and prescient about everything Trump related that has borne out as true. The woman has her flaws, but imagine her in place of Trump in the WH. Covid, damage done to our international standing, the economy - everything would have been handled much better.

R4 Agreed. Dick Nixon loved classic Russian literature, particularly Tolstoy, Pushkin, Turgenev, and Dostoevsky. Nixon also studied Shakespeare, Marlowe, Dickens, James Joyce, Wycherley, and Henry James. None of them are popcorn for the mind authors.

[quote] Ma and I seen

Me and Ma seen

Fixed that for you.

George Washington. He welcomed gays when he was a general and continued to support them as President.

I think there are a few that were extremally intelligent-

The founding fathers presidents- Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe.

John Quincy Adams.

Abraham Lincoln.

Edwardian Presidents- William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson.

Richard Nixon (whose intelligence got the better of him).

Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.

James Madison wrote The Federalist Papers.

He had a brain.

James A Garfield was considered highly intelligent and excelled as a student. He also had a weird talent. He had people ask him questions and would write the answer in Latin with his left hand while simultaneously writing it in Greek with his right hand. He was also fluent in German and campaigned in both German and English.

Sadly he was assassinated 4 months into his presidency.

Lincoln was. Because of his affability and homespun manners he’s often not seen as what he truly was — a brilliant, ruthless and calculating man.

Ahem.

Abraham may be the smartest, but gurl, you know I'm the craziest first lady.

R11: Obama is a no genius. He was in the right place at the right time and knew how to fire up a crowd. Nixon and Clinton whatever you may think about them are genuinely brilliant.

I'd say Thomas Jefferson. He had an incredible mind. In a famous toast at a White House dinner in honor of 49 Nobel Prize winners, Kennedy said, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

Washington and Lincoln. They both understood the job perfectly.

I can't believe there are posters here who think Clinton was smarter than Jefferson.

Another vote for Garfield. Incredible man, would have been an incredible president.

It will be Pete after he gets elected in 2024

Why isn’t Trump option? You must have the TDS.

R22: Unfortunately, I think now it looks like a foregone conclusion that Newsom will be the nominee.

Nixon hands down

Jon Ossoff could be the nominee in 2024. He has the look but it's definitely a small chance at best. Other than being born to rich parents, he really hasn't accomplished much. Also, he's still in his first six year senate term so he doesn't have much experience but they said the same thing about Obama.

I’m going to go with Wilson.

On OP’s list.

I picked John Quincy Adams, because I felt sorry for him. I was worried no one would vote for him. He even looks sad about it in his picture.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Groton, Harvard, Columbia Law. New York State Senator. Assistant Sec of the Navy. Four-time US President. Smartest decision was his marriage to "Cousin" Eleanor, who became his "legs" after he contracted polio.

R30 while impressive, we must remember lots of not-too-smart people can have attended very prestigious universities if they have the right connections or enough money.

Not that I disagree Franklin was a very skilled President

There can be different kinds of "smart", but Thomas Jefferson was a visionary. Likewise, I'd add George Washington to that list. He wasn't brilliant in the intellectual sense, he implicitly understood what the role of president required & established precedents that still stand the test of time (until Trump shit all over them).

[quote] we must remember lots of not-too-smart people can have attended very prestigious universities if they have the right connections or enough money.

And been accepted to very prestigious scholarship programs.

Wilson is the only President who held a PhD (although apparently it is not particularly good or well researched). I actually voted for Nixon, I think as a mind he was pretty formidable. Jefferson is overrated in my opinion, same with James Madison.

Although you could argue maybe only someone as smart as Jefferson could be that hypocritical about slavery and as blind to the French Revolution. Robespierre was supposed to the smartest person in France with 0 common sense, it was said by someone he would struggle to boil an egg.

People are saying that Trump is the smartest president and I think they have a point. He is an Ivy League graduate who is a billionaire businessman and developed cures for Covid. I'm hearing that lots of people, lots of very smart people, think that President T is the smartest president. Yes, that is what I am hearing.

There's no way to determine who is smarter than whom. Different people are smart in different ways. Some presidents are brilliant legislators, some are brilliant manipulators, some are brilliant writers and orators, and so on. People are strong in some areas and weak in others. Even that one who I will not name is an incredibly cunning con artist who has mesmerized half the country despite outwardly coming across like a total idiot.

Obama is smart but not up there with the others on the list. Also Nixon is about the same level as Obama. Politically smart.

