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Thursday, August 31, 2006

Life Summer Reading Cheating at the White House
Posted by CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE on August 31 at 11:23 AM

Local blogger Boom wonders: Is Bush cheating on his summer reading list?

There is mention of a contest between Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush, to see which of them will read more books this year. There are a lot of professional media outlets writing about this contest, and including a part of the Bush’s complete reading list for the year in their articles.
I got curious about whether Bush has released previous reading lists and did a little online poking around. Last summer, the Guardian UK and other sources made mention of his three-title 2005 summer reading list. The three books [were] Salt: A World History, The Great Influenza, and Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar. These three are all also mentioned on the list for books he’s read in 2006, as part of that “contest” with Rove. I doubt he’s read them twice.

One possibilty is that he started them in August of 2005 and didn’t finish any of them until January 2006, but that raises the question of how he has since completed the 57 additional titles listed in his contest record in the last eight months. Does “books read this year” include “books barely started” and “books intended to be read”, as well as “books previously read”? And of course, the fact that I found this mystery in about two minutes makes me question why no one at any of the places (CNN, US News and World Report, etc) who reported on this supposed contest bothered to check the list this way.

Is Bush cheating on his reading list? Will Rove make him forfeit the contest? What does his librarian wife believe should happen to people who cheat in summer reading programs? Why can’t the press be bothered to do a little fact checking on official media releases?

Comments

I am actually worried that he has taken the time to study all these titles. I thought he had a day job that kept him real busy makin' decisions and such. If he is spending all his time in a reading contest who is running the country?

Posted by Zander | August 31, 2006 11:50 AM

I have a job that doesn't come close to the importance of being the President and I could never finish 57 books in a year. Of course, I do not have a Cheney to do my job for me.

Posted by SB | August 31, 2006 11:51 AM

If he's anything like me, he has a dozen books in progress, anywhere from 1/10 to 9/10 finished, some of which will be finished tonight, some of which in a month or three or fifteen, and some never. There is no correlation between start times and finish times, which constantly overlap. And 57 is a pretty mild number.

However, I am absoposilutely sure that Bush is not anything like me, and isn't reading these books all the way through or with any kind of comprehension.

Salt is great stuff, though. I left it behind in the hardware store once, and when I went back for it fifteen minutes later the store clerks were all standing around mocking it. Sigh.

Posted by Fnarf | August 31, 2006 12:02 PM

Oh, for the good old days when we a good 'ol bubbalicious president who cheated only on the golf course & only under the Oval Orifice desk with the hired help. (Bill likes to minister to young people, said Hillary, & indeed he did. & then he waved his little weewee in the sink & his big Baptist Bible in the breeze.)

Then, in his spare time, when not swinging like a swinger from Greg Norman's chandelier, he did a preemptive, undeclared, elective, presumptuous little war in which c. 3000 civilians were collaterally damaged to death by our bombs dropped from 20,000 feet.

Posted by Mad-Bomber Bill | August 31, 2006 12:07 PM

i agree with you, zander. i'm just a paralegal, and i don't have time to read. how does he?

Posted by konstantconsumer | August 31, 2006 12:11 PM

If it's Bush, you know it's a Lie.

Seriously, when has he EVER told the truth?

Posted by Will in Seattle | August 31, 2006 12:27 PM

"Sixth Rule Of Office Politics:

If you make a bet with your boss, be sure to let him win."

By that reckoning, Rove will be the only person in America less read than our Preznit.

Posted by COMTE | August 31, 2006 12:58 PM

The whole "Bush/Rove book contest" counts as the most outrageous lie of at least the last 24 hours. He's read sixty books in one year?! That's tens of thousands of pages. Has anyone stopped to think how ridiculous that is? How in the hell can he be reading hundreds of pages per day? They're touting the fact that he read the Stranger, a book about killing an Arab on a whim --nice. And I suppose there will be a great debate on French Existentialism tonight! Is there anyone left who is stupid enough to believe this bullshit?

Posted by Andrew | August 31, 2006 1:31 PM

Well, there's spirit and bigR on the PI blogs. They're dumb enough.

Posted by Will in Seattle | August 31, 2006 2:13 PM

Bush can read?

Posted by Brian | August 31, 2006 5:11 PM

Andrew:

Keep in mind, "My Pet Goat" is only 32 pages long and mostly pictures, while "The Stranger" tops out at a whopping 144 pages.

I mean, it's not like Shrub is blazing through "Infinite Jest" or "Gravity's Rainbow", now is it?

Posted by COMTE | August 31, 2006 6:43 PM

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