Kerry was a "C" student.

[Bread and Circus]

I heard today on NPR that Kerry's avg score was a 76 and Bush's 77. In the big picture, it doesn't matter but I thought it was interesting nonetheless.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. So was I

BFD.

:smoke:

[zann725]

38. Isn't it curious that Shrub got ONE point higher than Kerry?

Shrub's "C" average sounds right. Kerry's doesn't. Has anyone checked on this? The timing is curious in light of Kerry's announcement that he was speaking out about the DSM today????

The last time they compared Kerry's mental aptitude vs. Shrubs was right before the election. Peter Jennings interviewed Kerry, and asked him how he felt that Shrub allegedly had a higher aptitude than Kerry. I couldn't believe Jennings said it with a straight-face. I broke out laughing when I heard that. As did I today when I heard on ABC that Shrub did ONE grade point better than Kerry.

Like the election results, even "fixed"...it's a "close" one!

[Vitruvius]

41. And after Yale, Bu$h drank & doped his brains out for the next 20+ years,

while Kerry worked hard & achieved.

[proud2BlibKansan]

42. And don't forget that bush

fried his brain on drugs and alcohol. Whatever his aptitude was 35 years ago, it's much lower now.

[flordehinojos]

Poppy's money went further than Kerry's family fortune.

}(

[Yupster]

34. Cheap bastard

You'd think he'd buy B's at least if he was buying.

[flordehinojos]

40. what a great line! (i love it).

:7

[Bluerthanblue]

2. its easy to get high grades in badminton-

a little harder to get them in quantum physics-

But the GPA wouldn't discriminate-

[tallahasseedem]

3. The 77 was only in his Freshman year...

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050607074009990028

He also had to work and do a hell of alot of other things than Bushie. I also doubt the fact that alot of the professors would actually give a failing grade to a legacy of the Bush clan.

[Nabia2004]

16. What, I have to study?

My freshman year killed my average. The idea I would actually have to study caught me by surprise.

It's your performance at the end of four years that counts, and Kerry proved himself. This phony article, notice how they only mention Bush's GPA for the first three years. He must have really tanked as a senior.

[LittleClarkie]

19. In his case it seemed to be

"but how am I supposed to fit studying in between all my extra-curricular activities?"

But yeah, I've seen freshmen do that. Enjoy themselves for a semester, see their grades, get yelled at by their parents, then suddenly they're all business.

[WI_DEM]

4. Yet who actually was articulate and able to answer complex questions

in the debates? when Bush and Kerry were side by side, Kerry creamed the chimp. I think the chimp is still wondering "who's this DeGaulle guy?"

[jobycom]

5. The C average went against Kerry's later record of achievement, but

for Bush, it typified his life. Coast, take the easy way, cheat, and have someone else bail your sorry butt out when you screw up.

No one claimed Bush's average made him unfit for office. People only pointed to his average as proof that the examples of his life were consistently mediocre to failing. As has been his presidency.

[Rex]

6. Just like Bushie

Wow, mediocrity rises to the top of the incompetent pyramid!

[Maat]

7. I heard that too.

My humble opinion is that anyone who thinks that Bush is more "intelligent" than Kerry needs to talk to me. I have a bridge in California that I want to sell them (Just kidding, Agent Mike).

Kerry got through law school. Bush didn't. I just completed law school about a year ago. I know what it takes to get through it. Next thing you know, they will be looking at Kerry's grades in law school. Virtually everyone in law school gets C's (You either veer, caring about every tenth of a point, between 70 and 80, or 2.0 and 3.0, depending on your school's scale). But getting through IS a BIG achievement (not being one of the ones flunked out every term). Knowing what I learned in law school, I know that Kerry CERTAINLY would have made a better president than Bush, just by virtue of his well-honed understanding of how our government is put together (assuming no other experience - of which Kerry has a plethora).

I suppose this refers to being "better educated." That's fine.

But to Rush and Hannity ... I give ... the Razzies.

