The book larnin' president

By Libby Spencer

I couldn't bring myself to read Rove's column announcing Bush is really a closet braniac because he's such a prodigious reader but I choked down Richard Cohen's column to find out what he read. Hundreds of books they claim. It's probably true. It's not like he spent a lot of time socializing.

All I can say is I don't find the mere fact that he had an ongoing contest with Karl over who could read the most books all that compelling a case for Bush's intellect. I might best sum up my reaction by saying, you can lead a man to a book, but you can't make him absorb the content, or take any lessons from it.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)