Today in quantitative methods

In case you haven't been keeping up with the Breitbart empire since the great man died, here's today's entry from "The Vetting" (the definite article, not the pale imitation on the Hannity program):

President Barack Obama is hailed by his supporters and the mainstream media as one of the most brilliant men ever to hold the office. However, his refusal to release his academic records, his admitted deficiencies as a student, and his frequent factual errors--even in his chosen field of constitutional law--have cast doubt upon his supposed genius. Now, Breitbart News has established that Obama's grades and Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores may have been even lower than those of his supposedly less capable predecessor, George W. Bush.

And how did we establish that one number "may" be lower than another number (thus enabling The Fox Nation's question at right)?

Breitbart News has learned that the transfer class that entered Columbia College in the fall of 1981 with Obama was one of the worst in recent memory, according to Columbia officials at the time.

Do tell!

A Nov. 18, 1981 article in the Columbia Spectator, “Tight Housing Discourages Transfer Applications to CC,” written by student Jeremy Feldman and quoting admissions officials, reported: “On paper at least, the quality of the students accepted [as transfers] has declined along with the number of applicants, the officials say.”

Oh. "Learned" as in "found a copy of the paper," which quotes an admissions official to back things up:

Among accepted transfer students, the average combined math and verbal score on the Scholastic Aptitude Test is a 1,100 and their grade-point average at their former schools is about 3.0, Boatti said.

Therefore:

If Obama’s SAT scores were near the average of the transfer students entering Columbia in the fall of 1981, he would have scored significantly lower than George W. Bush, whose combined math and verbal scores were 1206 out of a possible 1600 points (as revealed by the New Yorker in 1999).

Q.E.D. as Molesworth sa.

There is, of course, a point, so on to the last graf:

The only way to know is for Obama to release his records, transcripts and test scores--from Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard. Why Obama has not done so remains a mystery--unless he has something else to hide.

Some stories are "exclusive" for a reason.