Bush the Bibliophile

In an act of spectacular revisionist chutzpah, Karl Rove is now portraying George W. Bush as a devoted bibliophile. The man who marketed Bush as a good ol' boy from Midland, Texas exuding righteous disdain for elitist intellectuals has just published an article in the Wall Street Journal titled "Bush Is a Book Lover". The former presidential advisor describes a friendly annual competition with his boss to determine the champion reader. In 2003, Bush told Fox News that he does not read even newspapers: "I glance at the headlines just to get a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves." Yet according to Rove, Bush read 95 books in 2006, 51 in 2007, and 40 in 2008. With 110 books in 2006, 76 in 2007, and 64 in 2008, Rove claims victory, though he concedes: "I've won because he has a real job with enormous responsibilities."

If either Bush or Rove had been stuck in a "false" job, like librarian or teacher, he might have been able to compile longer reading lists. But whatever their vocation, grownups do not devour books as if they were hot dogs in a speed-eating contest. They do not read in order to acquire gold stars for civic virtue. They do not even read in order to be graded, though in 2001 the president assured a group in Townsend, Tennessee that: "You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test." The formidable titles that Rove cites, largely in history and biography, seem designed to impress. "Mr. Bush loves books, learns from them, and is intellectually engaged by them," he claims. However, no evidence exists that turning the pages of any of those impressive volumes has had any effect on the policies, rhetoric, or personality of the man who, until the invention of Sarah Palin, was the nation's leading public yahoo. "Joe, I don't do nuance," he told Joe Biden in 2004.

We do know for certain that George W. Bush read at least part of one book. On September 11, 2001, he was reading The Pet Goat to a group of schoolchildren in Sarasota, Florida and, despite the enormous responsibilities that his real job entails, continued his blithe recitation for another seven minutes after being informed of the attack on the World Trade Center. Rove characterizes Bush as a faithful reader of the Scriptures, "from cover to cover," and the president himself affirmed, on November 12, 2008, that: "I've been in the Bible every day since I've been the president." He must have been in Genesis, in the Garden of Eden, before the Tree of Knowledge is encountered. "Reading is the basics for all learning," explained this profoundly unlearned man, on March 28, 2000.

Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals was, according to Rove, on the 2006 White House reading list. Nevertheless, unlike Abraham Lincoln, Bush has continued to insulate himself with a claque of sycophants. The fact that he read a biography of Leopold, the Belgian king who pillaged the Congo, has not dampened his enthusiasm for imperialist adventures. And, despite Rove's claim, it is hard to believe that anyone who actually read "Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number," Jacobo Timerman's searing account of his torture by the Argentine military régime, would not immediately close down Guantánamo and outlaw waterboarding and extraordinary rendition. Nor does the appearance of Albert Camus' The Stranger on Bush's reading list square with his enthusiasm, as governor and president, for capital punishment.

A biography of Lincoln, his pensive, self-effacing predecessor, has had no discernible effect on Bush's character. And a book about Mark Twain has not kept Bush from continuing as a Niagara of malapropisms, more like a rustic character in Huckleberry Finn than its sophisticated author. Rove is most credible when he omits the United States Constitution from the lists of what Bush read in 2006, 2007, and 2008. "One of the important things about history is to remember the true history," Bush declared last June 6. When the true history of the Bush administration is written, its author will not be Karl Rove. And George W. Bush will not likely be its reader.

Comments

[shastaman]

95 books? That's a lot of crayons

[RobinSeattle]

Archie comic books don't count as actual books, Shrub.

The guy has probably read fewer books in his life than I did in one semester of college. Remember when he said he read a biography of Dean Acheson during the GOP Arizona presidential debate in 2000 and couldn't say what he had learned from it? A total kid who didn't read the assigned book in grade school moment. Just pathetic. http://www.slate.com/id/1004121/

[realpolitic]

I like when a reporter asks Bush about a book that he has supposed to have read. Bush always then changes the subject. He reads nothing!

[plzchuteme]

Very clever. He says, "I've been in the Bible everyday..­." He didn't say that he READ the Bible, or that he UNDERSTOOD the Bible, or that he REFLECTED on the words. I suspect that he leans pretty heavily on books with titles like, "_ _ _ _ _ _ for Dummies."

