With only five days left, my lead is insurmountable. The competition can't catch up. And for the third year in a row, I'll triumph. In second place will be the president of the United States. Our contest is not about sports or politics. It's about books.
It all started on New Year's Eve in 2005. President Bush asked what my New Year's resolutions were. I told him that as a regular reader who'd gotten out of the habit, my goal was to read a book a ...
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I found this short opinion by Karl Rove interesting, because it presents a different perspective on the literary interests of president George W Bush. Though the author clearly has many conflicts of interest which impact the credibility of this article, it nonetheless sheds new light on the subject. It also includes some useful factual evidence, such as the number of books read each year by the president. But overall, this is a largely favorable portrait of a close friend and colleague, and therefore needs to be viewed in that light, rather than as an objective report.
I am skeptical about the author's claims that Bush is an intellectually curious book lover -- as many of the president's public statements have shown a consistent lack of literacy, which contradict Rove's findings. No matter how many books Bush may have read over the years, it appears that little of this knowledge has stuck, judging from the President's actions. While he may have read "Team of Rivals," Bush is widely perceived as a divider, rather than a uniter -- and many believe, as I do, that his actions as president did more to polarize the country rather than bring it back together. That said, I hope that he will read a lot more in coming years, as reading is such a great way for all of us to become better listeners and more informed citizens.