Then again, Clooney rolls with the brain-dead lefty Hollywood crowd so pretty much anyone with an IQ over 50 is considered “smarter” than the people he knows.

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Idealism loses out to cynicism in George Clooney’s political drama “The Ides of March,” which opens the Venice Film Festival.

Clooney directs and acts in the political drama that features Ryan Gosling as a gung-ho press secretary swept into a sex scandal in the final days of a Democratic presidential primary in Ohio. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti are rival campaign managers who use loyalty as a weapon in their epic battle for victory.

Clooney plays the presidential candidate, but told reporters at the festival Wednesday he is not looking to be one in real life.

“As for running for president, look, there’s a guy in office right now who is smarter than almost anyone you know, who’s nicer and who has more compassion than almost anyone you know. And he’s having an almost impossible time governing. Why would anybody volunteer for that job?” Clooney told a news conference.