Most of the others probably belong there.

FDR was rightly described as having a second rate intellect and a first rate character.

Who knows about Biden? He never struck me as overly intelligent but not dumb. However there has been some cognitive decline of late. George W Bush and Trump have to be the stupidest presidents.

Trump has never been a billionaire.

It doesn't seem to matter. At the point of billions, there's never any actual cash or gold or liquid assets behind the claims. Bezos's wealth is the stock he holds, as are other multibillionaires. With a net worth that high, it's not about actual money but about being viewed by the world as having unlimited assets and therefore unlimited power. Being a con artist who can hypnotize people into believing you're a billionaire is not practically different than being a billionaire on paper. They are treated the same. Consider that Trump saved his company by conning a branch of Deutsche Bank to give him a loan to pay off his overdue debt to another Deutsche Bank that would otherwise have driven him to all-out bankruptcy—AND on top of it, he conned Deutsche Bank to give him much more than what he needed to pay off his debt. He wields the power of a billionaire simply because he has no conscience and all the confidence in the world. Some of us see plainly through it and others do not. And even those who do generally would be intimidated by him if presented in person with him based on the belief he holds vast resources. Money isn't real, anyway, especially at the point of abstract-level wealth. It's all about convincing people that you are worth more than almost anyone on Earth.

I've read quite a lot about Presidents. And Bill Clinton was indeed smarter than Thomas Jefferson in all the ways it counts. As a politician, and as a policy maker. Jefferson was not a nice person. He was petty, underhanded, thin skinned and treacherous. A very strong streak of narcissism in him. He didn't really like to be around people. Talented? Yes. He was a very good writer. He was an idealist. He was an inventive person. Was much happier working alone than in collaborating. Bill Clinton was briliant at public policy and at politics. He needs to be around people the way people need to be around oxygen. HE loves to sit and discuss things. He has these brainstorming sessions and is always ready to empathize and pay attention. I also agree about Nixon. He was a very intelligent man and also a public policy wonk. Good at political maneuvering and strategy, but had a pissy personality and was another thin skinned asshole.

R40 - May I suggest "Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in The Age of Trump," by Gary Lachman for insight into donald's new age (and notso) beliefs.

I said, Thomas Jefferson. But Clinton comes in a close second. But I think all the founding fathers were extremely smart. Many were elegant writers too.

Ben Franklin, the lost president

The Founders were, for the most part educated. and the philosophy books and the language skills were unrivaled. IMO we overlook John Adams to our detriment. Now, he was a brilliant man. Completely anti slavery, as in, he never owned any. Totally against it from the get go. He was a brilliant lawyer, and had a determined, far sighted analytical mind. I think it would be a good idea to read about them. Founding Brothers, 1776 by Ellis, Meacham's biography of Jefferson, David McCullough's brilliant bio on John Adams. George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, by Chernow. I've read these. As for modern presidents, I have read biographies about Clinton, Obama, Nixon LBJ, Truman, Harding Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Kennedy, Lincoln. I'd like to read about Ulyssees Grant and Eisenhower. But it's been a while.

Thomas Jefferson, no question. He wrote most of the documents that formed the nation, and was also an enormously talented architect, horticulturist, mathematician and inventor (he invented the swivel chair and hugely improved the pedometer and the moldboard plow). He could speak, read, and write in multiple languages, including Latin, ancient and modern Greek, French, German, and Italian. He was also a noted naturalist and gourmet.

It was a parody R39

R39; R47 First time is a tragedy, the second time is a farce

Jefferson did not write most of the stuff. He helped write it. Much of it was lifted from Franch Philosophers and from the Virginia House of burgessses and from stuff JOHN ADAMS Wrote for MAssachusetts. It's important to know how shit happens. nd if were talking about the FOunders, Samuel Adams was infinitely more gifted and brilliant than Jefferson, but alas, Samuel Adams never ran for POTUS. And no I'm not talking about the beer.

[quote]Meacham's biography of Jefferson

I've been wanting to read a bio of Jefferson & I'll have to check this out. I wish Chernow would do Jefferson - his books are long & laborious, but his books aren't historian fangirl pieces - they're very thorough & you get the sense you understand the person, warts & all. For as celebrated as Jefferson is, there are very bios about him. Even though Jefferson was kind of a mean girl, the contradictions about what he wrote vs. what he actually did are fascinating.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is my favorite. He has done a lot of good socially, ushered out the Depression, and was a good leader during WWII. There's a reason why he was elected for three terms. Eleanor was a brilliant first lady, very involved herself, in the social ideologies of the day. She really took interest. FDR really was a peoples' President. I agree with the founding fathers being the most brilliant, though. They constructed the idea of the American Experient....which takes a lot of brainpower to hash through ideas from square one, which was very complicated. They were ground zero of America.