Besides, I went through many ups and downs in my academic efforts (good grades through my A.A., not-so-good when I was depressed leading up to my Bachelors, really good through my Master's, typical for law school).

Kerry went through lots of heavy experiences in his life. That has to be kept in mind.

[DURHAM D]

11. With regard to your "Kerry got through law school" comment -

Bush could not even get into law school. The only time in his life he tried to do something on his own he applied to University of Texas law school - they turned him down flat. I would love to know what his LSAT's were.

That is when he had Poppy get him into grad school.

[Maat]

21. There you go -see? That's what I suspected. (n/t)

[SharonAnn]

32. * Tried to get family friends to put pressure on the UT Law School

to let him in but it didn't work.

Guess they have standards.

The Dean wrote to one of the family friends ".. he may have a promising future, but not at this school."

[RPM]

12. C's in law schools are funny things...

I racked up a pair of them in my first semester during first year...

The last two semesters of school were 3.9 and 4.0.

While working....

Go figure.

[Maat]

20. You did 'good' (I'm using Booosh English)!

I had some good grades myself, but all I'm saying is that, in my humble opinion, you take grades in law school with a grain of salt.

[saltpoint]

8. DUers overnight posted that the difference was that Kerry did his own

work.

I strongly suspect that Dubya had a secret helper to finish those term papers.

[Maat]

23. I absolutely believe that you are correct.

What he retained out of grad school, and what I retained, appear to be quite different.

There's no convincing me that he didn't have a secret helper.

[Ilsa]

28. I wish this was someone who would come forward. But i guess

he or she doesn't want his kids assassinated.

[Maat]

30. Exactly. People who criticize the Boooshes don't seem to ..

have good luck subsequently (or make trouble for them or whatever).

[saltpoint]

36. Hi, Maat. I have to say that the idea came from other DUers, mostly

on the overnight shift.

And I'm not saying I have proof Dubya had a secret helper, but after listening to him stumble over words for 5 years or so, I don't know what other conclusion to draw.

I'm homesick for presidents who can think on their feet. Gore and Kerry either one would have been someone who could do that.

[Ilsa]

27. I have thought this for a long time as well.

I knew a bank president who couldn't handle any details, much less real analysis. He didn't finish college, but managed to get a graduate banking degree from a prestigious university that offered these sessions over two to three years. They had week long sessions, but lots of porject work. I suspect much was based on the honor system. Anyway, I think the president of this bank paid one of the accountants there to do it for him. In turn, he gave him a good salary and a promotion.

One of my bosses said his Harvard MBA was a cakewalk. Said he wrote a paper every weekend, turned it in every Monday morning. The rest was party time.

[saltpoint]

37. Wow. Quite a story about the bank president.

I get edgy thinking about presidents of banks (or presidents of countries!) who rise through the ranks without investing the time and effort to qualify.

On Kerry, I just have the feeling that he earns his keep, whether back in school days or yesterday afternoon, or in ten years.

It's his attitude toward goals and hard work that I want in power and not a certain other Yale graduate.

[globalvillage]

9. Do you think Sen Kerry should get extra credit

for having actually learned stuff since the '60s?

(I hear he reads.)

[HysteryDiagnosis]

10. Too bad GPA isn't a determinant of how well a person can

tell right from wrong and act accordingly. In Kerry's case, he was able to stand up and tell the trugh during the Iran Contra thingy... I just can't get it out of my head where this dude's poll numbers were before 911, and where they might have stayed had:


A: investigations into the Bin Ladens connection not been spiked:

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=103&row=4
Officials told to 'back off' on Saudis before September 11
by Greg Palast and David Pallister

FBI and military intelligence officials in Washington say they were prevented for political reasons from carrying out full investigations into members of the Bin Laden family in the US before the terrorist attacks of September 11.

US intelligence agencies have come under criticism for their wholesale failure to predict the catastrophe at the World Trade Centre. But some are complaining that their hands were tied.

