Avenatti Attacks Trump's Intelligence, Fails To Remember President's Score on Cognitive Test
Stormy Daniels lawyer Michael Avenatti has earned a special place in America’s heart as our favorite scummy ambulance chaser. He’s kind of like the porter in “Macbeth” — comic relief in there to insert a moment of levity into an otherwise serious debate, and certainly not someone to be taken seriously.
However, I doubt anyone thinks of Avenatti is some sort of great genius. Sure, he graduated law school, but we’re not exactly talking Clarence Darrow here (or even Lionel Hutz, a fictional animated character specifically designed to be a dullard). This is a man whose arguments seem to be mostly reductionist and designed to elicit a reaction — that is, when they don’t merely consist of the hashtag “#basta.”
This is all a way of questioning whether a man who’s earned the nickname “creepy porn lawyer” from Tucker Carlson is exactly the person to be impugning the intelligence of the president.
So of course, he did exactly that on Twitter.
“Why shouldn’t all presidential candidates have to take the Wonderlic or a similar test and have the results published?” Avenatti tweeted Saturday.
“This should be required in 2020 for all (inc Mr. Trump). We deserve to know the intelligence level of the person who wants to be our president (a big factor)!”
Why shouldn’t all presidential candidates have to take the Wonderlic or a similar test and have the results published? This should be required in 2020 for all (inc Mr. Trump). We deserve to know the intelligence level of the person who wants to be our president (a big factor)!
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) July 28, 2018
The Wonderlic, mostly known to the American public via the NFL Draft, is a 50-question multiple choice intelligence test. A low score on the test is typically seen as a red flag at positions that involve a significant intellectual load, particularly quarterback. (QB busts like Jeff George and Vince Young notched infamously low scores of 10 and 16, respectively, while stars likeTom Brady and Aaron Rodgers managed above-average scores of 33 and 35.)
Unlike the NFL Draft, however, presidents aren’t picked by professional sports franchises who want to dig deeper into the abilities of college athletes who have carefully guarded their reputations in hope of a big payday. They’re picked by the American people, who rely on a body of work, public positions and speeches.
What Trump did take was the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, which answers whether or not an individual has any signs of cognitive impairment. Trump scored 100 percent on that test, which seems to belie the common conception that the president is mentally unwell or unfit.
Of course, Trump seems to think that he’d score particularly well on an IQ examination:
Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest -and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or insecure,it's not your fault
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 9, 2013
Trump also challenged former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to “compare IQ tests” after it emerged that Tillerson had allegedly called the president a “moron.”
“And I can tell you who is going to win,” Trump said, according to The Hill.
And perhaps he would. (Tillerson, after all, is now jobless, an unfortunate condition that probably traces back to his decision to call the president a “moron.”) Barbara A. Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, told the BBC in the wake of the Tillerson fracas that “(i)f he ever releases his IQ, I just have a feeling — especially since he is daring Tillerson to release his — that it’s higher than people would presume.”
There is an unspoken element of humor in all this, in that Michael Avenatti is apparently considering a run for president. If Trump decides to run again and Avenatti somehow manages to either win the Democrat nomination or cobble together enough funds to make an effective independent run, he’ll be running against the man he’s now challenging to an IQ test.
Purely out of curiosity, what individual watches Michael Avenatti and thinks that this is a man who’s smarter than the president? No matter what your estimation of the president’s intellectual may be, any time spent in the televised company of the stoat-like Mr. Avenatti leads inexorably to the objective conclusion this is a man well outside of his ken, brought onto cable television to elicit chortles that he isn’t in on from the audience.
Some quick advice, creepy porn lawyer: Maybe now is a good time to stay away from suggesting a presidential Wonderlic. Just saying.
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