Clinton is among the half dozen smartest presidents America has had. Clinton's predecessor, George W.'s father, was smart enough, though he had some of his son's trouble finishing sentences. He sometimes spoke, as his son does, in flywheel non-sequiturs. Nixon's rather powerful mind was undermined by the amorality and paranoia of his cunning. Lyndon Johnson had an exuberant, defective genius.
Brains are never enough.
He thought it was funny. They did not inquire how a man as stupid as Ike managed to preside over the reconquest of Europe or, for that matter, over a pretty successful eight years in the White House. There is a little Euxine Pontus in most presidents. Intelligence undergoes strange transformations when it is connected to power. Even the brightest politicians may go Euxine.