The nature and magnitude of Duke’s “mistakes” argue against being smart. If he was so bright he would have been a smidge less obvious, and I don’t think you can call a sustained pattern of corruption a “mistake”.
Anyway, House staffers voted Cunningham the prestigious “No Rocket Scientist” award in 2004, a year before the corruption story broke. Otnay ootay ightbray, according to those who worked with him. Yet he was a hot fighter pilot.
Next genius theory, please?[/quote]
I work around a bunch of test pilots, some are incredibly bright, well read,
lots of math background, lots of historical background,,,
Some just have a really good spatial awareness, and are otherwise ignorant hicks.
To be a good pilot you have to have a good 3D feel, you need to sense
what the vehicle state vector is and you need to sense what you can do to control it.
Look some real gibbering idiots in Pakistan fly F-16’s and we were selling
fighters to some real third world hellholes.
Does GWB have the same minimal skill set as some degenerate camel
jockey princeling in Saudi Arabia? Probably.
Does that make him on par with US Air Force standards? Nope.
And could he work in a more technically challenging field like
flight test? I doubt it.
Look, being a football player requires a broad quick set of reflexes,
some physical toughness and the hand eye coordination to toss and throw.
Does that make these guys bright? Usually not.
Sure some are scholar athletes, but most are monkeys in pads.
