The White House says that Bush read Camus' The Stranger on his summer vacation, and Tony Snow says he even discussed it with some of his aides. Slate has a hard time believing it. So does the Carpetbagger Report. I'm not sure I buy it either. I think I'd have an easier time believing that Miss Manners was spotted backstage at a Wu Tang Clan show.
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This
is a follow-up to my
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from yesterday:
I'm not sure what "GOP fingerprints..." are, but I gather it was
important
to avoid them.
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I suspect the key points in the story you linked to are these: (a) that The Stranger is a "slim volume" and (b) that Bush, according to Tony Snow, found it a "quick read."
Of course, I suppose it's possible the French title for Pat the Bunny is The Stranger and that Bush confused that with Camus's work....
I smell BS... What's next... Bush giving weekly Heidegger Seminars? I personally don't think he can read his way out of a paper bag.
Hell, I'd be impressed if he could pronounce Camus.
Once in hospital, C.S. Lewis was told by his nurse that she had read The Screwtape Letters because, as she put it, "it goes down well in interview if you say you've read something and that book was the shortest one on the list"
Oh, come on. As America's finest news source informed us back in 2001, Bush is fully capable even of regaling dinner guests with impromptu oratory on Virgil's minor works.
If my memory serves, L'étranger is about a man that kills an Arab, with no motive at all ..
The murder victim was not Iraqi nor Iranian, in the book.
Wikipedia on The Stranger: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_%28novel%2
And yes, the book is quite short.
Maybe he saw Sacha Baron Cohen reading it in Talladega Nights and figgered it might be a good little read. And I wonder if it reinforced a belief that atheist are inherently remorseless, emotionless sociopaths?
Wait, seriously, his character reads that book in Talladega Nights? That makes this all even funnier.
I so desperately want to turn on MAD TV and see Frank Caliendo as Bush reading L'Etranger out loud. Hell, just picturing it is making me laugh.
"Mo-ther dahid to-day... or may-be it wahs yesterdahy."
I don't buy for a second that he read that book and understood it. He should have to write a book report. And if he picked it for it's length, then why not go with The Fall? That one's even shorter, although on second thought it doesn't have any chapter breaks so maybe that was the problem.
Yeah, he reads it while he's driving. Ed, you need to get to the movie theater. Have you gotten around to Clerks 2 yet? You mentioned Debbie Schlussel's reaction but you never posted a review or anything.
Regarding Talladega Nights, if you loved Anchorman, you'll like TN.
I've still not seen Clerks 2, unfortunately. It's not playing anywhere near me. As for Talladega Nights, I can only take Will Ferrell in small doses. I thought he was great on SNL, where he was only on screen for 3 or 4 minutes at a time. Over an hour and a half, I start to break out in hives.
The Daily Show had a great piece on this story last night. YouTube has the clip here. According to TDS he's just getting around to his 9th grade syllabus.
This is so unlikely that it might be true.