‘Laura said, ‘You oughtta try Camus’

August 30, 2006

I suspect readers are probably getting a little tired of my ongoing fascination with the president’s alleged reading habits, but in yesterday’s interview with NBC’s Brian Williams, Bush addressed the issue for the first time publicly.

WILLIAMS: We always talk about what you’re reading. As you know, there was a report that you just read the works of a French philosopher. (Bush laughs)

BUSH: The Stranger.

WILLIAMS: Tell us the back story of [tag]Camus[/tag].

BUSH: The back story of the the book?

WILLIAMS: What led you to…

BUSH: I was in Crawford and I said I was looking for a book to read and Laura said you oughtta try Camus, I also read three Shakespeare’s.

WILLIAMS: This is a change…

BUSH: Not really.

No, of course not. What would make anyone think Bush reading French existentialism and [tag]Shakespeare[/tag] would be a change?

A few moments later, [tag]Bush[/tag] told Williams he has “an eclectic reading list.” Williams asked if that included Camus. The president said, “Well, that was a couple of books ago…. The key for me is to keep expectations low.”

Mission accomplished.

Brian Williams missed the opportunity of a lifetime to ask the preznit to define ‘eclectic.’

CB” I suspect readers are probably getting a little tired of my ongoing fascination with the president’s alleged reading habits

NO! i need the occasional laugh to keep me from crying.

  • I can’t believe I’m doing this, but …

    The story is a little more credible with this detail. Laura Bush was a librarian, I believe. So when he asks her for a “good book” to read, there’s a pretty good chance she’ll point him to a “great book.”

  • Did I miss the part where Williams jumped up, grabbed Bush by his lapels, and screamed “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU YOU MORONIC BROWNSHIRT FUCK?!!?!” before being dragged off by Secret Service agents, or did I just imagine it?

  • “Mission accomplished.”

    Primo snark.

    I don’t even believe Laura read Camus. Probably an old required reading book of one of the twins laying around or something.

    “By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more. ” Camus

    Anyone remember the old Monty Python skits about Sartre’s wife and the whoopee cushion? Bush doesn’t need the whoopie cushion.

  • I love this. “I read three Shakespeare’s.” I bet if Williams had asked which plays (or, implausibly, which poems) Bush would have floundered. But it’s great when someone talks about the greatest writer in English as if he’s a brand name. “Yeah, I used to drive Fords, but now I’m into Chevys.”

    Also, any idea what Bush meant when he said, “The key for me is to keep expectations low”? Does he mean his expectations for the book? His expectations for his own reading abilities? Others’ expectations about his reading abilities? (Is there a disconnect between his brain and his mouth?)

  • “……The key for me is to keep expectations low.”

    The official slogan of the Bush administration.

    If that doesn’t make The Daily Show, then those guys are slipping.

  • “BUSH: I was in Crawford and I said I was looking for a book to read…”

    I heard that line last night on one of the news shows and my first thought was that is sounded like a classic setup for a joke. You know, like “Giraffe walks into a bar…”

    The possibilities are really endless. I could see how that one line could inspire a whole new genre of jokes beginning with “So George W. Bush walks into a bookstore…”

    (ba-dump-bomp-tshchhhh)

  • Man, I was reading that and I briefly got the thought in my head that Williams was going to ask Bush what the point of the book was, or ANYTHING that might let us know if he really read it (and understood it) or not.

    Nope.

    *&%#$ media whores. “Wow, look at me, I’m interviewing the PRESIDENT. I better not ask any hard questions or I won’t get to do it again.”

  • A few moments later, Bush told Williams he has “an eclectic reading list.”

    Actually, the preseident said he has an “ecelectic” reading list. I wander what three “Shakespears” he read? How many “Shakespears” have you all read? I bet it’s nothing compared to the “Shakespears” that our President has read. That whole interview left me laughing, but not at the President. I was laughing at Brian Williams who apparently believed every word the President attempt to utter.

  • Too bad Tennessee Williams isn’t alive.

    He could write a play about Poppy, Dubya, The Lump, Big Momma, Uncle Rummy, Prof Dick, Condisleeza Vice, Aunt Harriet, Jeb the horny Bishop, and Prince Pierce… that would just sizzle.

    Has there ever in the history of this country been so many deranged beings occupying positions of power?

