John Kerry finally gave his Navy records to the press. From today’s Boston Globe:

Yale grades portray Kerry as a lackluster student

His 4-year average on par with Bush’s

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff | June 7, 2005

WASHINGTON — During last year’s presidential campaign, John F. Kerry was the candidate often portrayed as intellectual and complex, while George W. Bush was the populist who mangled his sentences.

But newly released records show that Bush and Kerry had a virtually identical grade average at Yale University four decades ago.

In 1999, The New Yorker published a transcript indicating that Bush had received a cumulative score of 77 for his first three years at Yale and a roughly similar average under a non-numerical rating system during his senior year.
Kerry, who graduated two years before Bush, got a cumulative 76 for his four years, according to a transcript that Kerry sent to the Navy when he was applying for officer training school. He received four D’s in his freshman year out of 10 courses, but improved his average in later years.

The transcript shows that Kerry’s freshman-year average was 71. He scored a 61 in geology, a 63 and 68 in two history classes, and a 69 in political science. His top score was a 79, in another political science course. Another of his strongest efforts, a 77, came in French class.

Under Yale’s grading system in effect at the time, grades between 90 and 100 equaled an A, 80-89 a B, 70-79 a C, 60 to 69 a D, and anything below that was a failing grade. In addition to Kerry’s four D’s in his freshman year, he received one D in his sophomore year.

… Kerry’s weak grades came despite years of education at some of the world’s most elite prep schools, ranging from Fessenden School in Massachusetts to St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire.

Yes, this is the same oh-so-smart, nuanced John Kerry that the mainstream press packaged for us during last year’s campaign. It was all a fake.

This does tie up some loose ends. As Patterico points out, poor grades and lack of intellectual horsepower are probably the reasons Kerry could only get into BC law school instead of one of the Ivies.

And come on — a “D” in freshman poli sci? How slack is that? Now that he has time on his hands, perhaps he can take some night classes to catch up.

At least he always has his French to fall back on. Oops — maybe not — he got a C in that too!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 7th, 2005 at 11:26 am by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under Election 2008 Live Team Coverage!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.