What’s in a Grade?

We remember a rather not-so-important moment in the run up to the 2000 election. The New Yorker, not the friendliest venue for the future president, made Bush's grades public in 1999. He had a cumulative grade of 77 at Yale, very much a "gentleman's C."

Bush made a joke out of it. Speaking to Yale's graduating class of 2001, the newly inaugurated president said, "To those of you who've received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done, and to the C students, I say you can be president of the United States." Senator John Kerry's grades did not become public in the campaign of 2004. Kerry OK'd the release of his full file to lThe Boston Globe not until ast year. While the file contained nothing new about his Navy service, it did contain his Yale transcript.

Kerry, it turns out, had a cumulative grade of 76