Bush Is a Book Lover

WSJ ^ | Dec. 26, 2008 | Karl Rove

[nuconvert]

By KARL ROVE

With only five days left, my lead is insurmountable. The competition can't catch up. And for the third year in a row, I'll triumph. In second place will be the president of the United States. Our contest is not about sports or politics. It's about books.

It all started on New Year's Eve in 2005. President Bush asked what my New Year's resolutions were. I told him that as a regular reader who'd gotten out of the habit, my goal was to read a book a week in 2006. Three days later, we were in the Oval Office when he fixed me in his sights and said, "I'm on my second. Where are you?" Mr. Bush had turned my resolution into a contest.

By coincidence, we were both reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals." The president jumped to a slim early lead and remained ahead until March, when I moved decisively in front. The competition soon spun out of control. We kept track not just of books read, but also the number of pages and later the combined size of each book's pages -- its "Total Lateral Area."

[PackerBronco]

I think that many people were unhappy with the way Bush handled several issues, but were still with him. His repeated attempts to ran amnesty down our throats, and him personally calling his conservative voting base names felt like a deliberate betrayal and it was that which broke the camel's back, so to speak.

The fact that people are unhappy with Bush's handling of certain issues is not a news flash. My point is that it's pretty tiresome to have every Bush thread turn into a debate on illegal immigration.

[Frantzie]

Okay lets talk books then. Rove was also mentioned in the article. Maybe they should have both read Reagan books years ago on how to be Conservative Republicans so they would not be RINOs.

Bush is not a bad person, he is less of a RINO than poppy and a lot better then Democrat Juan McCain.

[Holicheese]

Also, check out the Amazon Kindle. After an initial investment, you can download books for about $7-$9.
‘Its a cool little gizmo!

[Jacquerie]

For eight years the old media and freak moonbats portrayed our supersonic fighter pilot, governor, Yale and Harvard grad President as an illiterate dolt.

Rove gets a single article about GWB as a voracious reader in the MSM.

You, of BDS mindset can't stomach a complimentary article about our 43rd President.

Bugger off.

[SuziQ]

I also like to read books , but its an expensive habit.

Find out if your public library is part of a larger library system. If so, then as robomatik suggested, just request the book, and ask that it be sent to your local library. I can pick mine up, and return them to my local library, which is very convenient. Our system also lets you keep a 'Wish list', which is great, because when I hear of a book I'd like to read, but can't get to it right then, I put it on that list, and request it from the library when I'm about ready for it. It usually takes a couple of weeks to get any book from a different library, but if you expect that, then you can request one, while you're finishing up a different one.

I also check out the sales shelves at our library for hardcover copies of books that I like, and enjoy re-reading. I was able to find half of Dick Francis's novels at a library in N. Providence a couple of years ago, when I was driving our daughter down there for a writing class for homeschoolers. The class lasted 6 weeks, so each week, I'd check to see what they had on the shelves. I got them for $1 each! I've picked up a couple of Tony Hillerman and Vince Flynn novels that way at my local library, again, for $1 each!

[SuziQ]

When I'm looking for used books, I always check allbookstores.com first. I was able to find a LOT of great books at that site, for our kids, when I was homeschooling them in high school. It shows books from lots of different sellers.

[SuziQ]

Once Bush is out of power the media will pretty much leave him alone. Wait and see.

I doubt that seriously. They'll need him to blame when That One's policies start causing problems in the economy.

[SuziQ]

In 1999 GWB replied to Tucker Carlson of The Weekly Standard, when asked what his idea of hell was, "the prospect of reading a 500 page book of philosophy." Does that sound like a book lover?

Why not? Maybe he doesn't like philosophy. From what others, besides Rove, has written, the President's taste in books was more in history, autobiographies, and biographies.

[beckett]

As most of us recall, Ronald Wilson Reagan, of sainted memory, was also savaged by the press, the cultural elite, and trendy Democrat bosses for being a lowbrow dimwit, just as GWB is sniffed at today. Clark Clifford famously called Reagan an "amiable dunce."

The American people, however, never quite swallowed the charge, mainly because RR was able to thrill and move audiences with his eloquence, wit, and authentic talent as a communicator with a felicitously and intelligently modulated voice.

Then another curious thing happened with regard to Ronnie. After he left office his personal papers began to appear -- letters, speeches and essays that he'd written in his own hand. The whole literary world was taken aback. The writing was definitely first rate. It was beyond merely professional and into the rarified shere of the best writing to be found anywhere, sort of similar to how Ulysses Grant stunned the literati with the great writing in his personal memoirs. Only RR wrote better than Grant, although maybe not as good as Lincoln.

Ronald Reagan really did love books and words. And he proved it by his wonderful ability to speak and write.

So in light of all that, I'll make a deal with Bush's defenders here. Now we know already that GWB could never be compared to Reagan as a public speaker. There's no contest. RR wipes the floor with GWB. GWB couldn't carry Ronnie's jockstrap, etc. But still I'll retract my harsh evaluation of GWB's literary love affair, and even revise upward my currently low opinion of his mental abilities, if evidence surfaces at some later point that GWB can write. If we find that GWB, over the years prior to his presidency and during it, has put pen to paper consistently and regularly as we know RR did throughout his life, then I'll eat crow and admit I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to George W. Bush and his "love of books."

So all we need is more data from Karl Rove. Where are the GWB essays, Karl, written in your boss's own hand?

[SuziQ]

Whether George W. Bush can ‘write’ is irrelevant to me. Not everyone who is a wise person, a deep thinker, or even a voracious reader can write well. Some folks just have difficulty putting their thoughts on paper.

[beckett]

Whether George W. Bush can ‘write’ is irrelevant to me. Not everyone who is a wise person, a deep thinker, or even a voracious reader can write well. Some folks just have difficulty putting their thoughts on paper.

Bush is not a wise person, a deep thinker, or a voracious reader. I'd bet my bottom dollar that he didn't read cover to cover the books Rove says he read. That's just nonsense. What fun it would be to quiz him on the contents of those books just to watch him squirm.

George Bush is a mediocre man with a mediocre mind, who, because he was a son of privilege, misunderestimated what it really took to be president of the United States. He figured he could pull it off because he saw his Daddy do it. He was wrong. At the end of his miserable term of office he's left the country a smoking wreck, with diminished stature in the world, an overextended military bogged down in an unnecessary war, an economy collapsing into near depression due in significant part to the misguided policies of his administration, and a dramatic defeat at the polls of his party.

He's a colossal failure, and history will treat him as such.

[SuziQ]

He's a colossal failure, and history will treat him as such.

I guess time will tell, won't it?