Your link has a certain amount of spin going on. Bush was a pretty intelligent man; his SAT scores are known. He got a 1206, the equivalent of a 1276 post-1995 but before the inclusion of the writing test. Certainly (well, I hope) not smarter than the average student at Stanford Business School, but, notably, smarter than Kerry was.

I think the more interesting questions here are, "how much power does the US president actually have?" and "how similar is becoming president to overthrowing the existing government and replacing it with yourself?"

Thank you for highlighting a difficult point! The most instructive item for me was seeing a comparison of video of Bush in his run for the Texas governorship, showing his sharp mind. In such context though, the dissonance. erwee. his stated political objectives and his true violent objectives is disheartening.