    What a fugging unending nightmare…

  • On all this discussion about Camus, we fail to mention one key point. The Stranger is short. Less than 150 pages. I don’t believe for a nanosecond that Pres. Dipshit read a fraction of the 60 books he claimed to read. But I do think he may have read this one. Whether he absorbed or understood much of it is another thing entirely.

    But being that he never progressed beyond a high school mentality, he probably thought that The Stranger would be “easy” because it is brief. Also by keeping the focus on this one, nobody is questioning him about the alleged other 59 books.

    I bet he had prepped an answer and was ready to spring it just in case Williams did put him on the spot and quiz him about Camus. But ONLY Camus. He’s such a turd. Just a walking, talking, failing, lying, incompetent turd.

  • My imaginary scenario:

    WILLIAMS: What did you think of Lear’s political judgment?

    BUSH: Now that’s a good question. . . (Aide comes in and whispers in Bush’s ear. Bush leaves.)

  • On all this discussion about Camus, we fail to mention one key point. The Stranger is short. Less than 150 pages. I don’t believe for a nanosecond that Pres. Dipshit read a fraction of the 60 books he claimed to read. But I do think he may have read this one. Whether he absorbed or understood much of it is another thing entirely.

    I don’t believe Bush knows Camus from Shamu. If you listen closely to the interview Williams asks Bush about the backstory of Camus, Bush sputters a little and changes the subject. There’s a better chance that Larry the Cable Guy is fucking Charlize Theron than Bush read ANYTHING more complex than the box scores in the sports section of whatever paper he picks up in the morning since he’s been in office.

  • Well, we got a new Bushism out of it – ekelectic. Now we can talk about our ekelectic nukular arsenal and all sort of things.

    This reading list sham is a wonderful example of catapulting the propaganda, too.

    A new kind of pig Latin for a parlor game – one must use only Bush words mispronounced or misused.

  • You have to give George Bush credit. He has set expectations low for his performance, and exceeding those low expectations at every turn.

  • Why can’t he just be honest? Hell, I read The Lord of The Rings for the first time in Second Grade- and progressed in line with that. However, I still have MAD Magazine and Dilbert as my favored bathroom material…

  • “I was in Crawford and I said I was looking for a book to read and Laura said you oughtta try Camus…”

    Sorry.
    I can’t let this go.
    As it is so clearly a rich and ripe fabrication by a certifiable pyschopath…

    So you ask someone for a book to read…

    And lets suppose that someone just happens to be a dimwit with thick ankles who has the personality of a dormouse on quaaludes….

    What are the chances that person is going to recommend Camus off the top of their dizzy little head?

    [Insert Danny Thomas-like spit-take here…]

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Now imagine Jon Stewart hunched over, hands shaped into claws, eyes squinting… doing his best Bush imitation:

    “I was in Crawford and I said I was looking for a book to read and Laura said you oughtta try Camus… So I got it and took into the shitter… made it my toilet book…”

    [Insert Whoopee cushions sounds here…]

  • Did they say which version?… It might have been the “My Pet Existentialist” picture book.

  • Mike,

    You know, if you’re going to snark on a guy whom you don’t know because he is said to read books that your prejudices make you unwilling to admit he might be intelligent enough to read…

    …then the least you could do would be to spell “Shakespeare” correctly in at least one of your three tries.

    Though to be fair ol’ Bill wasn’t all that good at spelling his own name.

    I don’t think you guys have any idea how unflatteringly self-revealing all these comments are.

  • Ken – Bush has admitted he doesn’t read a lot. All of a sudden he is reading 60 books a year. Either he is lying now or was lying then. Is that succinct enough for you?

    Though to be fair ol’ Bill wasn’t all that good at spelling his own name.

    I don’t think you have any idea how unflatteringly self-revealing all these comments are.

  • Bush is clearly not a reader. If he were, his vocabulary would be larger than it is *and* he would have said “eclectic” instead of “ekkalectic”. He does not speak like a person who reads — and expands their vocabulary through doing so — would speak.

    In addition, I have big reservations that anyone with an interest in literary works would say “I read three Shakespeares”. Nor would they say something so ridiculous sounding with an air of pride as they said it, like Bush did. Boy was he proud of that one.

    I recall an interview with George W. Bush in 1999 where he was asked “what is your least favorite thing to do” and he answered, and I’m paraphrasing here, “sitting and reading some 500 page book.” But now he reads 60 books a year, including works by Camus and William Shakespeare but he still has the vocabulary of a 9th grade remedial english student? I don’t think so.

