I find it just short of unfathonable that people could listen to George Dubya Bush and come away with the impression that there is a sparkling intellect at work. Partisanship overrides common sense, it seems.
I suppose the reverse side of this coin would be if liberals/democrats/leftists tried to claim that Nixon WASN'T intelligent. This just reveals one's political blinders through the inability to separate the notion of agreement with the notion of intelligence. This is just a form of self-flattery as far as I'm concerned, for what people are really saying is "I agree with them, so we must both be smart".
Heck, we have had excellent examples of this right here on this board recently when one obviously very intelligent poster was singled out as being less intelligent than the average American. "You don't agree with me, therefore you must not be intelligent". "You do agree with me, therefore you are".
There are stupid leftists and stupid rightists, intelligent leftists and intelligent rightests, and quite a few VERY intelligent moderates, independants and centrists.

oops, was I just guilty of exactly that which I was pointing out?........