corrente

And remember, this is supposed to be the smarter Bush brother. Jebbie Poo might want to take a page from Georgie Boy's policy noted yesterday of only taking simple, prepared questions from carefully pre-screened audiences:

(via AJC)

ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida school officials hit the books after Gov. Jeb Bush was stumped by a math problem that reportedly was on the state's standardized test for high school students.

Their answer: The question isn't on the test.

Bush was stymied by the problem last week while visiting a high school. A teenager asked the governor a question about triangles that she said was taken from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, which Bush has championed.

But a state researcher later determined the question would not be permitted on the exam because the test does not cover trigonometry.

Education Commissioner Jim Horne sent a letter this week to nine Florida newspapers, informing them of the findings.

Officials said the purpose of the efforts wasn't to save face for the governor — but merely to set the record straight on what is on the test.

Bush took the question from 18-year-old Luana Marques, who asked, "What are the angles on a three-four-five triangle?" The numbers refer to the proportions of the sides of such triangles.

Bush, hemming a bit, answered "125, 90, and whatever remains on 180."

Bush and Marques both gave wrong answers. The correct answer was 90 degrees, 53.1 degrees and 36.9 degrees.

The story generated letters to the editor, columns and editorials in the state's newspapers either criticizing the exam or defending Bush for not knowing the answer. Marques later said she meant the question as a joke.

"People reported it inaccurately that it was a question on the test and then it kind of cascades out," the governor told reporters Wednesday in Tallahassee.

"125 plus 90, and whatever remains on 180". Never mind that that works out to negative 35, just contemplate that this is the guy in charge of counting the votes. But that doesn't count, does it, since it's not on the test?

Tom and Dick Smothers really did all this material a lot better, and thirty years ago. Maybe they can sue for plagiarism.

UPDATE: Comments indicate Alert Readers feel I am making fun of Jebbie Poo here for not being able to do trig problems in his head. While always delighted to make fun of any Bush on any grounds whatsoever, in fact this was not my angle (snicker, snort) in THIS particular case.

Rather, I was making fun of Jeb for his dedication to what are apparently deeply ingrained family traits:

(1) a complete inability to utter the phrase "I don't know" even when he doesn't, even when he couldn't reasonably be expected to know it, and would have gained sympathy by admitting he didn't know it;

(2) instead trying to bullshit his way through it

(3) and succeeding only in uttering a wrong answer to a far simpler math problem involving mere addition (125 + 90 is greater than, or less than, 180?)

(4) Then, when caught getting that one wrong too, trying to change the subject by deflecting the question to "whether or not this was actually on the test."

If the original triangle question HAD been on the test, and he was a kid TAKING that test, he wouldn't have gotten a second (or third or fourth) chance like that, now would he? Perhaps we need a No Governor Left Behind exam, and governors who fail it get "helped" by having their funding taken away.

At any rant, er I mean rate, I apologize for lack of clarity in the initial post.