Greenspan thinks Reagan was not the sharpest pencil in the box

Alan Greenspan's Presidential Point Spread

• The new GQ magazine features a nearly naked, blond young actress named Jessica Alba on its cover, but that wasn't the reason Washingtonians were hot to get their hands on a copy yesterday. Nope, the chatter was about an article on the inscrutable Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan. His morning bathing rituals are detailed therein -- he likes to write speeches in the tub -- but the really eye-catching material comes from a secondhand Greenspan quote offered by his friend of 50 years, Charles Brunie.

In an interview with GQ writer Wil Hylton, Brunie recounts a dinner conversation with Milton Friedman and Greenspan. Says Brunie: "I asked the two geniuses, 'Of all the politicians you have known, how would you rank their intellectual ability?' And Milton said, 'Well, on a Bo Derek scale . . . Nixon was a nine, and Reagan's a seven -- ' and Alan interrupted, 'No, no, Milton. Reagan's not a seven. He's a four!' Milton said, 'Alan, what do you mean by four?' Alan said, 'Well, Gerry Ford's a four.' And Milton said, 'I don't know what that means.' And Alan said, 'Well, if you gave Gerry Ford a series of data, no matter what the series was, he could not develop a concept. And Reagan is the same.' ''

But we have a bigger question: Where does Jessica Alba rank on the Bo Derek scale?