    And notice in the interview he made a point to say that he was the “decision maker”. I think that was intentional given all the flack he’s taken for saying “I’m the decider.” Most of that interview seemed contrived and phony, and as usual Bush seemed very defensive.

  • Hating is much more harmful to the person doing the hating than the person who is hated. Be kind to yourselves and have an occasional positive thought. It will lighten your souls.

  • Amazing that the critics who make these derogatory comments seem to think they are so much more sophisticated and intelligent than the President who probably has more education than all of you. How about if you indicate how many undergrad and post-grad degrees you have to your names

  • fifo: AA, BA, MA and scholarships up the wazoo.

    Irv G: Hating is much more harmful to the person doing the hating than the person who is hated. Be kind to yourselves and have an occasional positive thought. It will lighten your souls.

    LOL, right now my positive thought has to do w/remembering the preznit’s ‘disassembling.’ i don’t hate him–he just disgusts me, more so by the constant barrage of bullshit lies and that look on his face as he does so, which i interpret as ‘did they believe that shit?’

    the part about reading three of Shakspear? pure comedy gold. đŸ™‚

  • You know, if you’re going to snark on a guy whom you don’t know because he is said to read books that your prejudices make you unwilling to admit he might be intelligent enough to read…

    …then the least you could do would be to spell “Shakespeare” correctly in at least one of your three tries.

    It might also be better to pick up on textual clues like the fact that “Shakespears” were in quotation marks, mimicing Dubya’s prediliction for turning Shakespeare into a brand name, as if he were discussing trading cards.

    Although while I find the Shakespeare claim incredible, I have no problem believing he read Camus. I think he felt a kinship with a man who kills an Arab for no reason.

  • Okay, everybody missed it. Number one, the man is severely dyslexic and borderline retarded. HE CAN’T READ. He has a daily briefing of no more than one page read to him every morning. No papers, no magazines, nothing. Second, the bozo was only hired to PLAY the president, God knows who is really in charge. He could have EASILY handled any trIck questions by listening to his handlers through the bone conductive ear prompter that’s attached to his scalp right behind his right ear. Why do you think the malaprops suddenly ended after the first administration? The ear piece! What, you thought our nukular preznit became suddenly smarter?

  • old topic, but I woke up today and wondered about this. Is this a secret message from Laura, from some staffer??? I didn’t get all of the context when I read it either. Here is from a book just came out:

    In this original reading of Albert Camus’ novels, short stories, and political essays, David Carroll concentrates on Camus’ conflicted relationship with his Algerian background and finds important critical insights into questions of justice, the effects of colonial oppression, and the deadly cycle of terrorism and counterterrorism that characterized the Algerian War and continues to surface in the devastation of postcolonial wars today.
    During France’s “dirty war” in Algeria, Camus called for an end to the violence perpetrated against civilians by both France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) and supported the creation of a postcolonial, multicultural, and democratic Algeria. His position was rejected by most of his contemporaries on the Left and has, ironically, earned him the title of colonialist sympathizer as well as the scorn of important postcolonial critics

    http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/catalog/data/978023114/9780231140867.HTM

  • This is old news of course.
    I would have loved for my 5th grade teacher to have given this interview. I didn’t read The Red Badge of Courage like I should have. I got the cliff notes from my sister who was in high school. She asked me two questions, then said you have a week to read it or you get an F.

    Couldn’t Brian Willaims have asked one question to call him out?

    As an aside. I’m not a mulit-degree guy but I read 40 books a year. Louis La’mour again, Clancy, King, popular stuff from the library. I’ve even read Ayn Rand because of listening to Rush and their music being influence by her.
    It was tough. Not fun but thought provoking. I’ve read just enough “Shakespeare” (who cares about spelling), to get by with a passing grade. I can’t imagine EVER reading that on vacation, especially if I’m the boss and things are going on at work.

    He had to have been lying. I wish that as our president that he was telling the truth but if a friend/coworker of yours who was like the President said on his vacation that after clearing brush, chainsawing down trees, riding mountain bikes, and going to bed at 9pm everynight that he read Camus and 3 Shakespeares while he was off??!!!?? You’d have to call the guy out.
    I’m sorry President Bush I’d like to believe you I just don’t.

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