Thanks to the Internet, or as President George W. Bush would say, “the internets,” urban legends are alive and well and spreading faster than ever.

There’s one going around in an e-mail chain (I got one last week) that features the Commander-In-Chief himself—and it hardly casts him in a flattering light.

It involves a “study” of presidential I.Q. performed by a think tank called the “Lovenstein Institute of Scranton” which is supposedly made up of highly regarded historians, sociologists, human behavorial scientists and head shrinks including one Dr. Wernver R. Lovenstein.

The, uh, Institute purports to have discerned the I.Q.s of the past 12 U.S. presidents through a four-month examination of their writings, their ability to speak with clarity and other “psychological factors,” and putting the whole mess through some nutty equation called the “Swanson/Crain System” to determine just how strong or weak the Executive brain power has been in the last 50 years. Get this—it’s accurate within five “percentage” points. Wow.

Here’s the ranking:
182- Bill Clinton
175- Jimmy Carter
174- John F. Kennedy
155- Richard Nixon
147- Franklin D. Roosevelt
132- Harry Truman
122- Dwight Eisenhower
121- Gerald Ford
105- Ronald Reagan
98- George Herbert Walker Bush
91- George Walker Bush

I love this…it’s got hoax written all over it.

W may be dumb, but he’s not retarded. This thing makes him to be dumber than a rock. And I’ve seen JFK’s I.Q., reported in a published story about him and it was a lot lower than 174.

I’ve check this out through the great hoax debunker, Snopes.com, and it turns out this urban legend has been out there since 2001 and has successfully fooled the London Guardian and a publication in New Zealand. Apparently, it’s out there again, so don’t be sucked in by it, as genuine as it may seem.

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In a recent column, I accused Hillary Clinton of being something of a cyborg because she sometimes comes across as a pre-programmed wonk in her responses to press questions.
Well, she read that column and made a pointed reference to the cyborg crack during an interview with The Journal News editorial board. I was the only one in the room who caught it—and it made me squirm a little bit.
Later in the interview, I asked her to describe her Republican opponent, John Spencer, in one word. Spencer, you remember, reportedly said to a Daily New reporter that Hillary must have had plastic surgery because she looked “ugly” in her younger days.
So I gave Hillary a chance to shoot back with the intentionally funny caveat that she couldn’t use the word, “cyborg.”
“Um, I don’t know what word,” she said, laughing. “Ahhh…no, I don’t know. I can’t do it.”
I bailed her out. “Interesting?” I offered.
“Yeah, interesting is always the safest word! Since you all never let me go off the record, it”ll have to be that I suppose.”

Frequent Republican campaign contributors are getting “Drat Rudy Guiliani For President” appeals in the mail and a cover letter from the organization’s founder, Allen Fore. An appeal reached one Westchesterite last week.

Fore is asking for contributions ranging from $25 to $500 with a blank space for “other” amounts to be mailed to an Arlington, Va. post office box.

“All the poltiical experts agree that this race is wide open, and that’s why we need to get started now!” Fore writes. “In a recent poll of registered Republicans taken by the American Polling Research Institute, Rudy Guiliani is among the top three chices for President in 2008.

Fore claims that Guiliani would defeat Sen. Hillary Clinton, but interestingly, he does not mention by name Guiliani’s main GOP rival, Sen. John McClain of Arizona.

Gee, I wonder why?

REISMAN NOTE: I have a policy of never revealing who I plan to vote for so I am turning over that chore to my dog, Amy, an amiable 8-year-old mixed breed who was more than happy to accept my invitation to perform the dirty deed. Amy is a registered Plutocrat.

Hello! I’m Amy. I’m a dog.

Yeah, yeah….I’m large and in charge! Hey, is that the mailman? No? OK, OK….hey, do you have anything to eat? No? Alright…Looky here, I’m going to tell you who I’m voting for on Nov. 7. Before I do, I gotta bark at this squirrel who’s sitting outside my window.

