Monday, May 6, 2013

Counter-Earth

MBA students told they're not as smart as George W. Bush:
The new George W. Bush Presidential Center is being dedicated this week. This seems like a good time to bust a longstanding myth about our former President, my former boss.

I teach a class at Stanford Business School titled “Financial Crises in the U.S. and Europe.” During one class session while explaining the events of September 2008, I kept referring to the efforts of the threesome of Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Tim Geithner, who were joined at the hip in dealing with firm-specific problems as they arose.

One of my students asked “How involved was President Bush with what was going on?” I smiled and responded, “What you really mean is, ‘Was President Bush smart enough to understand what was going on,’ right?”

The class went dead silent. Everyone knew that this was the true meaning of the question. Kudos to that student for asking the hard question and for framing it so politely. I had stripped away that decorum and exposed the raw nerve.

I looked hard at the 60 MBA students and said “President Bush is smarter than almost every one of you.”
The post is by Keith Hennessey, who apparently had to prepare the president for all those economic decisions he handled so well.

8 comments:

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Michelle Malkin is looking in the windows, checking to see what that Counter-Earth is made of.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

teach a class at Stanford Business School

Houston, we have a problem.
~

Smut Clyde said...

I teach a class at Stanford Business School titled “Financial Crises in the U.S. and Europe.”

Teach about what you know, right?

ckc (not kc) said...

I looked hard at the 60 MBA students and said “President Bush is smarter than almost every one of you.

...now go forth and do that MBA thing - the bar is set

mikey said...

The foul and odious GW Bush is not smarter than you. In fact, it's difficult to determine his intelligence, because he didn't care enough to do the basic research. Intelligence is only part of the platform - you need the intellectual curiosity to understand the issues in play and you need the broad understanding of history and it's application in geopolitical matters that would allow you to make the necessary connections.

And no, Mr. Mission Accomplished, you never, even once, knew what you were confronting nor how to address it...

Substance McGravitas said...

It was playing cowboys.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

See, here's the thing. The average MBA student is what, 25? 26? Now I'm not saying that people in their mid 20's are inherently stupid, but GWB already had his MBA, ran a couple business into the ground, and was a director on the board of a nine figure market cap energy company for which he managed to be investigated but not charged of insider trading. The question was clearly in the context of how well MBA's understand economics (extremely poorly). Of course W had more knowledge and understanding of that then the majority of MBA students.

Although it does say a lot about both the students and the class that this is a shocking revelation.

Dragon-King Wangchuck said...

erp, I guess I just felt icky about considering Keith Hennessey a "teacher".