Bush's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Karl Rove deployed his Wall Street Journal column yesterday to defend his old boss' intellectual bona fides. To hear Rove tell it, George W. Bush has devoted much of his free time to wading through weighty fiction (Camus) and nonfiction tomes. Just as Rove once tried to play up Bush's Texan roots, he now emphasizes his inner bookworm side, noting that Bush, at bottom, is an Ivy League man, sporting a history degree from Yale, no less.

Is Rove fibbing when he reports that Bush plowed through some 95 books last year? I think not. With Bush's poll ratings at a historical low, the president, as he heads toward his new home in an exclusive Dallas neighborhood, really has nothing left to gain by pretending any longer to be just plain folks. As pleasant as it sounds, however, book-reading should not be equated with wisdom or good judgment. Plenty of leaders in history have read lots of books with ill-effects for everyone else.

What's more, Bush may have ripped through a lot of volumes, but did he intellectually engage with them? Rove provides no evidence that he and Bush ever discussed the volumes they were reading. Instead, it sounds like an exercise in one-upmanship--to see who can polish off the most books in a year. It's hard to imagine that Bush, who once ordered Rove to fetch his jacket from a chair in the Oval Office, regarded him as worthy of debating. And as Richard Cohen points out in the Washington Post, none of the books on the Civil War or Abraham Lincoln that Bush seems to have devoured challenged any aspect of his thinking. They confirmed it. Cheerfully oblivious to the havoc he has wrought at home and abroad, Bush, you could, say is confirmation of the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.

As Rove seeks to bolster Bush's image, however, he will probably continue to insist on Bush's prodigious intellectual powers. Watch for further Rove columns reporting that Bush is headed to Greece to help assist an archeological dig in Athens, immersing himself in Latin texts, and attending a course at New York's New School on French New Wave films.

Comments

[billydog]

Let's not forget that the word book is used after the word comic, too.

[loril]

I'm a huge fan of readers and books in general. Reading is a major part of my life and I do see it as a positive trait, to be somebody who cares about learning through books.

However...a person can read for a variety of reasons. In my case, I mainly read these days for relaxation and to combat stress. Although I read often, I cannot say that it has made me an intellectual heavyweight lately. If G W is reading sports bios, westerns, Tom Clancy and the drivel written by his fellow cons -- then he is consuming large volumes of words...but not much information that is of use on the world stage.

Bush strikes me as a person who would not bother reading the opinions of anyone who disagrees with him either. He certainly does not give opposing viewpoints credence when he speaks or takes questions.

[catpark]

I consider myself a dedicated reader, a lover of history and biography, as well as mysteries and thrillers, and I doubt very seriously that I completed more than one book a week this year. I have a job, and family responsibilities, but make time to read at least an hour or two a day. Can anyone seriously believe that the President has enough time to read 95 books in one year? Maybe they were those comic books of classic literature.

[Oldbuck]

Yea his reading list is See Spot Run, My Pet Goat, English 001, didn't get passed the first page.

[thinkagain2]

there are two ways to get into Yale or Harvard. 1. Work your ass off through high school, excel in everything, write a perfect essay, score perfectly on the ACT and SAT and have a huge amount of luck in getting through the admit process. Or, 2., be from a prestigious, wealthy family with ties to the university and grab one of the 'legacy' spots.

Guess how W got in.

[reggieb]

I wouldn't put it past him to pay someone to take his SAT and ACT.

[solandraman]

Books of the Bush Fiasco must be read and read by students worldwide forever and ever!

[igorz]

Anyone who thinks George W. Bush can read hasn't been living in America for the last 8 years

[mzwednesday]

even thinking about Bush exhausts me
next.....

[SparkyDash]

Why shouldn't anyone believe that Rove would fib? Fib is too nice of a word for Rove, but if you wish to use it, then yes, I think Rove li ed, I mean fibbed. IMHO, I honestly don't believe that Mr. Bush read one book. And if he truthfully plowed through 95 books, it was while he was behind the wheel of a tractor on ye ol' Crawford Ranch.

[gretchenart]

All of this is part of the Bush-Rove "Lunacy Project"

[klm68]

It's the precision of the number that catches my attention. Who's counting? Do you know how many books you read last year? I don't, and I read a bit (although I haven't gotten to "My Pet Goat" yet). I'd find it more credible if he said "about a hundred" or "more than one per week."

[Driver125]

Only the brain-dead of the 29% (or whatever percentage it is that still like him) would believe any of this. Now, 95 magazines.­.....perha­ps, but only if they had a lot of pictures and personal gossip.

[leopoldmozart]

This is the last and best of the Orwellian deceptions. The stupidest president in our history is being characterized as a brilliant book reader a la Truman. Does anyone with 46 chromosomes actually buy any of Rove's flummery?

[lollylolly]

What worries me more, is that Obamas' utterances on the Gaza crisis appear to neatly dovetail with those of both the well read Bush, as well as the Foreign Affairs, WP and the Grey Lady devouring 'Mornin' Joe'.- isn't that silly?

[PierreLeClerke]

What bothers me most about this post, is hearing from Rover at all. This career criminal should be heard from in a third or forth party fashion only resulting from hear say in the federal prison yard. And finally to hear his epitaph announced, the cur having breathed his last as a guest of the state and never again able to put his hand to another scheme or policy for profiteers.

[NotMcCain]

Well we KNOW the only one he's mentioned ("The Stranger") he had no comprehension of at all.

I could see him turning pages of 95 books in a year, though.

Reading? Understanding? Thinking about what he was reading?

Not so much.

[morgan1]

No one with any real credibility has ever come forward stating Bush was an avid reader. He stumbled through Yale and no one really talks about his time at Yale other than him being a party hound and bully. He failed as a pilot in the National Guard which means he could not handle the lesson plans and the aircraft itself. All those years he was out there "making money" and failing, no one has come forward to verify his reading ability although there are plenty to state he was a fool and an idiot. Anyone who believes Rove or Bush about being "intellectual" should buy stock in the Brooklyn Bridge. He married a librarian and she doesn't strike me as someone who reads either-- Small print, large print, the audio books or Readers Digest Condensed (They don't count).