Oh, puh-leeeze...
According to the White House, one of three books Bush chose to read on his five-week vacation is "Salt: A World History" by Mark Kurlansky, who chronicled the rise and fall of what once was considered the world's most strategic commodity.
The other two books he reportedly brought to Crawford are "Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar" by Edvard Radzinsky and "The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History" by John M. Barry...
The Great Influenza? Jesus Christ, Bush and I are reading the same books over the summer? Well, actually, I already read it. Since he started his vacation. But I can understand why he needs a five week vacation now.
The prologue alone is seven pages long!
Bush, a former oil company chief, has not said why he picked Kurlansky's 484-page saga…
Because he isn't reading it. That's why.
Bush is a "former oil company chief" who couldn't even be bothered to learn enough about the oil bidness to drill a single hole in Texas that had oil in it.
For some reason, the L.A. Times thinks he's interested in the history of salt??? Well, maybe. Maybe Bush thinks there's a whole bunch of salt in those air pockets he drilled his investors bankrupt with.
Though, my guess is the "liberal" L.A. Times forgot about Bush, in 2000, claiming that he was reading a recent biography of Dean Acheson, Truman's Secretary of State,and then getting asked by Judy Woodruff during the Republican primaries what lessons Bush took away from Acheson and Marshall and Bush looked stunned and stupid, like Andrew Card just whispered that America was under attack into his ear, and idiotically said:
The lessons of Atchinson and Marshall are, is that our nation's greatest export to the world has been, is and always will be, the incredible freedoms we understand in the great land called America.
Which is ridiculous. Along with the rest of his (non)answer. Because no biography of Acheson or Marshall ever said that the lessons of Acheson and Marshall "are is" that our nation's greatest export is...are...has been--will be?--(what the fuck is this idiot trying to say?) incredible freedoms.
Acheson and Marshall were, in fact, a couple of Cold War hardasses, who thought America's greatest export to the rest of the world would probably be the atom bomb. Or at least a whole lot of American paratroopers.
(I know, I know--Acheson said the best way to combat communism was to "work with progressive governments". But, in the 1950's, that meant guns and money. It did not mean "incredible freedoms".)
Basically, Bush's answer was: Okay, I didn't read the fucking book. But here's something I bet a lot of Americans wish some book would say!
"The president enjoys reading and learning about history," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said…
No, he doesn't. Since when? Christ, four years ago, the "liberal" media gave him a pass on knowing dick about modern world history:
The first to admit he was no intellectual while hard-partying his way through Yale, he's raised eyebrows in recent months by calling Greeks "Grecians," Kosovars "Kosovians," confusing Slovenia and Slovakia, wondering whether Russia was still attacking Chechnya and failing a television reporter's quiz on the names of four overseas leaders.
And the "liberal" media continues to willfully ignore the fact that Bush doesn't know shit about that history he studied so hard at Yale.
Christ, a couple of weeks before he stupidly invaded Iraq, Bush didn't even know that there was more than one Islamic sect. And was so utterly ignorant of Iraqi history that he and his whole administration were completely oblivious to the fact that Iraq was almost certain to implode into sectarian violence after the fall of Saddam.
What else? The great history major out of Yale continues to idiotically compare the transition of the American colonies--with their already representative governments, their Western traditions of Locke and Hobbs, and ancient Greece, and the Magna Carta, and whatever else--to the transition to democracy in Iraq.
He's so damn ignorant of even American history that this is the "essential lesson" he took away from Vietnam:
The thing about the Vietnam War that troubles me as I look back was it was a political war. We had politicians making military decisions, and it is lessons that any president must learn, and that is to the set the goal and the objective and allow the military to come up with the plans to achieve that objective. And those are essential lessons to be learned from the Vietnam War.
Utterly dumb. With virtually no basis in history. And we won't even comment on the fact that the one stupid "lesson" he took from Vietnam, he completely ignored and continues to ignore in Iraq. Though we will concede that Bush definitely earned his C grades at Yale.
No doubt about that.
He didn't enjoy learning about history while he was a history major at Yale. And he hasn't spent a minute and half in the forty years since he left Yale learning about history. And he hasn't learned any history in his four and half years, minus the full year he's taken off for vacation, in the White House.
He doesn't enjoy it. He couldn't care less.
History is about people.
And that shit is boring.
Kurlansky said he was surprised to hear that Bush had taken his book to the ranch: "My first reaction was, 'Oh, he reads books?'"
Your's and everyone else's, brother. But that's still funny!
"What I find fascinating, and it's probably a positive thing about the White House, is they don't seem to do any research about the writers when they pick the books," Kurlansky said…
They don't do any research about anything, Kurlansky. Or didn't you notice Iraq going on? They, the White House, have attained a perfect state of stupidity. They can't do anything right.
Bush's choice of "Alexander II" appears to reflect his interest in books about transformational political leaders. Among those he has perused since becoming president are biographies of George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Theodore Roosevelt, Richard the Lionheart and Peter the Great…
Oh, God. Come on! Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Roosevelt? I guess the operative word there is: perused. Flipped to the middle photographs, I'll bet you anything, if he picked those books up at all.
It is absolutely hilarious that the White House press office dreams this shit up and that White House correspondents actually print it. Like it could actually be true, or something.
Bush doesn't even read his goddam PDBs on terrorism, idiots! You think he's reading about Alexander Hamilton and central banking??? You think he's reading about progressives like Roosevelt???
Why not just tell us Bush has taken another five weeks off to work on his hobby of curing cancer? Or mastering levitation? Or healing lepers with his Jesus powers?
It's that silly.
Though, the Richard the Lionheart book I can believe. I don't believe Bush read any book about Richard himself. But I could believe that Bush, in his comfy jammies, had some tall, broad-shouldered, dark haired Secret Service man, sit on Bush's bed, maybe stroke Georgie's troubled brow, maybe feed Georgie some peeled grapes and now and then hold a glass of warm milk to Georgie's lips, and read such a book to him.
The Lionheart, you know, liked...um...holding hands with men, as well. Richard was a fierce, and fearless, and terrifying warrior king who led from in front of his men. Richard's enemies, even the great Saladin, were terrified of Richard in combat.
I doubt Bush really enjoyed that history. That would probably be pretty scarey to Bush!
But that stuff about Richard's big, rugged, manly, sweaty, brawny love of his fellow men? I bet Bush really enjoyed that.
Plus, any book about Richard the Lionheart is bound to have a lot of passages about thrusting...with swords...man to man...
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