John Quincy Adams, was certainly very bright – there didn’t seem to be any dim members of the Adams clan – how he compares to his father in terms of grey matter is a subject of debate. John Adams, and I’ve read his letters and some of his other marginalia, was unusually far seeing in his judgments about the nation and relatively poor on assessing matters regarding himself or his immediate interests. John Quincy Adams was better in the context of the moment and the details but I am not well enough read on JQA to be completely confident of that opinion.

Eisenhower was also very bright and frequently underestimated in that regard ( usually to the cost of those doing so) and he was a masterful organize. Not an intellectual per se, he deliberately made use of ppl who had those strengths so as to add them to his own. I’d say though Ike was not quite on George C. Marshall’s level – there’s a reason Marshall made Ike and not the other way around and it wasn’t merely seniority in the Army.

And he hesitated, thinking the card was incorrect. A teacher assured him, without the least bit of hesitation, that it was. Let the ridiculing of teachers begin!

So “Czechoslovakia” sticks to McCain because he’s “old” even though he didn’t say it. Imagine something sticking to The One (pbuh), even though he didn’t say it, just because he’s Black. The Left are the bigots they see in everyone else.

That was Sam Nunn (dean of the Democratic foreign policy experts), not McCain.

Don’t forget not knowing the difference between Memorial and Veteran’s Days.

I get that sense that Obama would read anything on a teleprompter, and is gaffe-prone when he is unscripted.

The idea that reporters are trying to help Obama win in November has grown by five percentage points over the past month. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, taken just before the new controversy involving the New York Times erupted, found that 49% of voters believe most reporters will try to help the Democrat with their coverage, up from 44% a month ago.

. Just one voter in four (24%) believes that most reporters will try to offer unbiased coverage.

In the latest survey, a plurality of Democrats—37%– say most reporters try to offer unbiased coverage of the campaign. Twenty-seven percent (27%) believe most reporters are trying to help Obama and 21% in Obama’s party think reporters are trying to help the Republican candidate.

Among Republicans, 78% believe reporters are trying to help Obama and 10% see most offering unbiased coverage.

As for unaffiliated voters, 50% see a pro-Obama bias and 21% see unbiased coverage. Just 12% of those not affiliated with either major party believe the reporters are trying to help McCain.

In a more general sense, 45% say that most reporters would hide information if it hurt the candidate they wanted to win. Just 30% disagree and 25% are not sure. Democrats are evenly divided as to whether a reporter would release such information while Republicans and unaffiliated voters have less confidence in the reporters.

Republicans and unaffiliated voters are more likely to trust campaign information from family and friends than from reporters. Democrats are evenly divided as to who they would trust more.

A separate survey released this morning also found that 50% of voters believe most reporters want to make the economy seem worse than it is. A plurality believes that the media has also tried to make the war in Iraq appear worse that it really is.

A survey conducted earlier this year found that 30% of voters believe having a friendly reporter is more valuable than raising a lot of campaign contributions.. Twenty-nine percent (29%) believe contributions are more important and 40% are not sure.

These results are consistent with earlier surveys finding that large segments of the population believe the media is biased It is also clear that voters select their news sources in a partisan manner. During Election 2004, CNN viewers heavily favored John Kerry while Fox Fans preferred George W. Bush.

“all the spetty sniping hardly detract ts from the fact that whereas McCain finished nearly at the very bottom of his class in the Naval Academy”

For what it is worth, there is an old Academy tradition of trying to be last.. if you can not be first…

(The New York Times and Newsweek would begin spelling it the same way the very next day in brave solidarity.)