Phew, now I feel like taking a snooze. Hey, what’s that smell?

Oh, yeah, OK, yeah, OK. Where was I? Oh, yeah…Here are my choices for the 2006 elections.

U.S. SENATE: I’m voting for Hillary Clinton because of Buddy, the dead dog. And Socks, the cat…I like cats. I live with two cats and I like them even though they make fun of me. They’re pretty kitties…
John Spencer is a scary man…He’s like the mailman. BAD MAN!!
GOVERNOR: My choice is Malachy McCourt, of the Green Party. I have a feeling he would be nice to me if I met him. I think he would sing me a pretty Irish song which I could bark to.
ATTORNEY GENERAL: Jeanine Pirro is a nice lady. She’s a big animal advocate and she’s got pet pigs. I have a pink nose and sometimes people think I’m part pig, but I’m not. I’m part pitbull, I think. I don’t like her husband, Al. He’s like the mailman. BAD MAN!!
COMPTROLLER: Chris Callaghan is a fat guy; he looks like a jolly St. Bernard. I’m voting for him. Alan Hevesi might steal my collar if I’m not careful. BAD MAN!!!

OK, that’s it. Gotta dog biscuit on you? No? I need a drink of water…where’s the toilet?

Three years ago, The Journal News and Lohud.com reported that John Spencer wrote a 15-page letter to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, in which he alleged that Jeanine Pirro had politicized and corrupted the Westchester district attorney’s office. Spencer, who was then mayor of Yonkers, demanded that Spitzer investigate Pirro who was then the county DA.

In an Oct. 8 column on Pirro, I alluded to Spencer’s charges of corruption, which included a wide array of allegations that Pirro selectively prosecuted people based on personal and political considerations. I noted that nothing came of it, at least not up to this point. Futhermore, I don’t think Spencer ever brought it up again, at least not publicly.

Fast forward to the the present. Today, Spencer is the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate running against Hillary Clinton. Pirro is the Republican candidate, running for attorney general against Democrat Andrew Cuomo. And Spitzer, a Democrar is the overwhelming favorite to defeat Republican John Faso in the gubernatorial race.

In last night’s attorney general debate in Rochester, Cuomo cited a New York Sun story which claimed to be reporting for the first time that Spencer had called for the Spitzer probe. Well, that’s wrong. We’ve been writing about it for years.

In any event, it now comes to light that Spitzer’s office IS investigating Spencer’s complaints, though reportedly only as a civil matter. We also now learn through a ublished report that Pirro herself is not a target of the investigaton.

A few observations:

1) For a brief period, Spencer and Pirro were vying for the GOP Senate nomination. (Remember Spencer’s “Chinaman’s Chance” crack? That was about Pirro.) As we all know, Pirro dropped out when it became painfully clear that she was in way over her head.
Once she was no longer a rival, Spencer had no politiical cause to bring up his letter of complaints about her. Nevertheless, he had every cause to believe that he was blown off by Spitzer in 2003—which he was.

2) But lo and behold, the Spencer letter resurfaces during the attorney general’s race. Why? It’s obivous. Cuomo is a Democrat and so is Spitzer. As a candidate for governor, Spitzer can no longer afford to shove the Spencer complaints under the rug, especially since it’s being brought up by a guy sharing space on his party ticket.

3) And yet, Pirro is not the target of the suddenly active investigation. Why? That’s obvious, too. Spitzer is an ally of Pirro’s and the whole political structure of Westchester County. He’s not going to rock that boat. Remember, Pirro has even praised Spitzer in her own TV commercials for attorney general.

So Spitzer has it both ways. Yes, there’s a probe, but Pirro is not really the subject of the probe. Huh? And Cuomo is happy, too. He gets a sound bite for his debate.

Like I said, something stinks.

Don’t forget to tune in Thursday to my “High Noon” radio program on WVOX, 1460 AM. My guest will be The Journal News’ own Matt Davies, the Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist.