How do you characterize "smart," OP?

I won't weigh in on the "smartness" question, but one thing related to Thomas Jefferson...do people outside of Virginia know that the people in and around Charlottesville, Virginia totally fetishize him?

I know it's a random question, but I find it freaky.

When I was in my early 20s, I worked with a young woman who grew up just outside of Charlottesville, and she talked about Jefferson all the time, and with the kind of reverence Republicans used to talk about Reagan and techies talk about Steve Jobs. She said she grew up going to a church that read the 'Jefferson Bible,' which is a Bible that Jefferson edited, eliminating everything except the words supposedly spoken directly by Jesus.

I figured that was just a personal fascination.

Then, six or seven years ago, I began working with consultants based there. Their primary client is the University of Virginia. Most of the stuff they create for UVA has Jefferson on it in some way. OK, UVA has adopted Jefferson as a mascot of sorts. But then we went down there, and people talked and talked and talked about Jefferson, exactly in the way religious nuts bring Jesus into every third sentence.

It freaks me out a little. There's a little Thomas Jefferson cult down in that area.

I wonder if Jefferson had enough charisma that he could be a cult leader today if he wanted. There are plenty of people who would eagerly buy into his cult.

...American *Experiment...

. Washington is still the greatest President because he defined the job and left after two terms. No other leader in the world prior to him ever gave up power voluntarily. Jefferson was probably the most brilliant.

Weirdly, Verizon has ranked them.

In doing so, they listed IQ (George Washington's was 135.5, they've somehow determined), and the rankings seem tied to what universities they attended, which is pretty fucking dumb. John Adams went to Harvard College...but how many options were there in the US when he went to Harvard?

R52 this is an excellent question. When OP asks who was the smartest, we all interpret that word differently. FDR was no Intellectual, for example. But he had a first rate personality. Nixon had a sour charmless personality, but a superior intellect. People seem caught up with Jefferson. From what I've read he was more comfortable making things, reading and writing, and he really hated politics. If he were alive today as a young man he'd be a Bernie supporter; very idealistic and petulant, impractical. As I read David McCullough's excellent biography of John Adams, I was able to take another look at Thomas Jefferson who appears prominently in it. At one point Jefferson, who was VP at the time, became upset about something and just fucking left. He went back to Virginia and pouted in seclusion for months!

I think when we read about the Presidents we should make sure the authors are credible and present a thorough look. Doris Kearns Goodwin is outstanding.. Michael Beschloff, Douglas Brinkley, Walter Isaacson, David Maraniss on Clinton and Obama, Chernow, Edmund Morris on Teddy Roosevelt, and McCullough on Truman are all worth reading. People overlook Teddy Roosevelt but he was really remarkable. And IMO he is right up there in the top five as far as smartest presidents go.

No love for Kennedy?

I forgot to name Robert Caro as the ultimate LBJ biographer.

Kennedy was a puppet for Marilyn Monroe, who ran the country as shadow president! That's why Kennedy had to be taken out. Once Marilyn was dead, John thought he could carry on without her and run the country, but he had no idea what he was doing and had to be taken out by the CIA.

Jimmy Carter, though wasn't considered a good President, is a very emotionally intelligent human being. He has done a lot of good outside of his Presidency, in helping people with Habitat For Humanity and other charities. He served as a diplomat of sorts in various conflicts in different countries, helping to come to some sort of resolution or compromise. He's a truly selfless man.

I think each President contributed in positive ways, whether inside of their terms, or outside. The exception is trump...who is a loser all around...and a traitor.

DJT

Clinton harnessed his intellect early on in order to earn a place at some fine Universities for pennies on the dollar. He came up very poor in Arkansas. Anyone remember his mother? Clinton could have gone in the other direction but didn't. He also seems to have genuinely liked learning not just from text if you will but also from others in a variety of different social situations.

Franklin and Eleanor were perfect together. They complimented themselves divinely the whole time Roosevelt was in office. Whatever understanding they had amongst themselves in regards to their marriage was modern for its time and the fuck I give. They were just a fine team who did fine work.

R13 Jesus! He was a downright binary genius, then. My goodness!

