from nbcunicable.com
What is it that sitting down with President Bush does to normally competent newspeople? Last night, NBC aired portions of an interview of Bush with Brian Williams that touched upon the President's impressive reading abilities. According to The Hotline, here's the exchange:
On why he read Camus: "I was in Crawford and I said I was looking for a book to read and Laura said you oughtta try Camus. I also read three Shakespeares."Williams: "A few months ago you were reading the life story of Joe DiMaggio by Richard Ben Cramer."
Bush: "Which was a good book."
Williams: "You've been on a Teddy Roosevelt reading kick."
Bush: "Well I'm reading about the battle of New Orleans right now. I've got an eclectic reading list."
All together now: He's either not reading these books, or he shouldn't have enough time to read them.
As most of you probably know, earlier this month US News and World Report reported that Bush was in a reading contest with Karl Rove and that, so far, Bush has read 60 books this year. An astute reader of Dan Froomkin's crunched some numbers using a reading list supplied by the White House and, making some (very reasonable) assumptions and inferences, concluded that "the President would have to average a little over 115 pages per day. Reading a quick pace of a little over a minute per page, that is two hours a day of reading, and let's be honest, longer if you want to retain information in these types of books." And don't forget that Bush works out every day (another hour?) and insists on getting a good night's sleep.
This isn't about the President being dumb (necessarily). It's just utterly implausible that he's doing this insane amount of reading, and if he is, we should all be worried that the President has so much free time on his hands.
The problem isn't limited to Brian Williams, but that's who we're picking on today: Next time, read one of the books (or have an intern read it!) and ask him a specific question about it. Or -- and this is probably the best option -- don't ask him fawning questions about his reading habits that elicit these pseudo-intellectual exchanges. If you must ask these questions, take it seriously, and ask him whether he's worried that he spends too much time reading and who's running the country while he's wrapping his head around Camus.
[Ed. — I saw that very awkward and uncomfortable clip last night and am pretty sure I yelled at the screen at the "three Shakespeares" line. The lack of follow-up by Williams was pretty disappointing (which "Shakespeares?" King Lear? Macbeth? The Tempest, 'cause rhyming with "Taliban" must mean it counts as "work"?). Instead, Williams took it on faith — which is the last thing that a presidential interviewer should be doing. — R.S.]