FBI documents shown on BBC Newsnight last night and obtained by the Guardian show that they had earlier sought to investigate two of Osama bin Laden's relatives in Washington and a Muslim organisation, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), with which they were linked.


B: Ms. Rice didn't ignore the stack of data on Al Qaida Sandy Berger gave her.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,333835,00.html

ERIC DRAPER/WHITE HOUSE/APBush meets with his senior staff at his ranch one month prior to Sept. 11
Web Exclusive | Nation
Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?
Long before the tragic events of September 11th, the White House debated taking the fight to al-Qaeda. It didn't happen and soon it was too late. The saga of a lost chance
By MICHAEL ELLIOTT
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHORTimeline: Blown Chances
Cover Collection: Sept. 11 And Its Aftermath
From the Archive: Sept. 11 to the Present

Posted Sunday, Aug. 04, 2002
Sometimes history is made by the force of arms on battlefields, sometimes by the fall of an exhausted empire. But often when historians set about figuring why a nation took one course rather than another, they are most interested in who said what to whom at a meeting far from the public eye whose true significance may have been missed even by those who took part in it.

One such meeting took place in the White House situation room during the first week of January 2001. The session was part of a program designed by Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, who wanted the transition between the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations to run as smoothly as possible. With some bitterness, Berger remembered how little he and his colleagues had been helped by the first Bush Administration in 1992-93. Eager to avoid a repeat of that experience, he had set up a series of 10 briefings by his team for his successor, Condoleezza Rice, and her deputy, Stephen Hadley.

Berger attended only one of the briefings-the session that dealt with the threat posed to the U.S. by international terrorism, and especially by al-Qaeda. "I'm coming to this briefing," he says he told Rice, "to underscore how important I think this subject is." Later, alone in his office with Rice, Berger says he told her, "I believe that the Bush Administration will spend more time on terrorism generally, and on al-Qaeda specifically, than any other subject." The terrorism briefing was delivered by Richard Clarke, a career bureaucrat who had served in the first Bush Administration and risen during the Clinton years to become the White House's point man on terrorism. As chair of the interagency Counter-Terrorism Security Group (CSG), Clarke was known as a bit of an obsessive-just the sort of person you want in a job of that kind. Since the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen on Oct. 12, 2000-an attack that left 17 Americans dead-he had been working on an aggressive plan to take the fight to al-Qaeda.

C: Ashcroft wasn't spending time chasing hookers in New Orleans, thinking that he was helping protect America in some sick twisted way....

http://www.extremeashcroft.com/
He's the boss of the FBI and his pre-Sept. 11th budget included $58 million in cuts to counter-terrorism activities -- yet thousands in spending to cover a naked statue!
Al Gore points out that pre-9/11, the Justice Department and the FBI had spent more time and resources investigating a suspected brothel in New Orleans than monitoring bin Laden and his terrorist network.
In addition, Ashcroft recused himself from the Enron investigation which has gone nowhere and angered The White House with his "dirty bomb" scare tactics.

[Dr Fate]

13. Then he went on to be a Navy Officer, Prosecutor & US Senator.

And he did not even need bizzare Saudi/Bin Laden family connections to do it either.

[LittleClarkie]

22. And someone else went on to puke in his shoes

and somehow become president.

[valis]

14. Make that a "D"

[smartvoter]

25. No. He had some in his freshman year, did better later, avgd to C. nt

[Dr Ron]

15. Not the full story

From Light Up The Darkness:

A Tale of Two Students
7 June 2005

While John Kerry and George Bush may have had similar grades as undergraduates, the differences between the two became clear by graduation. Kerry's freshman grades were hardly predictive of his ultimate success. While Bush's academic record remained one lacking in distinction, the Boston Globe reports that, "Kerry received a high honor at Yale despite his mediocre grades: He was chosen to deliver his senior class oration, a testament to his reputation as a public speaker. . . Despite his slow start, he went on to be a top student at Naval Candidate School."

