Howell Raines asks the following question in today's Washington Post

Does anyone in America doubt that Kerry has a higher IQ than Bush?

He follows up his post with what he believes is a partial answer.

I'm sure the candidates' SATs and college transcripts would put Kerry far ahead.

Let's examine Howell's claim. Bush and Kerry both attended Yale and we don't have Kerry's records so that doesn't tell us much. Or does it? The mere fact that Kerry has not made either his SAT score or college transcipts public is enlightening. He's attempted to spin a brief stay in Viet Nam into a reincarnation of Audie Murphy. Surely were his grades and SAT score anything to brag about, he would be bragging.

Let's turn to post-graduate work. When Kerry was looking at law schools did he pick Harvard, Yale, or, say, maybe Stanford? No he attended Boston College. At least today, BC is a good school, but far from great. For example, U.S. News and World Report lists it at number 29, or put another way, number three in Boston as both Boston University and Harvard are rated higher. Perhaps in the 70s it was better, but it's hard to believe that anyone wanting to attend law school in Boston would pick BC over Harvard.

Now let's look at Bush. When he wanted to get an MBA, where did he look? Harvard, ranked number one by U.S. News and widely regarded as the best business school in the country, if not the world.

So returning to Raines claim, what do we see? We have two men that attended Yale. One went on to law school at BC, while the other took his MBA at Harvard. Would anyone in America bet that the one who attended BC had a higher IQ? Well at least one person would - Howard Raines.