REAGAN THE BRAINIAC

Great point by Virginia Postrel, one of the smartest libertarians out there. She points out on her website, vpostrel.com, that Ronald Reagan was highly educated for his class and age: “For a working class kid born in 1911 – especially for the son of a drunken ne’er-do-well – he was unusually well educated. Attention elite journalists: Ronald Reagan wasn’t a baby boomer. He did not even go to school on the G.I. Bill. Reagan graduated from college during the Depression – something precious few people of his generation, and hardly any of his social background did. According to a 1962 Census study, only 6.7 percent of American men born between 1908 and 1917 whose fathers were in “manual and service” jobs had four-year college degrees; only 9.6 percent of all U.S. men that age did. So Reagan was not only intelligent. He had more schooling than 90 percent of other American men his age.” That would make him, well, smarter than Molly Ivins.