We are well aware of the differences of the two following school. Today's review of the military records shows once again that John Kerry was undisputably a true war hero, while George Bush avoided his duties in the National Guard. After the war, Kerry had a distinguished career, while Bush had a series of business failures which his father's friends repeatedly bailed him out of. John Kerry has had a brilliant Senate career, while George Bush has become one of the worst Presidents in American history, undermining our national security, seriously harming our reputation in the world, and doing long term damage to the economy.

The difference between the two predictable while George Bush was in Harvard Business School, as is seen in this account in the Harvard Crimson from last July. Yoshihiro Tsurumi, a visiting associate professor of international business at Harvard Business School between 1972 and 1976, and now a professor of international business at Baruch College in the City University of New York, said he remembers the future president as scoring in the bottom 10 percent of students in the class. The article goes on to report:

Thirty years after teaching the class, Tsurumi said the twenty-something Bush’s statements and behavior—“always very shallow”—still stand out in his mind.

“Whenever just bumped into me, he had some flippant statement to make,” said Tsurumi when reached at his home in Scarsdale, N.Y. “The comments he made were revealing of his prejudice.”

The White House did not reply to requests for comment on Bush’s time at HBS.

Tsurumi said he particularly recalls Bush’s right-wing extremism at the time, which he said was reflected in off-hand comments equating the New Deal of the 1930s with socialism and the corporation-regulating Securities and Exchange Commission with “an enemy of capitalism.”

More from the article at LUTD:

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=1031

[jayctravis]

17. Both C students back then...

just take a look at the progress each of them has made with their grasp of politics and the English language.

[Catherine Vincent]

18. That article was for the Bushies out there.

To reassure them that Bush is no dummy. :-)

[Maat]

29. Yeah .. and they can still keep believing in the tooth fairy and ..

the Easter Bunny too, huh?

[seabeyond]

24. his grades way back then is not indicitive of his smarts we see today

just as bush grades way back then, arent indicitive of his lack of smarts today. kerry doesnt have any reason to apologize for his grades. he has shown us his smart for a couple three decades now. bush has not

[R. A. Fuqua]

26. why would anyone care

about something that far in the past?

I got some poor grades myself--and even had to repeat a few classes. (not because of a lack of intelligence--but simply because I was too busy enjoying a lot of other things about the college experience to put in time studying.)

I judge BOTH men by what they are doing today--not their grades of 30 plus years ago. I would sure hate to have people judge me by mine--they certainly do not reflect my intelligence, work ethic or motivation to succeed.

[justjones]

31. Who gives a fuck?!?!

I went to a top 25 school and figured out that having a high GPA doesn't necessarily equate to brilliance nor does having an average/mediocre GPA make you a dumbass. It's all bullshit. Meritocracy my ass.

The only reason people talk about Bush's GPA is that it's just further evidence that he didn't earn anything through merit, but through family connections and money. If grades meant much of anything, we all know Bush would have failed miserably because anyone who listens to him talk for two minutes, even when wired, can figure out that he is a FUCKING DUMBASS. Betcha he couldn't write a coherent essay to save his fucking miserable evil life.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

33. *bush was given a "gentleman's C" by the school

It's merely a device to assure poor students of rich parents get a passing grade no matter what. He could have stayed drunk/stoned/coked up the entire time and it wouldn't have.... mattered.... Hmmmmmm......

Um, I'm fairly certain his entire school record is a complete fiction in any case. Unlike Kerry, who actually earned what he got the old fashioned way-- he slept with his teachers he studied.

(For the humor-impaired: Yes, that WAS a joke.)

[Avalux]

35. So which one went to LAW SCHOOL?

Shrub applied at the University of Texas Law School and they rejected him. Daddy got him into Harvard Business School.

As far as I know, Kerry is a lawyer, and a damned good one.

[LittleClarkie]

39. Of course, considering he went to "C" and all

and became a C-man.

Ouch.