A New and Better (?) Standard

After exhaustive study, I feel it's time to introduce a new measure of brain function. The old I.Q. standard has been so severely tested by people like George W. Bush and Sarah Palin, it seems there's a need to get a new measure which will yield more positive results, i.e. a score higher than the ambient temperature, The answer, I feel is the Rectal Intelligence Scale (RIS). This score is achieved when the head (and, therefore, the brain) of the subject is located in the traditional place where the sun doesn't shine. Since test results on the RIS depend on the kind of thinking resulting from the brain placement, the higher numbers generally reflect the most idiotic, illogical or asinine reasoning.

Hence, under the RIS, Mr. Bush would rank as one of the highest scorers in domestic policy and Mrs. Palin would lead the pack in foreig affairs. Neither political party nor world leader would consistently score higher or lower on a long-term basis, but all would occasionally have outstandingly high scores to which they could point with pride.

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Our Congress, for example, would have some remarkable scorers, particularly with the incoming "conservative" members of the House. The kind of reasoning that criticizes the tax giveaway to the banks under Greenspan, Geithner, Sommers and Bernanke while advocating less government regulation and oversight easily could raise a congressperson's RIS (RI Score) by several points all by itself. Coupling that with a stated desire to cut the budget while extending tax breaks to those who, among others, gleaned the most from the financial crisis, could jack it up further.

Points would be earned for anyone who spends large amounts of time condemning the idea of gays in the military when at the same time, we hear reports that our country is scoring 17th in education worldwide and worse than that in health care. Oh yes, let's not forget to award RIS points to those who rant against giving citizenship to foreigners who complete high school and a couple years of college. C'mon, these people might learn enough about the system to demand better educational opportunities for most citizens, the same system used by the other countries who are currently ahead of us.

Contributing to the high RIS ratings of people like Mitch McConnell and other defense hawks is the plain fact that the more money we pour into the corrupt snakepits of Iraq and Afghanistan, the richer the people get whose interest is keeping the war going as long as possible. This goes double for the high-minded people in our thriving defense industry who pay for countless ads telling us how much good they're doing for the country, but very little about how much their cost overruns, waste and lobbying money is costing us.

Speaking of RIS points, if someone could explain why giving billions of dollars to an Israeli government that has consistenly stuck its thumb in our eye and ignored more U.N. resolutions than Iraq did helps the United States, a good explanation would be worth a sizeable reduction.

Finally, if we adopted the RIS, the results could be published in the candidates' campaign literature, which would be informative, since the IQs of candidates is seldom, if ever, given out. If we're thought not to care about how smart a potential congressperson or president is, perhaps we might benefit from finding out how much of a horse's ass they might be.

The RIS examination would be composed and scored by a committee comprised of defrocked members of the Chamber of Commerce.