<p>I think it’s interesting to note that there are things that make a President seem brainy, or non-brainy, that may not really tell us much. Gerald Ford is a prime example–we tend to think of him as non-brainy, but is that really due to anything other than a few clumsy incidents that were used as comedy fodder by Chevy Chase? Jimmy Carter’s accent makes people doubt his braininess. And nobody’s mentioned Lyndon Johnson, who was certainly shrewd, but didn’t project an aura of braininess. I think Ronald Reagan seems smart if you like him, less if you don’t. As for the Founding Fathers, certainly some of them were geniuses, but I wonder if we aren’t mistaking class (as in social class) for brains with respect to some of them.</p>