Rick Perry and his transcript

This piece in The New York Times goes through the A's, B's, C's, D's, and F's, of Rick Perry's transcript. Two questions which come to mind: 1) If we know this about Perry, why shouldn't we know this about all the candidates? I don't know what getting a B in business law and a D in principles of economics means, but it's kind of interesting, with the latter being alarming. My liberal friends are generally in awe of Barack Obama's intellect, so there shouldn't be any objection from that quarter. 2) If Perry is so dull & lazy, how was it that they let him fly a plane as a pilot? Perhaps he wasn't academically motivated? Or perhaps in the 1970s the standards in the military were low enough that a marginal college graduate sufficed.