Similarly, I believe that honors at school virtually always indicate intelligence. (I might even go so far as to say invariably, but I imagine there are some schools that are loose with their honors.) The opposite is not true. You can be a genius and graduate last because you just didn’t feel like working (or going to class), but you have to be pretty near the top to graduate first. Quality of school will obviously play some sort of factor, though not as much as many people think. Being valedictorian at a quality public college is nearly as impressive as being valedictorian at Harvard. (Being at the bottom of Harvard is probably quite a bit more impressive than being at the bottom of a quality state school, though.) However, I wouldn’t necessarily place much stock in being top of the class at a community college or a low-quality four year college. (I mean no disrespect to community colleges, of course, which perform a valuable function. Nor should we assume any maximum intelligence based merely on where people went to school. Some of the smartest people I’ve met never graduated, or even attended, college at all.)

By the way, I said “I have no doubts” above, but I definitely do concede the possibility that Fred Thompson is more intelligent than Mitt Romney and Bill Clinton. I just don’t think it’s very likely. If Micah had said that Fred Thompson is too sensible to be President, I would perhaps have granted that this might be true. In general, I don’t think the most sensible people want to be President, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone campaign as reluctantly as Thompson did.

I honestly couldn’t say which candidate has the most common sense.

What appeals to me, besides his emphasis on principles, is his common sense. Maybe that’s what Micah actually means by intelligence.

“And it also means he’s probably too intelligent to win. He appeals to my philosopher side, but I suspect campaigns are built on soundbites, not intelligence.”

While that latter sentence may very well be true, the first sentence does not follow. Bill Clinton was Phi Beta Kappa at Georgetown, a Rhodes Scholar, and received his J.D. from Yale. I have no doubts, at least, that he is more intelligent than Thompson and Clinton won the whole thing.

In any event, intelligence is vastly overrated. The best President of my lifetime was Ronald Reagan and nobody would describe him as an intellectual. Harry S. Truman was a fine President and nobody accused him of being an intellectual. The smartest person in the field is quite clearly Mitt Romney (summa cum laude from BYU where he transferred from Stanford, magna cum laude from Harvard where he earned an MBA and a J.D.). I’m not convinced that Romney is the best candidate in the field.