Bill Clinton wrote his multi-volume autobiography by hand and wrote his own speeches.

Intelligence versus politically skilled. In terms of skill: Nixon for modern presidents- hands down. Ended the war, detente with China, relatively benign social policies.

[quote] James A Garfield was considered highly intelligent and excelled as a student. He also had a weird talent. He had people ask him questions and would write the answer in Latin with his left hand while simultaneously writing it in Greek with his right hand. He was also fluent in German and campaigned in both German and English.

Very David Copperfield but I'm not sure what any of this has to do with intelligence or "smartness."

R38: I'm sure affirmative action didn't hurt Obama at Columbia and Harvard. Obama and Biden don't have the political skills of Clinton and yes Biden is dumber than a box of hammers.

President Herbert Hoover. After all, he invented the vacuum cleaner!

[quote] As I read David McCullough's excellent biography of John Adams, I was able to take another look at Thomas Jefferson who appears prominently in it. At one point Jefferson, who was VP at the time, became upset about something and just fucking left. He went back to Virginia and pouted in seclusion for months!

He was a piece of work! In Chernow's book about Washington, Jefferson & his BFF Madison were always spreading rumors about how Washington was trying to be some self-styled monarch when in fact (as Jefferson knew), Washington was just trying to play what was then a very weak hand in regards to American interests. That's one of the reasons that Washington (even though he was a thin skinned, petulant guy in his own right) was loyal to Hamilton, even when he was in disgrace, because Hamilton was consistently loyal to him. Washington later didn't speak to either Jefferson or Madison.

I think the Bernie analogy (or maybe even AOC) is a good one: someone who is brilliant & wants to be a star, but can't really get shit done and fights against any practical reality

R70 Jefferson hated Hamilton. David McCullough, the noted historian who just passed away, wrote a definitive biography of John Adams. In his obituary they said that his original intent was to write a book about Adams and Jefferson, but during his research he came to dislike Jefferson so much, he decided not to. He said he was of " very weak moral character."

Buster Collier! The president of the Chamber of Commerce!

Rutherford B. Hayes is the only president who matters.

Smartest at what, skuldullerey. Tricky Dick sold out the Repukes and Con/ Blow Job Clinton sold out the Demowhores.

As president, Hoover had unfortunate timing. But as a geologist he had extraordinary talents and quite an extraordinary life.

All US Presidents ranked by IQ. Top five spots go to 1) JQ Adams 2) T Jefferson. 3) JFK 4) WJ Clinton 5) J Carter

I was. I still am. The most brilliant qualified absolutely totally brilliant POTUS...who never got a chance to serve.

Why is JFK thought of as a great intellect? He was educated as you would expect given old Joe's bootlegging millions.

Woodrow Wilson was a professor, really smart guy

R76, how can you rank them by IQ, some of those guys died before IQ tests were even a thing

[quote]Why is JFK thought of as a great intellect?

I don't think of JFK as a great intellect, but harnessed his (relative) youth, good lucks, and charisma (and that of his family) to be the President in the new age of TV. Not to say that he wasn't smart, but he was emotionally intelligent (like Clinton) to speak to people on a personal level in a way (using the modern media) that previous presidents had not

My money is on Thomas Jefferson (the autodidact) or Herbert Hoover (the mechanical genius).

Keep in mind, most of the early statesmen and presidents were either self-taught, or educated in the Classical tradition at a university. That involved being taught lessons in Latin or Ancient Greek, and being trained more as a philosopher or man of letters than as a practical modern man. It took a lot more gumption and independence in those early days to gain an education. You had to learn other languages just to read the best books, and often went without a teacher or classmates to guide you through material. It was sink or swim.

Abraham Lincoln taught himself law. Thomas Jefferson spoke six languages, and was a self-trained architect, botanist, and mechanical inventor. Woodrow Wilson was a professor and college president. Herbert Hoover - conspicuously absent from OP's list - was a successful mining engineer who made a fortune setting up advanced mines all over the world before he went into politics. He was also a masterful administrator, and kept Europe from starving after both world wars.

R68 probably thinks Trump is smart. Biden has accomplished a lot with a 50/50 senate. I actually think he has accomplished more than Obama did in his first term

Look. JFK had the opportunity to hire a lot of brainy people. But he was no superstar as far as intelligence. And Wilson being a professor or even a scholar is no indication he had more than moderate level of intelligence. Hoover was a mechanical genjius, but again no intellectual genius. Same with Jefferson. The way people were educated back then, and the wtyle of written communications was more flowery and formal. But IMO the smartest were Adams, Clinton, and Lincoln.

