When he headed to New York as a graduate student anyway, he was intimidated by the intellectual firepower of his new friends.

"We can pick up people who have not studied business and can teach them, if they have the intellectual firepower."

"But then we started working in some of Bush's arrogance and lack of intellectual firepower."

But their intellectual firepower tends to be specialized.

Why can't all this intellectual firepower occasionally go toward expanding certain things, like the size of parking lots in the financial district?

"Leo really was one of the most important engines behind all that, and certainly gave us a lot of intellectual firepower."

Indeed, some economists say that few other councils have had as much intellectual firepower as the one Ms. Tyson will head.

Maybe the answer lies not in a lack of intellectual firepower but of strategic thinking.

But she shows no indication of having the academic training or the intellectual firepower to serve as one of the nine members of our highest court.

Why is it in the interest of Europe to weaken the intellectual firepower of the Commission precisely in times of crisis?