Special to WorldTribune.com
By Bill Juneau
Over the past months and years, stories are posted regularly which reveal the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of Presidents, celebrities, and the rich and famous whose names make headlines. Reports differ as to highs and lows, but it is generally fun to hear of the eggheads and the celebrity empty heads.
Are we being cheated out of hearing of the mental acuity and brain power of the nation's 46th President, "Slow Joe" Biden?
So what is his IQ? Is he a dim bulb, with a normal light just flickering, and has the White House been transformed from a center of dignity and authority into an assisted living facility caring for a resident with dementia?
We know that the country's sixth president, John Quincy Adams, who had a pet alligator which he kept in a special section of the White House, was the IQ bell ringer for Presidents with a score of 175. Bill Clinton (159) and JFK (159); and FDR, Carter, Nixon Teddy R., Reagan and Obama were also credited with having "gifted" intelligence quotients. America's 41st chief executive, George W. Bush, was reported to have an IQ in the average range.
According to scholars, and various charts, the average IQ across America is 100, with 91 to 109 considered average or normal. Stepping ahead, 110 to 119 is considered to be "superior intelligence" and 120 to 129 is regarded as "very superior." Geniuses check into the range of 140 to 160, and when scores move upward you are in the company of some very big minds, and you never mess with those eggheads.
IQs are derived from standardized testing results when a portfolio is available to glean the information. When paper work is not available as in the case of Leonadon Da Vinci, ( 220 IQ) other techniques are used. These judgements are drawn from assembling all available information about a person, including achievements, discoveries and compositions, to estimate an IQ.
Some call it a "histriometric" approach to assessing brainpower IQ when standardized testing cannot be found or scores are missing.
You might be surprised to know that Lady Gaga and Shakira are not a couple of dingbats. They are, so it is reported, registered in the genius range of 140 to 160. In Hollywood, James Woods leads the let's pretend crowd of men and women with an IQ of 180. Sly Stallone (Rocky of the movies) punches in with a a 160 score while Muhammad Ali, the greatest pugilist and ring-poet of all time, has posted a below average IQ of 78.
President Nixon was a 143 and the blustering and boastful Donald Trump stands tall with an intelligence quotient of 156. That's behind President Clinton, but it dwarfs Hillary's 140.
But the 78-year-old, horse-whispering and stumbling Joe Biden is the nation's 46th president, and Americans are asking what is his IQ, and how does it compare to other occupants of the white house. How does it stack up against those Hollywood pretenders and talk-show stars like Conan O'Brien with a 160 IQ?
Actually, no one seems to know Biden's exact IQ, and some say that he has never taken a standardized IQ test.
Kim Jong-Un of North Korea has called Biden a "low IQ idiot." President Trump has called Biden a "Whacko with a low IQ." I expect that their comments were based upon hearing him speak and watching him act.
Maybe President Biden will tell Americans of his IQ, since he has referred proudly to it in the past. While campaigning in Iowa last fall, he snapped at a farmer who had criticized him and charged that he was too old for the job of President and that he was hiding his son's corrupt practices in the Ukraine.
You are a "dirty liar" and you are "fat," said Biden. And you want to check my shape, man, let’s do push-ups together here, man, let’s run, let’s do whatever you want to do, let’s take an IQ test.”
Americans, however, are not blind and have an idea that there are serious spaces in Biden's head. They speculate on his acuity after seeing him at the mike, stammering in a befuddled way with crib notes in hand.
Current polls are reporting that the majority of Americans, in the many millions, consider that Biden is unable to function and carry out the duties of president, and that a concealed group of progressives, (Bernie Sanders and AOC in the lead) are pulling his strings. Reportedly, the Democratic party is secretly looking for just the right moment when the 25th amendment can be invoked as a means of sending Biden back to the basement of his posh home in Delaware — for retirement.
After Trump chided him about his low IQ, Biden said that he wished he was in a high school setting and if so, he would take Trump behind the gym and "beat the hell out of him."
GOP Congressman Ronny Jackson, a navy admiral prior to his 2018 election, served as the personal physician to Presidents Obama and Trump between 2013 and 2018. Jackson has been joined by other representatives in demanding that Biden undergo a cognitive examination so that Americans can know whether their President is "playing with a full deck."
Dr. Jackson said that Biden's lack of composure and befuddled manner, and his feckless performance at the recent G-7 and the summit with Russian President Putin is embarrassing and that Biden simply does not know what he is doing. Jackson noted that he saw Biden regularly while he was vice president, and he knows that there is something wrong with him.
The letter to Biden requesting the cognitive test has not been answered, and the protective media declines to even ask him about a potential mental and physical examination.
Prof. Victor Davis Hanson, a widely known and respected historian and columnist and a fellow at the Hoover institute, has said that Biden's mind is fading at a geometric rate. To him, said Hanson, names are "vague eddies in his mind’s river of forgetfulness."
It is time for Biden to undergo a cognitive examination in accord with demands from a member of Congress and because of concerns by the American people as to his ability to carry out the duties of America's 46th President.
Bill Juneau worked for 25 years as a reporter and night city editor at the Chicago Tribune. Subsequently he became a partner in a law firm and also served as a village prosecutor and as a consultant to the Cook County Circuit Court and to the Cook County Medical Examiner. He is currently writing columns and the 'Florida Bill' blog.