We’ll be talking about the election season and how it plays into the day-to-day satire of Matt’s artwork. Don’t miss this. The program starts at 12 noon.

By the way, if you’re not in the listening area, don’t despair. We’re also streaming live at www.wvox.com.

While eating my corn flakes Sunday morning, I watched the debate between Jeanine Pirro and Andrew Cuomo, and came away thinking that Pirro won.

Twenty points down in the attorney general’s race, Pirro proabably figured she had little to lose, so she went after Cuomo with an aggresssive mix of scolding accusations and condescending references to his lack of experience. For his part, Cuomo pretty much played prevent defense, which is often a losing tactic in football, as well as politics.

Speaking of strained metaphors, I’ve made a hobby lately out of listening for prepared debate sound bites, those supposed knock-out punchlines candidates and their handlers come up with beforehand.

The old Reagan line, “There you go again,” was used by Pirro more than once, and it often pops up in debates. She also came up with one late in the debate that can be filed under a category I call “The Metaphorical Pop Reference Putdown.”

This is not an exact quote, but it was along the lines of: “Andrew, you running for attorney general is like me applying for Joe Torre’s job because 21 years ago I played softball.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Go back to 2004 when Johen Kerrey said to George W. Bush, “Being lectured by the president on fiscal responsibility is a little bit like Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this country.”

Hee-Haw!

Check out Page D4 in today’s New York Times. There’s a story and photograph about the video-slot “racino” that opened yesterday at Yonkers Raceway.

The photo shows the only the back of the heads of two people playing the slots. Neither is identified…but guess what? One of the players happens to be yours truly! That’s me in the baseball cap. The woman to my left is Evelyn Cooper of Ossining.

In today’s column, I wrote about the Happy Rosh Hashana greetings sent from Mayor Phil Amicone of Yonkers to about 4,100 city families. As I reported, not a few of the recipients weren’t actually Jewish, but they had Jewish-sounding last names—myself included.

Incidentally, it didn’t escape anyone’s attention that the mayor’s correspondence was sent out on city letterhead and that the pre-sorted postage was provided by the taxpayers. So at the rate of 21 cents per letter, the cost was $861.

There’s nothing new in this. Not long ago, my son received a congratulatory note from state Sen. Nick Spano, R-Yonkers for making his college dean’s list. Spano, who is running for re-election in Novermber in what is expected to be another close contest against County Legislator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, didn’t pay for the stamp.

Nor does he pay for all the Happy Birthday letters he sends out to older constituents, even people he’s never met and probably never will meet. Older people, remember, tend to vote more than people in other age groups.
Here’s the form letter he mails out to a White Plains resident on Oct. 5:

“Dear ….
“I would like to extend my warmest greetings to you and wish you a very Happy Birthday!

“As you celebrate your birthday, please consider that there is no substitute for your life experience. Our community continues to need the advice, support and involvement of residents like you.

“I wish you all the best on this special occasion and again, please accept my regards for a wonderful birthday!

“As always, please know that I am here to serve you. If there is any way that I can be of assistance to you, please do not hesitate to call me.

“Sincerely,

“Nick Spano
“Senator”

Touching, ain’t it?

In today’s column, I tested your acumen in Pirro trivia with a multiple-choice quiz. Here are the answers:

1)b 2)c 3)b 4)a 5)c 6)c 7)a 8)c 9)d 10)a 11)b 12)c
13)a 14)b 15)a 16)c 17)a 18)b 19)b 20)d.

IF YOU SCORED…
18-20: Fess up, you cheated on the exam.
15-17: You are eligible to work forThe New York Post.
11-16: Hey, it’s multiple choice. You probably guessed on most of the questions.
6-10: No, no. You ARE smart; you just don’t test well.
0-5: It’s OK, really. The dog ate your homework and besides, you’ve got more important things to worry about.

REMINDER: Listen to the “High Noon” radio program today at 12 noon. That’s 1460 on your AM dial or listen online at www.wvox.com.