Obama and Phi Beta Kappa

Here's an interesting bit of presidential trivia published in The Key Reporter, Phi Beta Kappa's national quarterly publication.

It's also featured here at pbk.org.

U.S. Presidents Share a Phi Beta Kappa Connection


On January 7, President George W. Bush, with President-elect Barack Obama, hosted a historic reunion of former U.S. Presidents at the White House, the first gathering of its kind in more than twenty years. This meeting was an important occasion in the history of the office, as well as a landmark for the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

All of these Presidents — past, present, and future — share a Phi Beta Kappa connection

All three former U.S. Presidents are Phi Beta Kappa members. George H.W. Bush became a member at Yale University in 1948, Bill Clinton at Georgetown University in 1968, and Jimmy Carter became an honorary member at Kansas State University in 1991.

The other two are sons of Phi Beta Kappa members. President George W. Bush's father is former President George H.W. Bush. President-elect Barack Obama's father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., became a member of Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Hawaii Manoa in 1962.

Phi Beta Kappans share the honor of membership with seventeen U.S. Presidents and seven of the nine current U.S. Supreme Court Justices. To see who else belongs to Phi Beta Kappa, click here.

To read the full story about the reunion of former U.S. Presidents on MSNBC, click here.

President George W. Bush meets with former Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and President-elect Barack Obama Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2009 in the Oval Office of the White House. White House photo by Eric Draper

I'm surprised Obama isn't a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

After all, he's a genius.

As historian Michael Beschloss said to Don Imus, no past president can match Obama's intelligence.

Historian Michael Beschloss: Yeah. Even aside from the fact of electing the first African American President and whatever one’s partisan views this is a guy whose IQ is off the charts — I mean you cannot say that he is anything but a very serious and capable leader and — you know — You and I have talked about this for years …

Imus: Well. What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: … our system doesn’t allow those people to become President, those people meaning people THAT smart and THAT capable

Imus: What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: Pardon?

Imus: What is his IQ?

Historian Michael Beschloss: Uh. I would say it’s probably - he’s probably the smartest guy ever to become President.

Imus: That’s not what I asked you. I asked you what his IQ was.

Historian Michael Beschloss: You know that I don’t know and I’d have to find someone with more expertise …

Imus: You don’t know.

Historian Michael Beschloss: What do YOU think it is?

Imus: I don’t know.

Although Beschloss has no proof whatsoever, he declares that Obama is the smartest guy EVER to become president.

Apparently, he didn't have the grades and/or wasn't nominated by faculty to be a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

How can that be?

Obama, the brilliant, not a member of Phi Beta Kappa?

I wonder why Obama won't release his transcripts from Occidental College, Columbia, and Harvard. Where's the transparency, Barack?
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Related: "Obama's Lost Years"