re: Politics aside, who do you believe is the smartest president of the past 50 years?

W is the one I'd want to have a beer with but also probably the dumbest. If he was born into a regular family he'd be mid-level management at best.

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Obama the smartest.

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Whats that based on?

Clinton
Nixon


HW Bush
Carter
Trump
Obama


Reagan



Ford















Dubya

Carter has an advanced degree in physics and from what I've been told did quite a bit of research work in nuclear submarine development before quitting due to his conscience. As far as book learning, I doubt many presidents of any era can top that.

Carter made the mistake most pacifists make, thinking that being nice to evil people will make them be nice to you.

edit: My mistake, his advanced degree from Georgia Tech was honorary, not earned. He did graduate in the top 10% of his Naval Academy class though. Not too shabby.

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Obama the smartest. Whether you agree with his politics is not the issue.

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We'll have to agree to disagree on that.

Although I don't agree with everything he espouses, this guy was (maybe is at 99) very smart - George Schultz - Reagans's Secretary of State

From Wikipedia

George P. Shultz
60th United States Secretary of State
President Ronald Reagan

62nd United States Secretary of the Treasury
President Richard Nixon

Director of the Office of Management and Budget
President Richard Nixon

11th United States Secretary of Labor
President Richard Nixon

Education Princeton University (BA)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MA, PhD)

Branch/service United States Marine Corps

George Pratt Shultz born December 13, 1920) is an American economist, elder statesman, and businessman. He served in various positions under three different Republican presidents. Along with Elliot Richardson, he is one of two individuals to serve in four different Cabinet positions. He played a major policy role in shaping the Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration.

Born in New York City, he graduated from Princeton University before serving in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. After the war, Shultz earned a PhD in industrial economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He taught at MIT from 1948 to 1957, taking a leave of absence in 1955 to take a position on President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Council of Economic Advisers. After serving as dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, he accepted President Richard Nixon's appointment as United States Secretary of Labor. In that position, he imposed the Philadelphia Plan on construction contractors who refused to accept black members, marking the first use of racial quotas by the federal government. In 1970, he became the first Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and he served in that position until his appointment as United States Secretary of the Treasury in 1972. In that role, Shultz supported the Nixon shock (which sought to revive the ailing economy in part by abolishing the gold standard) and presided over the end of the Bretton Woods system.

Shultz left the Nixon administration in 1974 to become an executive at Bechtel. After becoming president and director of that company, he accepted President Ronald Reagan's offer to serve as United States Secretary of State. He held that office from 1982 to 1989. Shultz pushed for Reagan to establish relations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which led to a thaw between the United States and the Soviet Union. He opposed the U.S. aid to rebels trying to overthrow the Sandinistas using funds from an illegal sale of weapons to Iran that led to the Iran–Contra affair.

Shultz retired from public office in 1989 but remained active in business and politics. He served as an informal adviser to George W. Bush and helped formulate the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war. He served on the Global Commission on Drug Policy, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Economic Recovery Council, and on the boards of Bechtel and the Charles Schwab Corporation. Since 2013, he has repeatedly advocated for a revenue-neutral carbon tax as the most economically sound means of mitigating anthropogenic climate change.[1][2][3][4][5] He is a member of the Hoover Institution, the Institute for International Economics, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and other groups. Since the death of William Thaddeus Coleman Jr., Shultz is the oldest living former U.S. Cabinet member.

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He was assaulting every girl in sight and entrenched in crime for 4 decades not the sharpest tool

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I have always believed ghat WJC got into politics as the best way to get into women's panties. He was a master manipulator and I don't doubt he had high IQ - but his morality was all 'me. me. me. me."

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Obama the smartest. Whether you agree with his politics is not the issue.

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That is absurd - I have never seen anything that even resembles intelligence.

He was good a delivering a speech written by ideologues. In ad lib situations he sounded like a confused teenager.

I'm not as sure he is as smart as AOC.

He never accomplished a single thing in his life based on his own merit. He became POTUS because he was 'black' and 'clean' with a good speaking voice. - would have made a hell of a Hollywood actor.

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Obama the smartest. Whether you agree with his politics is not the issue.

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This is demonstrably false.

Since this apparently is "Unsupported Assertions Day", mine is "Obama is undeniably a narcissist".

Now that that is out of the way and a given, if he had any kind of impressive academic record we would not only have seen it but school children in inner city schools would have been required to memorize it.

Even Al Gore and John Kerry, who nobody anywhere have ever mistaken for geniuses, showed theirs and proved they were not as smart as George Bush. Leftists have defined "smart" as having education papers so you cannot argue that either.

Did you give obama affirmative action points, like those that got him into his "elite" alma maters?

Since we never saw Obama's academic records and he is "the smartest president ever" and a narcissist, I can only conclude we never saw his academic records because he was ashamed of how he got into school. Why would that be? straight affirmative action or maybe lying on his application about where he came from?

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By “smart” I’m assuming you mean the total package of intelligence, cunning, critical thinking and decision-making skills.

In order:

Reagan
Clinton
Nixon
Obama
G.H.W. Bush
Trump
Ford
G.W. Bush
Carter

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None of the others besides Reagan could have gotten elected with the same forces arrayed against them as Trump had.

All Republicans face varying levels of unfair bias from the press. The democrats aren't even tested so I don't know how anybody rates them.