[WilliamProc]

I'm certain that Bush has read several hundred books during his presidency, but I don't think Rove should include the President's Scrooge McDuck comic collection in that count.

[scooperss]

I am surely doomed now.
When bush said, "I've been in the Bible every day since I've been the president.­" I didn't picture him reading it.

I grew up in a rural area long before cable was there. When I couldn't go outside, I turned to books for my entertainment. I will and do read anything.

I don't think bush reads books but I do think he has read the news at times. Mostly because he said he doesn't.

[davism97]

A typical book has 300-500 pages. This would take (I'm guessing on average) about a week per book to read. That leads to 48 average sized books per year a person could read IF they actually read and absorbed the book, and if they had a LOT of free time on their hands. Rove and Bush are full of BS.

[RobinSeattle]

It depends on how much time you have. When I was in high school, I was reading 2-3 books a week and they were all substantial works. And that was in addition to my high school studies, partying my butt off and playing sports. It is hard to believe that Bush ever put in that much time to read given his personal history.

Yeah, he didn't have much to do as Governor of Texas (and I am not kidding; the Governor there is pretty weak compared ot most other states) and after seeing him on the campaign trail in 2000 you know he wasn't digesting anything that Rove or one of his other handlers didn't write.

The unfortunate fallout is that he makes Yale and Harvard look like little more than overblown and expensive diploma mills. How on earth he could have graduated from the Ivy League without being cut huge breaks because of his last name is beyond me. There was definitely something crooked going on there.

[JosephP]

I would like to make one passing point in your article more clear: Many people are not aware that Bush entered the kindergarden classroom AFTER learning the news that the first plane had hit the WTC (Flight 11 hit the North Tower at 8:46AM, Bush learned about it within minutes while in his motorcade on the way to the school). Andrew Card rushed in at 9:05AM to tell Bush about the second plane hitting the WTC (Flight 175 hit the South Tower at 9:02AM---the President's advisors saw it live on a television they were watching in another room at the school). Bush then proceeded to continue to listen to the reading of "The Pet Goat" for another 8 minutes.

In other words, Bush learned of the tragedy of the first plane hitting the WTC and still chose to proceed with his photo op in the classroom. And even when the second plane hit and it became even more clear that the US was under terrorist attack, he did nothing for several long minutes.

[standard]

It would be a hoot to see if GWB could pass an academic test based on the content of those hundreds of books Rove claims GWB has read while in office, especially (as Bush himself once claimed in front of a video camera) "three Shakespeares".

GWB should have an amusement park as his monument, not a presidential library. His presidency has, after all, been one scary ride after another.

[NoSandwiches]

My husband works at a book store and is a voracious reader. He reads 95 - 110 books a year, and he constantly steals time to do so--at the table, every break--the year he had jury duty he read a record of 120. That week he read 15 books alone. This man reads a LOT and he knows a LOT because of it--he is considered a fountain of information on every subject by all who know him. He keeps a journal of every book he reads or re-reads during the year, and then publishes a list during the New Year for friends and family. At Borders Books store, if you see a blurb with a recommendation for a book, chances are he wrote the blurb and read he book. In a company that HATES to rate employees highly on a scale of 1 to 5 lest they feel obligated to give a raise, he gets the extremely rare 5 in product knowledge.

So color me skeptical that GW did any such thing. I know bibliophiles--I am one myself, and you, GW, are no bibliophile.

[blaqntelligence]

gwb says nucular...­..'Nuff said.

[waynesmyer]

And! and! my bestest and most favorite of all three books that I have read was "My Pet Goat " your
beloved Great War Presinator, GW "Baby" Bush
p.s. Yesterday, I didn't know what a bibliophile was, and now I are one!

[runswithscissors]

I know for sure one title he didn't read..."Bi­n Laden Determined to Strike In U.S." July, 2001.

[lisakaz2]

I don't buy it because he retains nothing. I wonder if, when he does read, his lips still move. I wonder what his reading comprehension really was in college. I bet it was poor and he invented fake interpretations and he passed because someone felt sorry for him.

[applescruff]

If Bush read that many books he's got way too much time on his hands but more likely this claim is pure Bull ! Bush is obviously not a man that reads alot . If he actually does he devinitely doesn't doesn't comprehend.