>(Unless you count Carter. ;-) But even still, I b
>bet that man was a heck of a lot smarter than
>people give him credit for.)

Contrary to popular belief, Jimmy Carter may actually have been the smartest man we ever had as President. He was a Nuclear Engineer in the Navy before he became the peanut farmer we all know him as. I've also heard (anecdotally) that he could solve quadratic equations in his head.

The reason he *seemed* so stupid as President was becase he was a Washington outsider, didn't "play the game" well, and was *made* to look dumb intentionally by his political foes who knew how to work the Washington system. Plus, he was just pretty naive about a lot of things--brains doesn't always make you less naive, and often it seems the smartest people are the ones who seem to know the least about "how things work in the real world."

-- Dave