R84 Well, what do you want from us? There are many kinds of intelligence, and OP didn’t specify.

I think Clinton wins this one.

These discussions often end up with historians 'estimating' IQs for Jefferson and Lincoln, which is just as useful an exercise as it sounds.

The bottom line is that you don't end up in a job like that without being smart (yes, I include Trump in that). There are different kinds of smartness of course.

Clinton and Nixon were both intellectuals who had impressive academic records and read widely for their own interest. This doesn't necessarily translate into political success. Clinton in particular had a mediocre Presidency. Nixon actually did have major accomplishments but fucked it all into the wall spectacularly at the end.

Arguably the two best Presidents of the last 100 years, FDR and LBJ, don't appear on the list.

R87 how was Clinton's presidency mediocre?

R88 What major legislative items did he manage to get passed that really improved the lives of Americans?

Thinking of something on a par with Obamacare (itself milquetoast) or Biden's recent Inflation Reduction Act.

Or think of the massive achievements of FDR and LBJ. (New Deal, winning WW2, civil rights, Medicare, Medicaid etc).

What major legislation did we need back in the 90s, which was a great time.

R90 Hmmm.... universal healthcare?

Hillary tried with HillaryCare. It didn’t pass, that happens.

Yup. So his presidency was mediocre. It happens.

At least it wasn't disastrous, like those of Trump, GW Bush and perhaps Reagan.

You’re comparing FDR to Bill Clinton. Those are completely different generations. Those two can’t even be compared.

Comparing the 90s to the 30s? Okiedokie. I’m out.

R94 I thought that was kind of the purpose of the thread......?

Whom is it permissible to compare Clinton to?

“Nixon will be remembered as a classic case of a smart man shitting in his own nest. But he also shit in our nests, and that was the crime that history will burn on his memory like a brand. By disgracing and degrading the Presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.”

- Hunter S. Thompson

[quote]Whom is it permissible to compare Clinton to?

The other Roosevelt.

[quote]The other Roosevelt.

Even better - McKinely.

[quote]Even better -

I take this back. Both are equal comparisons.

R97 "Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow."

-TS Eliot

Read "Nixon's Shadow" by David Greenberg. Nixon's presidency was a kick to the American psyche not merely because of how it ended, but because it showed/reminded us of the massive psychic gap between what we want to believe and what actually is. At the deepest, darkest hours of 1968 - America's worst year - Nixon stood up as a white knight and said "Remember me? I'll clean this shit up forthwith!" And he won, and things did get better. And in 1972, America sent him back with 49/50 states. He was a technocrat, and considered boring compared to JFK and LBJ. Granted, he had a long history of dirty tricks and dishonesty, but he was also widely trusted on foreign affairs and the nitty-gritty of government. He was famously one of the few presidents of that era who knew how to read a federal budget document.

Anyway, Nixon came into office with great expectations and great promise. This was sustained through 1972, and then it all came crashing down. He wasn't a morphine-addicted whoremonger like JFK, or a ludicrous egomaniac like Lyndon Johnson. He wasn't unqualified and distant, like Eisenhower. He was tremendously successful as a chief executive and a world leader. There was no logical reason for his paranoia or his stupid choices. He sabotaged what was likely to be the most consequential presidency of the era. It's like seeing a chart-topping musical genius kill themselves overnight with heroin and whores, only on a much grander scale.

People looked at Nixon and saw what might have been. But the longer they looked, the more they saw themselves. Flawed, lonely, and ultimately quite small.

Nixon was never popular. He was familiar. There were massive demonstrations for Civil Rights that elided into the Anti War movement. MAssive demonstrations to end the Vietnam War. We had the Draft back then so ending the war meant something to masses of people. But Nixon's guys discovered one important thing. Youn people, most of the anti war crowd, didn't vote. You had to be 21 to vote and they didn't vote. Even the college students. So he tapped into "the vast silent majority of people" who were "good Americans" who loved their country, etc. and of course the whole "Law and Order" theme rose to prominence during his time. Agnew was running all over the country talking about the evil Liberals and Law and Order and policing. (Police were the good guys.) And he won. If he were alive today he'd be a Democrat. He was seen as a Moderate leaning Right back then, but he wasn't. In todays GOP he'd be too Liberal.