Hoisted by Own Petard Department

El Jefe is chortling mightily over yesterday's report that Pres. Bush's grades at Yale were actually HIGHER than his erstwhile rival for office and fellow Eli John Kerry. (Disclaimer: link may require free registration.)

El Jefe was at Yale at the same time as both men (although he was not in either man's class), he knew both of them. Kerry was speaker of the Yale Political Union when he was a freshman, and as he tells it, Kerry's personality and demeanor were the same then as when he ran for president last year. It was widely known among the student body that Kerry had presidential ambitions and that he was carefully planning his future career toward that goal. El Jefe reports that the Yale alum newsgroup for his class is going wild over this one.


Of course W beat Kerry by only 1 point in overall grade point average--it wouldn't be much of a news story if Kerry hadn't successfully portrayed himself as a solid intellectual in contrast to the more pedestrian Bush. Apparently this is why he never released his transcripts during the campaign when someone managed to get Bush's transcript and publicize it. His grades were revealed when he recently released all his naval records because his college transcripts were part of those records.

Portia, a recent graduate of the place herself, opined that back in the day the grades Kerry and Bush had were respectable: a "gentleman's C." Since the late '60's grade inflation at Yale and virtually every other college and university in the country, the average grade is more like a B or B+.

See how the Fates their gifts allot! Two "C" students fought the recent election for the highest office in the land, while El Jefe, an "A" student from the same school, happily eschewed politics for the law, the church, his Civil War research, his porch and The Noble Dog--and his family. And like Mary in the story of Martha and Mary, El Jefe thinks he chose the better portion.