Maybe Jeb Bush isn't really the smarter Bush brother, Bush experts tell The New York Times

Is Jeb Bush really the smarter Bush brother?

(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

published 15 September 2015

If you've paid more than casual attention to the Bush family, you've probably heard it mentioned that Jeb Bush is the smarter Bush brother, the one everyone expected to run for president before his brother, George W. That impression probably came from the Bush family and their friends, says Anna North at The New York Times, "but it may not be correct." It dates back to their childhood, Bill Minutaglio, who wrote a biography of George W. Bush, tells North:

Jeb's older brother was given to the kind of backslapping, grinning, and preening that led some family members and friends to believe he was not entirely a sober, serious individual with the requisite gravitas to be presidential timber. He was great at social lubrication but a dud in the classroom, and hardly remembered by anyone at Yale for his academic achievements.... It wasn't that Jeb was oozing an arching intellect or compelling profundity as he grew up. It was just that, in juxtaposition with his more careening brother George Walker Bush — the one who drank, who ran into problems with the police, whose fraternity was accused of hazing and branding pledges — Jeb appeared more stable. [Minutaglio, to The New York Times]

In other words, the Bush family conflated seriousness with intelligence, and backslapping bonhomie with a certain lack of smarts. George W.'s verbal misfires added to that impression, North notes, at least until Jeb started making his own gaffes this campaign. "Ultimately, it may not matter how smart Jeb is," she concludes. "If he has his brother's verbal clumsiness without his social skills, all the intelligence in the world may not save his campaign." Read more at The New York Times.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.