TORONTO, Nov. 22 /CNW/ - A high-ranking federal official may be correct in an assessment of US president George Bush as "a moron" say a group of Canadian stupidity experts.

"Technically, a moron is someone who is stupid but looks normal," said Albert Nerenberg, a Toronto-based film director who is completing a television documentary titled Stupidity. A controversy has erupted over newspaper reports that a top Canadian federal aide called Bush a "moron" for his hard-line stance on Iraq at the current NATO meeting in Prague.

"Much has been said recently about Bush arriving at a point where he looks presidential," said Nerenberg. "What's intriguing about morons is that they can pass as just about anyone, but inside they're still morons."

The original term moron was coined by an American Psychologist in New Jersey during the early part of the century. Moron was added to the US version of the IQ test to screen out people who looked intelligent but weren't. A moron was considered to have an IQ between 50-75.

"Sadly, we may be the world's only current stupidity experts," said Shannon Brown, producer of Stupidity and an executive at Trailervision. "There is very little true research on the important subject of stupidity, and the only self-proclaimed expert, James Welles, a Florida-based author, was recently arrested on serious charges for doing something extremely stupid."

Stupidity features interviews with Noam Chomsky, John Cleese, Bill Maher and former Bush speechwriter David Frum, and is being commissioned by the Documentary Channel and the CBC. A trailer for Stupidity can be found at www.trailervision.com

© 2002 Canada NewsWire Ltd.

###