What the president reads

[TeddyKGB]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/10/bush.readinglist.tm/index.html

So there will be chuckles of disbelief when his detractors hear that one of his latest passions is Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy and that when it comes to approval from the intelligentsia, the President is more needy than he lets on. Written by an Israeli Cabinet minister and former Soviet dissident, the book argues that true security in the Middle East and the world can come only with ballot boxes. The President has pressed it on his top advisers and is even proselytizing outside his inner circle.

"I want you to read a book," Bush told a TIME reporter, interrupting his own version of Sharansky's thesis. "It will give you a sense for what I'm talking about."

Bush liked the work so much that he invited Sharansky into the Oval Office in early November for an hourlong discussion of the book and how it applies to the war on terrorism.

Sharansky is not the first author in the presidential book club. Bush has also been host to, among others, Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis and Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis. These sessions undermine Bush's own anti-intellectual posture. He boasts about not reading newspapers or being worried much about the judgments of historians, most of whom, he says, "wouldn't have voted for me."

But in his readings and talks with authors, he is seeking theoretical scaffolding for his actions from the pointy-headed intellectuals he often appears to disdain, rather than combing through their pages looking for ideas that would challenge his world view...

[JawJaw]

1. Heh

"challenge his world-view" ????


does not compute + + does not compute + + BushDows 95 is shutting down + +

[ps1074]

2. The Pet Goat?

That's the only book he read since taking office :shrug:

[imenja]

3. He reads?

Wow, that in itself amazes me. I almost don't care what it is. The fact he does it at all is surprising.
Perhaps Laura found the book for him.

[Matilda]

4. Perhaps Laura read it to him.

Or would it have been Condi?

[JohnnyRingo]

5. Tod Holton...Super Green Beret

I'm sure he would be riveted:

http://www.thoughtviper.com/inexob/th.html

[Menshevik]

6. I didn't know

they had a Cliffs notes version of "Case for Democracy"

[JawJaw]

7. Nah

Far too advanced!
"Democracy for Halfwits" is more his level.

[Demit]

8. Look! Me read book! Talk to authors! I smart fella!

[Babel_17]

9. He's taken up writing also .....

"All work and no play make George a dull boy."

"All work and no play make George a dull boy."

"All work and no play make George a dull boy."

"All work and no play make George a dull boy."

"All work and no play make George a dull boy."



..... ala The Shining.

[WritersBlock]

10. Are they sure he didn't really say

"I want you to read a book ... to me?"

[Moderator]

11. locking

not LBN, dated 1/10/05