Wonkette
RICHARD COHEN DOES NOT CARE FOR GEORGE W. BUSH’S ‘QUANTITY OVER QUALITY’ APPROACH TOWARDS BOOK-READING AND FINDS THIS ATTITUDE INDICATIVE OF HIS GOVERNING QUALITIES OR LACK THEREOF: Remember a few years ago when word leaked that George W. Bush had been reading Camus’ The Stranger, and this was a modest gossip topic for about 12 minutes before it went away forever? Turns out it didn’t go away — Richard Cohen’s working a hot new lead! Huh? “As Dwight Eisenhower once told me (I’m not making this up), he had more time as president to dabble in painting than he did in retirement.” Whoa, dudes, seriously? Literally? Can you believe that Dwight Eisenhower once said the coolest possible thing ever to Richard Cohen? No joke? [WP]
This is what Eisenhower meant with the “Military Industrial Complex” thing.
“Quantity over quality”? Cohen is upset that W. has read a total of four books ever instead of chewing through Ulysses once?
Eisenhower’s paintings are as memorable as his presidency.
It may not have been a book, but “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” was supposed to be a real good read. Only a page, too!
CampusFind.com Girl would garner more attention if she hailed “Bachelor Masturbators” in the headline. Just trying to help.
I’ve always wanted to be a painter. Now, if I only get presidented, my dream can come true!
Favorite Camus’ The Stranger, corrected:
“My pet goat died today. Or perhaps it was yesterday, I don’t know.”
Favorite line from Camus’ La Peste [real]
“… [in Oran] everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, ‘doing business.’” Part 1, pg. 4
Off topic but,
ROLAND BURRIS? WHAT THE FUCK?
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/12/blagojevich-to-name-burris-to-senate.html
Blago has appointed Roland Burris to fill Barry’s senate seat. Is that golden or what?
Gee, every time Bush opens his mouth, he says something so stupid you’d have to figure he never reads anything. But if Karl Rove says Duhbya reads 10 books a day, it must be true.
How did the Washington Post find all these columnists who just fell off the turnip truck??
In his column, Rove says that Bush read 95 books in 2006 alone. In 2007, he read 51 books and as of last week, he had read 40 in 2008.
I actually think Dubya’s total is closer to zero. But then I have my numbers and Karl has the numbers.
chascates: No mention of what Burris paid for the seat? Meh.
NoWireHangers: HAHAHAHA! That guy’s like 70 year’s old or something. Call it a “temperary” solution.
As Eisenhower told me, “I never did get anal until I got my third star. Then there wasn’t a single man or women over 18 who wouldn’t let me swim in their dark canal.”
Bush only read L’Étranger because the language was simple enough for him to read all by himself without Laura’s help and because he heard the main character kills a bunch of Arabs for no good reason, which he can totally relate to.
Over the past eight years, Bush has been caught unawares on several occassions - like when the little single engine plane swooped into the WH airspace, or the nutjob guy jumped the fence and ran towards the WH, or when the guy showed up with the rifle to pop off a few shots at the WH. On every occassion, the press secretary assured us that Bushie was safe because he was goofing off in the gym. In the middle of the day. In the middle of the work week. Or maybe he was off on a bike ride. In a national park closed especially for him. In the middle of the day. In the middle of the work week.
Bush just goofs off, all of the time. He fucks off in the gym, rides around on his bike like a kid out of school. He wouldn’t read a book for pleasure if the book had pictures of bikes and gyms in it. He is probably drunk right now.
Richard Cohen is an a-hole and that is well known here in the DC area. He must also be an idiot if he believes Bush read anything more than daily clips- if that.
They forgot to include “My Pet Goat” on the list. Probably the most consquential book larnin’ he ever did on the job.
Anonymous Office Zombie: Exactly. Oh, how exactly.
If you cross Tom Daschle with Colonel Sanders, what do you get? (not Off Topic)
Cohen writes: “It [The Stranger} is a book out of my Gauloise-smoking youth, read in the vain pursuit of women of literary bent” What?
Eisenhower diddled a painter in the White House?
“Apes don’t read philosophy.”
“Yes, they do. They just don’t understand it.”
I’m surprised to hear Bush reads books, doesn’t he know they are the root of all evil? This is why I support Palin because she will never encourage any book learnin’. Bannin’ and Burnin’ is a different matter.
I don’t understand how passing yourself off as a learned dolt instead of an unlearned dolt really helps to present you in a better light. Does anyone know if “Leading the Free World for Dummies” made his reading list?
Enough! the fuckwit, by his own admission, doesn’t read NEWSPAPERS, ferchrissakes!
I have to ask our beloved Wonkette editors: how do you avoid drinking whatever Cohen, Barnes, Hume, et al. have gotten into that rots their brains into rat shit? Is there something in the beltway water supply or is it something that David Broder serves at his cocktail parties? I always wanted to spike the DC drinking water with LSD but maybe it’s been there all along.
@chascates: The poison can be eliminated from the body by priming the anus with a lot of buttsecks and snark, so Wonkette is immune.
I know when I think of George W. Bush, I think WOW, he’s so gosh darn well read! The funny thing is this: most people who’ve read as much as Bush claims to have read have a much better grasp of the English language. Not that Richard Cohen is talking out of his ass or anything. Who would ever doubt anything that a Bush minnion had to say anyway? They would never dream up some bullshit talking point in a weak attempt to alter what is an indisputable to nearly everyone. Or would they?
Who knows? Maybe Bush just seems like an idiot because he has early onset alheimers, or he’s drunk again. Or whatever. Who cares? His so-called legacy is crap and he should just go already.
The interesting part of the whole book debate is that being well-read doesn’t vindicate Bush’s “none’a that fancy book larnin’” persona. If the reading list is really what people like Rove have put forth, it means one of two things:
1) Bush’s cowboy act was just that, an act. An elaborate facade set up to appeal to slack-jawed yokels nationwide, sort of like how he ran as a Beltway outsider in 2000 (scientists to this day investigate how the fuck a president’s son did that) and how he disparaged ivy-league elitism despite attending Yale and Harvard Business. With this interpretation, we can no longer write him off as an ignorant, mediocre frat-boy bumbler elected due to nepotism, and instead have to recognize him for the evil fraud he must be.
2) The second interpretation is less of a radical alteration of Bush’s public perception: Before we may have thought he wasn’t stupid, just ignorant. Now we are all forced to recognize that he isn’t ignorant, just stupid.
Either way, the reading list probably will do nothing to improve Bush’s image.
President Bush uses “The Stranger” to hide his copy of “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”.
As Henry Kissinger told me (I’m not making this up), being out of office has given me a lot more time to masturbate.
Not one fucking picture of asshat, “reading”, almost two books a week, at one point. Is “Juggs” a book?
regisgoat: Candice? Is that you?
As soon as I go through puberty, I’m going to grow a beard like that.